U.S. Justice Department to investigate Google settlement
The Google book search settlement (for background, see here and here) faces yet another hurdle. The New York Times is reporting today that the U.S. Justice Department has confirmed its intention to investigate whether or not the settlement violates American antitrust laws. According to the Times:
“The United States has reviewed public comments expressing concern that aspects of the settlement agreement may violate the Sherman Act,” wrote William F. Cavanaugh, a deputy assistant attorney general. “At this preliminary stage, the United States has reached no conclusions as to the merit of those concerns or more broadly what impact this settlement may have on competition. However, we have determined that the issues raised by the proposed settlement warrant further inquiry.”
Antitrust experts said the letter was the latest indication that the Justice Department is seriously examining complaints that the agreement would grant Google an unfair monopoly over millions of so-called “orphan works,” books whose authors or rights holders are unknown or cannot be found.
The U.S. government has been given a deadline of Sept. 18 to present its views, which will be considered at a fairness hearing scheduled for Oct. 7.
Sarah Palin memoir: Now with 25% more God!
Well, she sure does know her target audience. In a profile in the August 2009 of Vanity Fair, Alaska governor Sarah Palin revealed that her forthcoming memoir will be published both by HarperCollins (as previously announced), and also by HarperCollins’ Christian publishing imprint Zondervan in a separate, special edition. From the Vanity Fair profile:
Soon Palin will take a crack at her own story: she has signed a book contract for an undisclosed but presumably substantial sum, and has chosen Lynn Vincent, a senior writer at the Christian-conservative World magazine, as co-author of the memoir, which is to be published next year not only by HarperCollins but also in a special edition by Zondervan, the Bible-publishing house, that may include supplemental material on faith.
(Thanks to Publishers Weekly for the tip.)
Vikram Seth sequel to be published by Hamish Hamilton
Hamish Hamilton Canada is set to publish the long-awaited follow-up to Vikram Seth’s Commonwealth Writers Prize-winning tome A Suitable Boy. A Suitable Girl won’t appear until 2013, a full 20 years after the publication of its predecessor.
According to The Bookseller, the novel is set in the present day and picks up the story of Lata, the protagonist of A Suitable Boy, who is now a grandmother and whose grandson is in search of “a good match.” (Seth’s last novel, An Equal Music, was published a decade ago by McArthur & Company.) From The Bookseller:
Penguin imprint Hamish Hamilton bought world English language rights (excluding the U.S.) from Vikram’s agent, David Godwin. It is the first worldwide acquisition by Hamish Hamilton UK, together with its newly formed imprints in Melbourne, Toronto and Delhi.
The book will be published simultaneously in the UK, India and Canada in autumn 2013, marking the 20th anniversary of Boy. Penguin also plans to add A Suitable Boy to its Modern Classics list, and republish it in paperback, taking over the rights from Orion. In the intervening years, Penguin will also publish volumes of Seth’s poems and essays.
Stan Bevington, David Helwig, and Jack Hodgins named to the Order of Canada
As part of yesterday’s Canada Day festivities, Governor General Michaëlle Jean has announced 60 new appointments to the Order of Canada. Among this year’s new members are BC-based novelist and short story writer Jack Hodgins and poet and novelist David Helwig. Also honoured was Coach House Books founder and “head coach” Stan Bevington and Giller Prize founder Jack Rabinovitch, who was named an officer of the Order. The Quebec writers Wajdi Mouawad, Claude LeBouthillier, and Jean O’Neil were also recognized by the Governor General.
Iran election inspires Persepolis “sequel”
Two Iranian exiles, known only as Sina and Payman, have remixed Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis to depict the recent weeks of political unrest in Iran following the June 12 election. Called “Persepolis 2.0,” the updated cartoon was created by rearranging panels within Satrapi’s original work and adding new text, with the intention of showing how history is repeating itself in Iran. Co-creator Sina explains to The Guardian why he chose to update Persepolis:
Satrapi’s novels are about her life, but to my generation of Iranians (at least in the west) they have become more than that: they have become iconic. The fact that images from 30 years ago can tell a story about what is happening now makes them all the more powerful.
Although not directly involved in the update, Satrapi gave permission for Sina and Payman to expand on her work. “Persepolis 2.0″ can be read online and in a PDF at the Spread Persepolis web site.
Riding the “Magic Bus” with the Anansi Girls
Last night, House of Anansi Press united readers and writers in discussions about books, writing, the Alice Hoffman Twitter freak out, and how incredibly long it takes to drive from downtown Toronto to Don Mills in rush-hour traffic. Anansi held an online contest to select eight readers to accompany the Anansi Girls (Emily Schultz, Lisa Moore, Karen Solie, and Shani Mootoo) on a “magic bus” (actually a white mini-coach bus) on a trip from the Anansi offices at 110 Spadina to the authors’ public reading at McNally Robinson Booksellers in Don Mills.
According to Julie Wilson, online content manager at Anansi, the press wanted to create an event around these four female authors to showcase their work, as well as to show support for indie bookseller McNally Robinson. In Wilson’s words: “Don Mills is not exactly local [...] so we thought the easiest thing to do is to just put people on a bus!”
After a long drive through the side streets of Toronto (as well as along the Bridle Path, where the authors muttered comments such as, “If your book sells really, really well, you too can live here!”), the readers and writers arrived in rainy Don Mills for the readings.
Discredited Montreal publisher back in business with new Jackson bio
Montreal publisher Pierre Turgeon – who pleaded guilty last March to charges of fraud – appears to have rebounded from the bankruptcy of his old publishing firm, Trait d’union. Not only is he back with a new publishing venture, called Transit Publishing, he may well have hit the jackpot with one of his initial releases: a new biography of Michael Jackson, which will include about 50 pages of material pertaining to the pop star’s death.
According to Turgeon, the book, originally titled Michael Jackson: Return from Exile, was submitted to the printer last Wednesday, the day before Jackson died. On the following evening, Turgeon stopped the presses so that author Ian Halperin could have a few days to whip up additional material about the last weeks of Jackson’s life and the circumstances surrounding his death. The revised version, which goes to press today and is likely to arrive in stores late next week, is titled Unmasked: The Final Years of Michael Jackson.
Turgeon says that Halperin – an investigative journalist who has published unauthorized bios of Kurt Cobain, Céline Dion, and several other celebrities – spent five years researching and writing the book and had intimate access to Jackson and his entourage. A lengthy excerpt of the new material has been published online by the U.K.’s Daily Mail and will reportedly be excerpted in a future issue of US magazine.
Turgeon’s former creditors, who were left in the lurch for at least $1.7-million when Trait d’union went bankrupt in 2005, must have been shocked to see his name in the headlines so soon after the unseemly demise of his last publishing venture. In March, when Turgeon pleaded guilty to fraud charges in a Quebec court, he was ordered to pay a $5,000 fine and to do several hours of community service. (Incredibly, the judge in the case decreed that Turgeon should spend time teaching the value of reading to schoolchildren.) Turgeon’s former partner in Trait d’union, Julien Beliveau – who successfully sued Turgeon for more than $600,000 but has yet to see a penny – said he is appalled that Turgeon is allowed to be back in business. “It is just beyond belief,” he told Q&Q. Beliveau added that because Transit Publishing is an entirely separate company, he is unable to bring a new lawsuit against it. “[Turgeon] can do whatever he wants. He is off the hook.”
Remarkably, this isn’t the first time that Transit has been in the news since it was founded in February. Another of its titles, a controversial biography of the founder of Cirque du Soleil, entitled Guy Laliberté: The Fabulous Story of the Creator of Cirque du Soleil (also written by Halperin), recently landed Turgeon in legal trouble over the unauthorized use of a photo of a trapeze artist on the front cover, and had to be reissued with a new cover. An excerpt from the book generated significant controversy when it was printed in Maclean’s earlier this month.
Transit currently employs four full-time staffers, including Turgeon and his son, François.
Indigo deals with the digital revolution
Information wants to be free, or so the popular bromide has it. Heather Reisman, CEO and “chief booklover” of Indigo Books & Music, has another formula: “All content wants to be digital.” According to an article in Saturday’s Globe and Mail, the head of Canada’s largest book retailer thinks that the recent launch of the company’s digital bookselling platform Shortcovers will be insufficient to forestall what she projects (somewhat startlingly) as a 15% drop in book sales over the next five years due to the advent of a digital marketplace.
If traditional bricks-and-mortar bookstores are in peril due to the groundswell in digital publishing, currently the fastest-expanding segment of the market, Reisman’s response may seem counterintuitive. According to the Globe article, she plans to confront the digital revolution by enticing more parents, children, and teens into her stores. Granted, she plans to do this by stocking more non-book-related items:
She started by wooing children and their parents with toys about four years ago, after her research showed that 40 per cent of Indigo customers were adults with kids. Parents wanted educational and stimulating toys, not video games or battery-powered cars. (The chain promptly dropped in-store DVD monitors playing Dora the Explorer, after parents gave them a thumbs-down in a test run.) Ms. Reisman worried initially that the toys might cannibalize Indigo’s book sales, but in fact the stores with toys enjoy stronger book sales than those without, says chief merchant Joel Silver. Customers tend to stay longer in outlets with toys, and wander over to the books.
As for the teen market, Silver (who is not, as Quillblog first assumed, the guy who produced Die Hard) claims that teen sales have jumped 200% in the past five years, largely on the back of the Twilight series of teen-oriented vampire novels.
If Reisman is correct about content wanting to be digital (Quillblog will refrain from pointing out that content, like information, can’t want anything at all), then a move to entice more people into the chain’s stores may appear like one step forward and two steps back. On the other hand, Indigo wields such a stranglehold on the traditional book market in Canada that it’s probably not going to lose by beefing up its stores to attract a larger – and younger – clientele. In the event, the idea is so nutty it just might work.
Borders U.K. targets bookish singles
Quillblogger, with dark hair, eyes, age indeterminate, possessed of a vaguely Byronesque temperament, likes Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Flannery O’Connor, and long walks on the beach. Dislikes Dan Brown novels and anything Twilight-related. Enquiries welcome. Photo preferred.
Don’t laugh: Borders U.K. is hoping that lovelorn literary singles will gravitate to its site to connect with other like-minded readers for some off-the-page encounters. The Bookseller is reporting that Borders’ new online dating service, optimistically dubbed “Happily Ever After,” will successfully match “people who share similar interests and hobbies.” And, not incidentally, sell a ton of product:
Visitors to the Borders website can sign up to the new service over the next few weeks for £1 per month. After that period the subscription will be £9.99 per month. The site also showcases a wide range of books for all the latest advice on dating.
Profiting off of others’ unhappiness is obviously nothing new – it’s the raison d’être of the self-help publishing industry – but this seems a bit over-the-top nonetheless. Not that this is the first time anyone has tried to marry dating services and bookselling: Penguin U.K. did something similar last year, in conjunction with the dating web site Match.com.
Event photos: Janet Evanovich launch
American author Janet Evanovich launched her new book, Finger Lickin’ Fifteen (St. Martins Press/H.B. Fenn & Company), at the Queensway Chapters in Toronto last Wednesday (June 24). Here are some outtakes from the evening:
Evanovich at the signing table.
Fans line up for an autograph.
Fenn marketing associate Krystle Forget (left), a chicken, and Fenn publicist Katherine Wilson (right).
