Jodi Picoult

NEW YORK (AP) - Three years ago, guest speaker Mindy Kaling joked that publishing's annual national convention, BookExpo America, resembled "a high school reunion where all the jocks were killed in a plane crash, and all the minorities, too."

Little seems to have changed.

From Wednesday to Saturday, tens of thousands of publishers, authors, agents and librarians will meet at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York for a convention predominantly organized by whites, spotlighting books predominantly written, edited and published by whites.

Barnes & Noble and Simon & Schuster have finally reached an agreement after months of squabbling over book pricing and other matters, reports to Publishers Weekly, noting that "the issue was causing a noticeable cutback in the number of [Simon & Schuster] titles the bookseller had on its shelves." Publishers Weekly first reported in January that Barnes & Noble has reduced its order of Simon & Schuster titles over "perceived lack of support" from the publishing company. In March, a senior executive familiar with the negotiations


On January 30th, subscribers to Publishers Weekly’s email newsletter received a special “News Alert” with a red rectangle across the top. “Simon & Schuster, Barnes & Noble in Dispute Over Terms” the headline declared. But the message itself was cryptic, offering no details about the terms involved or a clear explanation as to why there was a dispute to begin with. PW managed to get one quote from a B&N spokesperson:

Literary agents and editors have a long tradition of meeting over lunch to talk about work.  I always found it to be a lovely perk of the industry to conduct business while dining at one or another of New York¹s fine dining establishments (on the company tab, of course). In this “Lit Lunch” segment of Pub Buzz, I'll take the occasional peek at who's lunching with whom and what they're chatting about.

The top-ten list of bestselling Kindle Singles includes a number of big-name writers. But how is the format working for writers who don’t have the brand of a Stephen King or Jodi Picoult? In addition to sharing overall sales information about the...

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