By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 10/24/12 5:12pm

Publishing

Free_Press_logo

Simon & Schuster Reshuffles, Lays Off Editors at Free Press Imprint

Publisher Simon & Schuster announced a major restructuring plan that will bring together all its imprints into four groups. As part of the new plan, Free Press will be folded into the Simon & Schuster group and editors have been laid off. Free Press publisher Martha Levin and Free Press editor-in-chief Dominick Anfuso are out, as are editors Webster Younce, Emily Loose and Alessandra Bastagli.

“Unfortunately, as result of this reorganization, several positions within the group have been eliminated,” S&S publisher Jonathan Karp wrote in an internal email about the reorganization. “On behalf of everyone who has worked with them, I want to thank our departing colleagues for their efforts on behalf of our authors and contributions to our success.” Read More

By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 5:32pm

The Book Biz

Wonkette Ana Marie Cox

Penguin Sues Authors for Repayment

The Penguin Group is suing some pretty high profile authors  to recoup some of their advance money, The Smoking Gun reports.

Since an advance is really more of a gamble than a guarantee (authors can be hard to rely on! You can’t rush the creative process! Sometimes editors cancel books!), historically publishers have not held authors accountable. But it is a difficult time for publishing companies and they can probably use all the cash they can get. Read More

By Emily Witt 10/06/11 1:24pm

Publishing

Weiland.

Matt Weiland to Leave Ecco for W.W. Norton

Matt Weiland announced yesterday that he will be leaving his job at HarperCollins imprint Ecco to take a position as senior editor at W.W. Norton on October 24. It’s an exciting move for Mr. Weiland, whose books at Ecco have included Padgett Powell’s conceptual novel The Interrogative Mood and Philip Connors’s nature memoir Fire Season. A native of Minnesota and a Columbia alumnus, Mr. Weiland came to Ecco in 2008 by way of The Paris Review and Granta Books in London. He fills a vacancy left by Robert Weil, whom Norton tapped earlier this year to revive its dormant imprint Liveright & Co.

“I’ve just loved it these past three years at Ecco,” said an exuberant Mr. Weiland on the phone with The Observer yesterday. “[Publisher] Dan Halpern and everyone at Ecco are the best colleagues I’ve ever had and I’d never imagined leaving.” He said the unexpected offer from Norton “feels like some  crazy good bank shot.” Read More

By Emily Witt 7/18/11 12:18pm

Disputes

Wylie.

Andrew Wylie Has Advice For Rupert Murdoch

Speaking earlier today on BBC Radio 4, Andrew Wylie, the literary agent, expressed his thoughts on HarperCollins, the publishing house owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.

According to The Bookseller, a British industry publication, Wylie said he had personally told Mr. Murdoch that HarperCollins should be “looked after a little more closely,” and Read More

By Emily Witt 7/12/11 10:12am

Publishing

Index On Censorship Freedom Of Expression Awards

A Visit from the Goon Squad Plot Coming True

At the end of Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad, in a not too distant future, a promoter is secretly hired to pay his most influential friends to pretend to be really excited about an upcoming slide guitar concert.

Our headline that this plot point is coming true might be misleading: Penguin UK Read More

By Emily Witt 5/18/11 4:08pm

Publishing

Welcome to the Jungle

Amazon continues its inexorable expansion into book publishing with Thomas & Mercer, a mystery and thriller imprint that brings Amazon’s total number of imprints to five, with onlookers expecting more to come. Thomas & Mercer is “named for streets that flank the Amazon headquarters in Seattle,” a West Coast emphasis perhaps intended Read More

By Emily Witt 4/27/11 10:30pm

Editors At Large

Deepak Chopra Gets His Own Imprint

Self-help mogul Deepak Chopra will join the growing ranks of celebrities hired to draw from their “broad network of contacts” to “initiate, recommend and submit” books for publication at divisions of Random House. Unlike Dana Perino or Ruth Reichl, Dr. Chopra will have his own eponymous imprint at Crown, Deepak Chopra Books. According Read More