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International Bestsellers: February 2012
The new #1 fiction title in January was from bestselling author Jussi Adler-Olsen, who landed in the top spot with The Alphabet House. Adler-Olsen’s most recent U.S. title, The Keeper of Lost Causes, was released last August by Dutton and received a PW starred review. Dutton will publish Adler-Olsen’s The Absent One this coming August.
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Selling Abroad: Strong Debuts Across Europe
International bestselling author Paulo Coelho debuted at #2 in Germany in January with his latest, Manuscript Found in Accra, a novel that takes place in the year 1099 as Jerusalem prepares for the invasion of the Crusaders.
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Fiction, Nonfiction Mix it Up: International Bestsellers January 2012
Germany’s top fiction title at the end of December, The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out His Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson climbed up from #5, supplanting previous chart-topper Inheritance (Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance was also #2 in Spain). Jonasson’s novel has sold more than one million copies in Sweden, and rights have been sold in 24 languages. Hyperion acquired world English rights and has an October pub date set in the U.S.
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Random House of Canada Takes Over McClelland & Stewart; Canadian Pubs Unhappy
Canada’s biggest multinational publishing house just got bigger. Random House of Canada has become the sole owner of McClelland & Stewart, one of Canada’s oldest publishing houses.
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Amazon's Japanese E-Book Store Hits Snag
Japanese newspapers are reporting that Amazon has hit a hurdle in its attempt to open a Japanese e-book storefront. According to reports, the retailer has pushed back its launch date for an e-book store in the country, after local publishers declined Amazon's terms.
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Jobs Bio a Global Hit: International Bestsellers December 2011
A few days after Amazon announced that the Steve Jobs biography was its top-selling book of 2011 (combined print and e-book sales), the book debuted on bestseller charts around the world, including the three countries highlighted this month. Steve Jobs was #3 in France and the Netherlands, and atop Spain’s nonfiction list, where it knocked Pedro J. Ramírez’s The First Wreck to #2. Also on the nonfiction list in France, Stéphane Hessel has two titles including Indignez-vous!, which was released in the U.S. by Twelve in September as Time for Outrage.
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International Bestsellers, November 2011: Literary Novels Hit in Germany, Italy
The top three fiction titles in Germany were all debuts in October, led by In Times of Fading Light, which recently won the 2011 German Book Prize and is set for publication in the U.S. by Graywolf Press in fall 2013. Umberto Eco’s newest book, The Prague Cemetery, which debuted at #3, is newly published in the U.S. from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
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AAP Speaks Out Against Arrest of Turkish Publisher
The AAP has publicly condemned the arrest of Turkish publisher Ragip Zarakolu, who was taken into custody by Turkish authorities on October 28, on charges related to the country's anti-terrorism laws.
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Three Canadian Authors File C$6 Million Copyright Lawsuit
Plagiarism allegations that have been swirling around Ling Zhang’s novel Gold Mountain Blues have now become a C$6 million lawsuit for copyright infringement.
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Murakami in France, a Debut In Germany: International Bestsellers October, 2011
With Knopf set to release Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 this week in the U.S., the latest novel from the award-winning Japanese author was an instant bestseller in Japan and debuted at #3 in France in September. Topping the French fiction chart last month was The Passenger, the most recent thriller from the Paris-born author Jean-Christophe Grangé. Grangé has been published in the U.S. by a couple of different houses with limited success.
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Publishing in Taiwan 2011 Supplement
Read the complete text of the supplement in this Scribd reader.
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International Bestsellers September 2011: Roche, Nothomb, Vargas on Top
New titles from popular authors landed in the top spots in Germany, Italy, and France in August. Charlotte Roche created a media fury in Germany (and garnered some American headlines as well) with her first book, Wetlands. The celebrity author's second, partly autobiographical novel that includes an examination of the marital sex life of the protagonist, is already a huge hit in Germany with over 500,000 copies in print of Spread..., Pray, Screw. Grove published Wetlands in the U.S. and has made an offer for the new title, but nothing has been signed.
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Canadian Publishing 2011: A Great First Year Mike Bryan: An Englishman At Penguin Canada
One year ago, Mike Bryan arrived in Toronto to take up his new position as president of Penguin Group Canada. It was far from an ideal circumstance to begin a new job. He was stepping into the company in the wake of star president David Davidar’s dismissal amid allegations of sexual harassment. But in spite of that turbulent starting point, Bryan says Penguin Canada had its best year ever in 2010 and hopes that success will continue this year.
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Canadian Publishing 2011: Challenges and Changes
This year Canadian publishers face a triple challenge—tough economic conditions, the first big surge of e-book sales, and a dramatic shift in strategy at Indigo Books & Music, Canada’s largest book retailer. But, as is often said, no one goes into publishing unless he or she is an optimist, so PW is devoting these pages to looking at these challenges for publishers north of the border, and the innovations and strategies they are employing to turn that optimism into results.
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Canadian Publishing 2011: The British Columbia Alternative
It is, in many ways, a world away from Canada’s book publishing center in Toronto. But even three time zones, several mountain ranges, and vast forests away, the West Coast is home to Canada’s second-largest concentration of English-language publishers.
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Canadian Publishing 2011: BookRiff Set for Launch
The long awaited launch of BookRiff, the system that promises to let people mix and match content from various sources to create their own book, is now slated for the end of September.
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Canadian Publishing 2011: Strategies for Success
Tips for Canadian Publishing's future.
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Canadian Publishing 2011: Distribution After the Fall of Fenn
February’s news that the distributor H.B. Fenn and Company had filed for bankruptcy sent shock waves throughout the industry, and while the fallout has dissipated some, the industry is still examining what lessons can be drawn from Fenn’s demise. Although Fenn had few Canadian clients, its problems called into question the viability of independent distributors and further deepened concerns about how publishers might get their books to market.
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Taiwan 2011: Books.com.tw: A Retail Powerhouse
With sales of 11.31 million copies of books in 2010, Books.com.tw is now Taiwan’s biggest book retailer. In fact, its 2009 sales of 10 million copies already exceeded that of Eslite, Taiwan’s largest chain bookstore, during the same period.
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Taiwan 2011: The Rights Stuff
True crime does not sell in Taiwan, says director Wendy King of Big Apple Agency (bigapple1.info). “That is one category that may never make a breakthrough here. We have, however, seen some interest in kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard’s A Stolen Life, which is more of an autobiography than true crime. YA is another difficult genre since Taiwan’s YA market is not well developed. Often, an American or British YA blockbuster that catches on in other countries will fall flat here. Alyson Noel’s The Immortals is a good example.” In contrast, the success of The Kite Runner and The Last Lecture attests to the popularity of heart-warming fiction and inspiring nonfiction in a market that has a predominantly female readership. “Movie adaptation does give a novel a new lease on life. The contract for Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants, for instance, was renewed this year.”
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