BTW News Briefs

Here’s what’s happening this week in the book industry:

Bookstores including Shakespeare & Co. and the Harvard Book Store were first in line to distribute copies of The Mueller Report on Thursday, April 18, when the report was posted on the Department of Justice website. The stores were printing up copies of the more-than-400 page report for customers on demand using the Espresso Book Machine.

The Law&Crime TV network is launching a book line featuring true-crime and legal-based titles, which will be sold and distributed worldwide by Simon & Schuster; going forward, the line aims to publish two to four books a year. Law&Crime, which broadcasts legal trials, is backed by author and attorney Dan Abrams as well as A&E Networks.

Skyhorse Publishing is launching a new crime fiction imprint: Arcade CrimeWise, which will publish its first list this fall under the direction of Arcade Publishing executive editor Cal Barksdale. The imprint aims to publish six to eight books per year.

Penguin Random House has launched the Reader Rewards Loyalty Program where readers and book buyers will be awarded for their purchases of PRH titles with free books and book recommendations via PRH.com. The program is the largest-scale customer-loyalty engagement to be offered by a book publisher, according to PRH.

Effective September 1, Consortium will add four new publishers to its distribution list: Charco Press, DENPA, Rabsel Editions, and Unbound.

Barbara Lane, director of events at Copperfield’s Books, has debuted a new books column for the San Francisco Chronicle, called “Chapters and Verse.”

WH Smith has appointed Ziad El-Assad senior vice president of business development, U.S.A., the Bookseller reported. He was previously vice president of business development for NewsLink Group and a financial adviser at Morgan Stanley.

At Arcadia Publishing, Christen Thompson will rejoin the company on April 29 as director of special projects, a new position; Thompson is also the co-owner of the Itinerate Literate bookstore in Charleston. Cameron Haines has rejoined the company as production editor.

Cassandra Fernandez has joined Simon & Schuster Children’s as marketing associate.

Angela Man has joined Orbit as associate publicist.

Starting May 13, Bess Braswell will join Harlequin as publishing director for the Inkyard Press YA imprint.

The Rabbit Listened, written and illustrated by Cori Doerrfeld (Dial Books), has won the third annual Anna Dewdney Read Together Award.

The Poisoned City: Flint’s Water and the American Urban Tragedy by Anna Clark won the Hillman Prize for investigative journalism for a book.

Lebanese author Hoda Barakat has won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction for The Night Mail. U.K. publisher Oneworld has licensed the English translation rights and will publish the book in 2020.

The International Publishers Association has announced the shortlist for the 2019 IPA Prix Voltaire, which honors “exemplary courage in upholding the freedom to publish and in enabling others to exercise their right to freedom of expression.”

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