BTW News Briefs

Printer-friendly versionPrinter-friendly version

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

Late Migrations author Margaret Renkl wrote an op-ed in the New York Times emphasizing the importance and resilience of indie bookstores and focusing on Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee, which will see an Amazon Books move in across the street in the coming weeks.

ProPublica reported on the Trump administration’s exclusion of Chinese-made bibles from the latest round of tariffs.

Bustle featured an article on a new idea from Bea and Leah Koch, founders of the Ripped Bodice in Los Angeles: the Great Big Romance Read, which invites book clubs and individuals across the country to read the same romance novel in September.

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) filed a lawsuit in New York’s Southern District on August 23 seeking a preliminary injunction against Amazon’s Audible for copyright infringement on the basis of its new Captions initiative, to launch September 10, which would offer a computer-generated transcript of audiobook text. AAP members Chronicle Books, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, Scholastic, and Simon & Schuster are all named as plaintiffs.

Baker & Taylor Publisher Services has signed an agreement with McSweeney’s Literary Arts Fund, the San Francisco-based independent nonprofit publishing company started by Dave Eggers, to distribute its books and quarterly print offerings worldwide.

Arcadia Publishing has acquired Wildsam, the producer of the Wildsam Field Guides.

Starting September 3, Jeff Carroll will join Macmillan as executive vice president of marketing and consumer strategy.

Dan Slevin has been named the association manager of Booksellers NZ, New Zealand's association for indie booksellers.

Danielle Plafsky has joined Penguin Press as associate marketing director, and Lauren Lauzon has joined the company as marketing manager.

Kristina Kearns, formerly the director of McSweeney’s, has joined Twenty Summers as executive director. She replaces outgoing director Camille Ives Beck.

At Random House Children’s, Laura Hernandez has joined the company as associate manager of digital marketing, and Nicole Valdez joined as marketing and publicity manager for Random House Graphic.

Finalists have been named for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, which was inspired by the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords that ended the war in Bosnia and celebrates the power of literature to promote peace and understanding. 

The finalists have been named for the Institute for Immigration Research’s second annual New American Voices Award.

The Rona Jaffe Foundation, which supports emerging female writers, has announced the six winners of the organization’s annual writers’ Awards.

The Southern California Independent Booksellers Association (SCIBA) has announced the finalists for its 2019 book awards. The winners will be honored at SCIBA’s annual trade show in September.

The winners of MIBA’s Midwest Booksellers Choice Awards have been announced and are as follows: The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai (Viking); Heartland by Sarah Smarsh (Scribner); New Poets of Native Nations, edited by Heid E. Erdrich (Graywolf); Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram (Dial Books); and Hush Hush, Forest by Mary Casanova, illustrated by Nick Wroblewski (University of Minnesota Press).

Hey, Kiddo by Jarrett Krosoczka (Graphix) has won the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association’s (NAIBA) Carla Cohen Free Speech Award

Share your news in BTW News Briefs! Publishers and industry partners are welcome to e-mail [email protected] with news about awards, imprint launches, distribution changes, staff promotions, and more.