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Licensing Hotline: December 2010
Penguin's Grosset & Dunlap imprint will launch its first children's books under license from World Wrestling Entertainment in the spring. Also in the news: Egmont U.K.'s licensed Waybuloo books, a new educational license for Zenescope’s Silver Dragon imprint, and a round-up of apps based on book-connected licensed properties.
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Rossi's YA Dystopian Romance Lands at Warner Brothers
Veronica Rossi's debut, a dystopian YA romance trilogy called Under the Never Sky, sold to HarperCollins in September in a major deal and has since been quietly selling internationally. Now, after being sold in 20 markets (and landing six six-figure advances in those foreign sales), the book is headed to Hollywood. Warner Brothers has optioned the series, for feature adaptation, beating out both Summit Entertainment (which produced the Twilight saga) and Fox. Creative executive Chris Gary acquired the dramatic rights.
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Skyhorse Buys Allworth Press
Skyhorse Publishing, which earlier this year bought the assets of Arcade Publishing, has added Allworth Press, acquiring the New York City indie for an undisclosed price. Founded in 1989 by Tad Crawford, Allworth has a backlist of over 300 titles focusing on business and self-help books for artists, photographers, graphic designers, and interior designers as well as for filmmakers, performing artists, and authors.
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McGraw-Hill Education Buys Starting Out
McGraw-Hill Education has acquired Starting Out, Inc., a publisher of life-skills learning, and workplace readiness information for the education, workforce, and corrections markets. The company publishes state-specific information in more than 80 life skills categories.
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Bloomsbury Acquires Duckworth Academic List
Bloomsbury Publishing has acquired the Duckworth academic list, and beginning March 1 will take over distribution of the Duckworth trade line to worldwide markets. The announcement was made this morning by Peter Mayer, managing director of Duckworth, and Nigel Newton, CEO of Bloomsbury. The Duckworth academic list will become part of Bloomsbury's Bristol Classical Press.
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Licensing Hotline: October 2010
In licensing news, Sterling launches its first-ever movie tie-in program, Chronicle adapts a Pixar short film into a picture book, and Michael's will be offering a line of Dr. Seuss arts and crafts, in an exclusive arrangement.
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Ingram in Warehousing, Fulfillment Deal with Springer
Under an agreement signed last week, starting in the first quarter of 2011, Ingram Content Group will take over warehousing management, fulfillment and print-on-demand in the U.S. for European-based Springer. Through the agreement, Ingram will hold Springer's entire U.S. inventory and as it sells down, Ingram will transition titles to print-on-demand on titles where it makes the most economic sense.
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FastPencil, NBN in Deal
FastPencil has teamed up with National Book Network in a deal that will see NBN distribute titles in FastPencil's Premiere imprint to its accounts, while NBN publishing clients will have access to FastPencil's publishing tools. FastPencil announced the launch of Premiere this summer. Premiere is aimed at established and "top tier" new authors and offers authors royalties that it says are three times that of average rates.
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Macomber Moves to Random
Bestselling women's fiction writer Debbie Macomber, who has been with Harlequin for most of her career, is moving to the Random House Publishing Group in 2012. The house's Ballantine imprint has acquired the rights to publish six Macomber novels in hardcover, paperback, audio, and e-book, from Macomber's agent, Theresa Park of the Park Literary Group.
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HarperCollins Snags All English-language Rights to Christie
HarperCollins has reached an agreement with Agatha Christie Ltd., the company that controls publishing rights to the legendary author's works, to become her exclusive worldwide English language publisher. Although HC publishes all Christie titles in the U.K., her books have been published by several different publishers in the U.S. and Canada. The deal is for all formats, including digital.
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Licensing Hotline: August 2010
HarperCollins has secured publishing rights to the Twentieth Century Fox feature film Rio, a 3D-animated flick about a rare bird named Blu who flies from Minnesota to Rio de Janeiro — which is scheduled for a February 2011 release. Emily Brenner, v-p and editorial director of HarperFestival, says Harper is more selective about movie properties than it was several years ago, but this one stood out.
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Putnam Signs Betty White to Two-Book Deal
Betty White, who's been riding a hot streak in Hollywood, is now ready to take the New York literati by storm. Putnam has signed the 88-year-old actress to a two-book deal with the first title, Listen Up!, to feature life lessons from the show biz veteran. White, whose career unexpectedly picked up in the last few years with popular TV ads that led to more notable gigs--she recently hosted Saturday Night Live to rave reviews, and her ensemble sitcom, Hot in Cleveland, was just picked up for a second season by TV Land--will discuss in Listen Up! topics like love, sex and aging. Putnam is planning a spring 2011 publication.
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S&S Signs Cassandra Clare to Two More Books
Simon & Schuster has signed books five and six in Cassandra Clare's bestselling YA series, The Mortal Instruments. S&S says there are more than 3 million copies of the series' three published titles in print. Clare launched The Mortal Instruments in 2007, with City of Bones, about a teenage demon slayer; City of Ashes and City of Glass followed. Book four, City of Fallen Angels, is scheduled for April 2011.
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Baker & Taylor in Book Deal with Michaels
Baker & Taylor has signed an agreement with Michaels to handle the book program for the arts and crafts chain. The agreement is part of B&T's strategy to provide book services to retailers whose primary business is not books.
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Turner Publishing Buys Fieldstone Alliance Titles
Turner Publishing has acquired the publishing assets of Fieldstone Alliance, a Minnesota consulting and publishing firm aimed at the nonprofit market. The acquisition includes existing inventory, publishing agreements and related intellectual property for more than 50 business management titles geared towards helping nonprofit, community, funders, government and business leaders improve their communities. Its books have sold more than 250,000 copies.
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NEPA and Publish or Perish Merge
The literary agencies New England Publishing Associates and Publish or Perish have merged. NEPA founder Elizabeth Frost-Knappman, and her partner Edward Knappman, will work with Publish or Perish founder Roger S. Williams, who will be managing director of the new agency, which will now be based out of the Publish or Perish office near Princeton, NJ. Williams said he expects a smooth transition process, and has begun moving NEPA clients to the newly combined agency.
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Skyhorse Takes Arcade for $548,000
Skyhorse Publishing has emerged as the winner in lively auction for the assets of Arcade Publishing. Skyhorse had established itself as the stalking horse in the auction process earlier this summer with a bid of $318,000 and acquired the assets with a bid of $548,000. The purchase includes approximately 500 titles and gives the four-year-old Skyhorse a much deeper backlist.
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Can Any Author Be Worth $50 Million Today?
While hardcover sales are holding up so far this year, the uncertain future the format faces in light of the explosive growth of e-books has thrown a new element into the agent-publisher dance, especially on high long-term advance deals. That issue came to the fore when Deadline.com reported that Janet Evanovich's agent/son, Peter, was asking her longtime house, St. Martin's Press, for $50 million for a new four-book deal.
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IPG Partners with Edwards Brothers
Independent Publishers Group, under its digital division IPG Digital, has announced that it is partnering exclusively with Edwards Brothers for its print-on-demand services. According to IPG, the deal with Edwards will offer greater flexibility of printing very short runs while increasing availability of mid-list titles and backlist titles to its client publishers.
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