Editor Arthur A. Levine has left Scholastic after 23 years to launch his own independent publishing company, effective March 30, 2019. Levine’s eponymous imprint was founded in 1996, and he is a major figure in children’s publishing, best known for bringing J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series to the US.

Levine told Publishers Weekly, “I’ve had a wonderful run at Scholastic and will greatly miss working here. There are such ...Read More

F+W Media filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March 2019, and plans to sell its assets in order to pay its creditors (at least partially). F+W published some works of SF interest, including collectibles guides from the Krause Publications imprint, art books from the Impact imprint, and writing guides from Writer’s Digest Books. The filing blames the bankruptcy largely on a failed attempt to shift to an e-commerce model in ...Read More

Amazon Publishing has announced a new imprint, Amazon Crossing Kids, publishing picture books in translation, starting in July.

Amazon has cancelled plans to open a new branch office for their headquarters in the Long Island City neighborhood in Queens NY. The local community opposed the plans, voicing concerns about transit and real estate problems, and objecting to the new $3 billion in incentives that New York City and state offered ...Read More

Random House publisher Susan Kamil announced the closure of imprint Spiegel & Grau:

I am very sorry to announce that with the reorganization of our Group, Cindy Speigel and Julie Grau will be leaving the company, and the Spiegel & Grau imprint, which they have led for the past thirteen years, will be discontinued.

The imprint was launched at Doubleday in 2007 and joined Random House in 2008, and published ...Read More

Eugene Teplitsky, co-owner of Curiosity Quills Press, says the company has fallen behind on paying royalties, and will temporarily cease print publishing, except for middle-grade novels. He blames “month after month” of dwindling sales, and is offering “no strings attached” termination of contracts for any of their authors who want to leave the company: authors should “simply email <editor@curiosityquills.com> and we will revert rights to all who ask for it, ...Read More

Clarkesworld editor Neil Clarke has started Clarkesworld Books, a new imprint of Wyrm Publishing dedicated to publishing translated fiction. The imprint plans to launch with A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight and Other Stories, a collection of short fiction by Xia Jia.

Clarke also announced that Clarkesworld has received a grant from the Literature Translation Institute of Korea (LTI Korea) to translate and publish Korean science fiction stories, the first ...Read More

The Authors Guild has released their 2018 Author Income Survey. 5,067 authors participated, and the Guild says the results point to a “crisis of epic proportions for American authors, particularly literary writers.” The median income from writing was $6,080, a decline of 3% from their 2013 survey, and 42% from 2009, a drop the Guild ascribes to declining royalties, “blockbuster mentality” at publishing companies, and the sales practices of Amazon.com. ...Read More

Hachette Book Group is reor­ganizing. The Hachette Books non-fiction line will be folded into Perseus Books with the departure of founder Mauro DiPreta. Da Capo Press, a Per­seus imprint, is in turn becoming part of Hachette Books, with Da Capo publisher John Radziewicz retiring. Susan Weinberg will be acting publisher until a new publisher is chosen. “Several positions” are being eliminated as part of the consolidation.

Dark Horse Comics CEO ...Read More

Susan Moldow is retiring from her position as presi­dent of Scribner Publish­ing Group and president of the Touchstone imprint at Simon & Schuster at the end of the year. Moldow has worked in publishing since 1966, and has held senior positions at Dell, Penguin, Doubleday, and HarperCollins, as well as Simon & Schuster, and her authors included Anthony Doerr, Charles Johnson, Stephen King, and Colm Tóibín, among many others.

In ...Read More

Crown Publishing Group has joined Random House Publishing group to form a new division, effective immediately, run by Random House president and publisher Gina Centrello. Crown president and publisher Maya Mavjee will leave Penguin Random House at the end of 2018. The imprints will maintain their current editorial identities. Penguin Random House US CEO Madeline McIntosh explained in a letter to the staff that “book discovery and buying patterns continue ...Read More

Amazon has announced plans to raise their minimum wage for US workers to $15 an hour after public condemnation for their poor pay practices, including criticisms from Vermont senator Bernie Sanders. CEO Jeff Bezos – the richest man in the world with an estimated net worth of over $155 billion, who declared earlier this year that “the only way that I can see to deploy this much financial resource is ...Read More

Bowker has updated their self-publishing statistics with numbers from 2017 – the first year with more than one million self-published books carrying ISBNs. Bowker counted 1,009,188 ISBNs issued to self-published authors, a 28% increase over 2016. (That’s doubtless far lower than the actual number of self-published books, as many ebook authors don’t bother with ISBNs at all since Amazon, the dominant ebook retailer, doesn’t require them.)

The increase comes from ...Read More

With the threat of a “hard” Brexit looming, European Union-based POD publishers are wondering where to go to print their books. Many so far have been using the services of Lightning Source UK, a division of the Ingram Content Group. But in the event of Britain failing to remain in the European customs union, the importation of books printed in England into the EU may suddenly become subject to customs ...Read More

Penguin Random House US is offering early retirement buyouts to “long-tenured” employees who’ve been with the company for more than 20 years, and who will be 60 years of age or older by the end of 2018. The deadline to take early retirement is October 8, 2018, and those who take the buyout will leave by December 31. Company spokesperson Claire von Schilling told Publisher’s Lunch that the “voluntary separation ...Read More

Abrams has purchased The Overlook Press, with some em­ployees (notably publisher Tracy Carns) set to remain after the transition. The move began in August 2018, with Abrams taking immediate control of all editorial, marketing, and business elements, and planning to take over sales and distribution once existing service contracts run out – Overlook is currently distributed by Nor­ton, while Abrams is distributed by Hachette Book Group.

The Overlook Press was ...Read More

Starting in July, Tor Books has begun delaying release of ebook ver­sions of some titles to the library market for four months after the on-sale date as “part of a test program to determine the impact of eLending on retail sales.” They plan to “work closely with our library vendors who service this channel to evaluate the results and develop ongoing terms that will best support Tor’s authors, their agents, ...Read More

Author Chuck Palahniuk and other clients of literary agency Donadio & Olson have collectively lost millions, victims of a long-running embezzlement scheme allegedly run by agency accountant Darin Webb. Webb reportedly confessed to embezzling at least $3.4 million in author advances and royalties from the agency since January 2011. Webb apparently gave a videotaped interview in March 2018 admitting to the theft, saying his reports “contained false and fraudulent representations ...Read More

Macmillan is celebrating 175 years of operations with events throughout the year, with a “kickoff toast” event at Book Expo, May 30 – June 1, 2018 at the Javits Center in NY. They will publish a history of the company, The Macmillan Story, with distribution to their employees and authors. CEO John Sargent says, “We try to keep that family feel with Macmil­lan. We believe that staying true to ...Read More

Founder Kathryn Falk and her husband and co-owner Kevin Rubin announced that romance publishing industry magazine RT Book Reviews is shutting down, effective immediately. The long-running RT Booklovers Convention is also ending, with the one held this May 15-20 in Reno NV being the last. This year’s RT Reviewer’s Choice Awards were the last that will be given. Falk wrote, “After 38 years, I am retiring and ending my participation ...Read More