Today Penguin Random House announced a new partnership with Amtrak that will provide a selection of free ebook excerpts to passengers riding the Boston to Washington, D.C. Acela Express. The excerpts will be available to passengers through Amtrak's redesigned WiFi service, AmtrakConnect, and each excerpt will include buy buttons that allow readers to purchase the title from a number of retailers.
Lena Dunham
Ellen Harvey is a freelance writer and editor who covers the latest technologies and strategies reshaping the publishing landscape. She previously served as the Senior Editor at Publishing Executive and Book Business.
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.
There's big money in star memoirs.
But even as hot book deals are in the works from names like Lena Dunham and Bryan Cranston, the most sizzling celebrity tales have yet to be told by the legends who lived them.
From Angelina Jolie to Mick Jagger and A-Rod to Taylor Swift, some of the biggest stars are holding out, leaving publishers lusting for their juicy tell-alls.
A blitz of new book contracts and the success of recent autobios only add to their demand.
After 18 years, best-selling crime novelist Patricia Cornwell is leaving Penguin for HarperCollins, making her the first major writer to jump ship since Penguin and Random House merged last month. Cornwell, best known for her crime novels based on medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, signed on for an eight figure, two-book deal with the HarperCollins' William Morris imprint. Penguin's Putnam imprint will release Dust, the 21st Scarpetta book in November, and William Morris will print the following one in the fall of 2014.
Anyone who has been paying attention to Bret Easton Ellis’ Twitter account this summer knows the American Psycho author has had his sights set on writing an adaptation of the world’s most popular book, EL James’ 50 Shades of Grey.
Random House has acquired a book by Lena Dunham, the 26-year-old writer, actor and filmmaker, in one of the most heated auctions of the year.
The debut essay collection, “Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She’s Learned,” was hotly pursued by publishers after Ms. Dunham, the writer and star of the HBO comedy “Girls,” circulated a 66-page proposal with color, illustrations and a humor that publishing executives predicted could produce another bestseller like Tina Fey’s blockbuster memoir, “Bossypants.”
More Blogs
