New Bio Says Jagger

"Closet Conservative"

Reuters - Mick Jagger, say it ain't so.  BackStage Pass VIP, a new Jagger biography being shopped around for a publisher, exposes the Rolling Stones lead singer as a closet conservative who brought his parents flowers during dinner visits and begged his ex-wife, Bianca, to wear a bra under her see-through shirt during a surprise visit from his mother.

"Bianca refused, stormed out and Jagger was left to nervously fix a tray of tea and spread a bunch of pastries on a doily to cater to his mum," writes Debra Sharon Davis. "It is the absolute opposite of everything the public thought they knew about Jagger."

Davis, who traveled with the Rolling Stones to Europe in the 1980s, interviewed everyone from fans to culture commentators to Jagger's bandmates.  Her manuscript includes many never-before-heard stories of icons, from John Lennon to Janis Joplin.  The book also exposes Jagger's conservative subtleties, such as his affinity for eggs served soft boiled in a Wedgewood cup, "which Bianca always seemed to overcook."

"Jagger was like the young private equity moguls of this era, the money guys," said Davis, in a press release. "He supervised the Rolling Stones organization -- the toughest CEO, except he trusted no one and was not a delegator. He questioned every purchase. He even concerned himself with the price of pencil sharpeners in the Stones' office. Whatever the price, he thought it was too high. He was obsessed with profits."

And profits he made. The group garnered nearly $600 million in touring and record sales alone.

Davis, currently in the market for publishers, revisited the project at the encouragement of publishing veteran and literary agent Robert G. Diforio, after shelving it at the completion of her 1980s interviews.

A possible 2012 release would also mark the Stones' 50th anniversary.

Zondervan: Rupert Murdoch Connection

Not "Ethical Dilemma"

A spokesperson for Zondervan said that its connection to News Corporation does not present an ethical dilemma for the company.  The Christian book and Bible publisher is owned by Harper Collins, a subsidiary of News Corp, which has hit the rocks over allegations that phone hacking was widespread at one of its newspapers.

News Corp founder Rupert Murdoch and his son, chairman of News International, James Murdoch, were grilled for three hours by a Commons Select Committee yesterday over the scandal that brought down The News of the World.

A bewildered-looking Rupert Murdoch denied knowledge of phone hacking but admitted that it had been the ''most humble day"of his life.

Zondervan's link to News Corp has been strongly criticized by blogger Will Braun in a post that has been circulated further in major US news outlets like the Houston Chronicle and USA Today.  In his post, Braun debates the ethics of buying Bibles from a publisher that is owned by Murdoch.

''For those us of [sic] who care about the Christian scriptures, what are we to make of this mix of billionaire media tycoonery, allegations of phone hacking and bribery, and the Holy Word of God?" he said.

''What are we to make of the fact that every time we buy a Zondervan product we contribute to Murdoch's mogul-dom, which includes a personal fortune that Forbes pegged at $6.3 billion last year.''

Zondervan has issued a statement indicating that it has no plans to change the way it operates in light of the crisis affecting News Corp.

ChristianToday.com

Faulkner "Live"

On Tape

William Faulkner arrived at the University of Virginia's Charlottesville campus in 1957 and served two terms as UVa's first writer-in-residence. Many of his classes, readings, addresses, and Q&A sessions were recorded, and a treasure trove--28 hours of tape--survived. Every invaluable minute is now available online.

You'll hear Faulkner read (from The Town, The Sound and the Fury, and other works), answer any number of questions (about Brown v. Board of Education, among other matters), and speak at length about his works and ideas. Some of the recordings are hard to make out, but UVa's website includes transcriptions--which are a tremendous help, and fascinating in and of themselves. You'll also find a wealth of essays, newspaper articles, and personal recollections.

UVa 

Paperback Publishers

Quicken Their Pace

It used to be like clockwork in the book business: first the hardcover edition was released, then, about one year later, the paperback.

But in an industry that has been upended by the growth of e-books, publishers are moving against convention by pushing paperbacks into publication earlier than usual, sometimes less than six months after they appeared in hardcover.

This week included the trade paperback release of ''Swamplandia!,"a debut novel by Karen Russell, five months after it was first published in hardcover in February.

''The Tiger's Wife,"the much-praised literary novel by Tea Obreht, which came out in hardcover to rave reviews in March, will be followed by the paperback in October, seven months later.

Nonfiction releases have been accelerated as well. ''Those Guys Have All the Fun,"an inside account of ESPN by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales, has barely been in bookstores two months, having arrived on May 24. Its paperback edition is already scheduled for Dec. 1.

Publishers say they have a new sense of urgency with the paperback, since the big, simultaneous release of hardcover and electronic editions now garners a book the bulk of the attention it is likely to receive, leaving the paperback relatively far behind. They may also be taking their cues from Hollywood, where movie studios have trimmed marketing costs by steadily closing the gap between the theatrical release of films and their arrival on DVD.

NYT

Sales, Profits Grow at

Oxford U Press

The Oxford University Press issued their annual report for the fiscal year ending in March 2011. Sales of L649 million were up L37 million from the prior year, a 6 percent gain. Margin gained as well, as "a successful sales year combined with effective cost management led to an exceptional surplus of L125 million." Pre-tax profit for the year was L122.6 million, compared to L98.5 million a year go.

They were helped in part by the weak British pound as well, since OUP makes 85 percent of their sales outside the UK. That makes their UK revenues L97.35 million, and 37 percent of sales come from emerging markets.

They transferred L43 million from those operating earnings to the University of Oxford, and "a balance sheet review led to an additional transfer of nearly L193 million from OUP's reserves to the University's permanent endowment."

PDF Report

eBooks Just Fine...

If You Find Buyers

by Roy Greenslade, The Guardian

One of my former Sunday Times colleagues, Walter Ellis, has just been through the painful process of publishing a novel online - and is now suffering from e-book invisibility.

He explains his problem in a posting headlined I publish, therefore I am invisible. His book, London Eye, isn't invisible of course. But it's one of hundreds available on Amazon and therefore requires promotion.

Two weeks on from publication, he has sold three copies in the US and eight in the UK at a mere L1.14 per Kindle download. "I need word of mouth," he writes, "I need that elusive buzz."

Though there are sites that review selected additions to Kindle - including this one hosted by Amazon - Walter writes:

"What does not exist is a proper grown-up site, possibly run by Amazon, in which hot new arrivals, bestsellers and chart climbers are featured as if they mattered, and not as if they were the products of small-time eccentrics who really ought to get out more."

For the record, Walter is the author of three books published in traditional print form, including The Beginning of the End, a memoir about growing up in Belfast during the Troubles. It sold well in Ireland and was serialised in the Sunday Times.

You'll find the outline of the plot here. Its central characters are three men about to turn 50, which could well be the reason that traditional print publishers turned it down.

Anyway, I'm happy to give the book a plug. Start counting those sales now, Walter.

Lost Dr. Seuss Stories

Coming Soon

LA Times

Seven stories published by Theodor Geisel five decades ago will find their way to readers in a new book coming from Random House. "The Bippolo Seed" is coming to shelves Sept. 27.

The stories were published in Redbook in 1950 and 1951, and included simple drawings which will be enlarged and more fully colored in the new collection."The stories are complete and satisfying -- they are not at all second-class citizens," Cathy Goldsmith, vice president and associate publishing director of Random House/Golden Books Young Readers Group, told Publishers Weekly.

Publishers Weekly reports on how those stories by Dr. Seuss became "The Bippolo Seed"; it took the help of Seussian Charles D. Cohen:

Cohen, who notes that there are some 30 stories from Geisel's "magazine period," explains that the selections in The Bippolo Seed mark a pivotal transitional point in the author's career. "This is Dr. Seuss exactly when he was becoming Dr. Seuss," he says. "From a chance encounter with a three-year-old who couldn't yet read but had memorized his Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose, Geisel had realized the importance of using rhyme as a read-aloud, auditory experience. He'd observed German and Japanese children reared on propaganda during World War II and began to realize that, instead of that negative influence, he had a skill that could make a positive difference. He started writing with the rhythm and rhyme for which he's now known, and it tickles me to see the way that style and his expertise develop in this story collection, and to know that others will now be able to appreciate and enjoy it, too."

It will be the first time the seven stories in "The Bippolo Seed" have appeared in a book. Or as Dr. Seuss might say: One story, two story, old story, new story.

The World's

Highest-Paid Authors

by Jeff Bercovici, Forbes

The golden era of books is over. Sales of adult hardcovers, the most expensive and lucrative category of books, were down 23 percent in the first half of 2011 after falling 5.1 percent in 2010. Yet the world's top-selling authors -- people like Stephenie Meyer, Stephen King, Janet Evanovich and, especially, James Patterson -- aren't exactly hurting.

In some cases they're doing better than ever. How? By riding the strong updraft of  the fast-growing e-book category while aggressively diversifying their personal brands with multimedia deals and franchises aimed at young adults.

Patterson is a prime example. In the period from May 2010 through April 2011, he was again the world's top-earning author, with total income of $84 million. (Our income estimates are based on sales figures supplied by Nielsen Bookscan, year-end sales totals submitted by publishing houses to Publishers Weekly, and input from numerous agents, managers and editors.) That's a major increase from the $70 million he booked the year before.

The jump comes courtesy of a 17-book, $150 million deal Patterson signed with his publisher, Hachette Book Group, in 2009. The peerlessly prolific Patterson, who works with a team of co-authors to boost his output, published 10 of those books during this period. All told, including his backlist, he had an astonishing 20 titles on PW's year-end lists of bestsellers, comprising more than 10 million copies. And that's not even counting e-books, of which he sold at least another 750,000.

Not content to dominate the market for murder mysteries, Patterson branched out a few years ago into the young adult market, the book industry term for teenagers and adolescents. He's done well there: New installments of his ''Maximum Ride"and ''Witch & Wizard"franchises each sold more than 1 million copies last year. Meanwhile, a film based on his ''Alex Cross"series just went into production.

The queen of the young adult segment, however, remains Stephenie Meyer, the stay-at-home mother from Arizona whose belated discovery of her talent for fiction has almost singlehandedly buoyed booksellers for the past few years. At one point, Meyer's ''Twilight"series accounted for more than 15 percent of all books sold in the U.S. In 2010, fans starved for fresh tales of vampire romance -- the last ''Twilight"installment came out in 2008 -- snapped up some 2.3 million copies of a spin-off novella, ''The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner,"and a movie version of ''Eclipse"took in $300 million at the U.S. box office and almost $400 million overseas. All told, Meyer earned $21 million -- a major step down from her 2010 earnings of $41 million, but not bad for someone whose entire output during the Obama administration consists of a single 192-page volume.

Bits & Bytes

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FICTION

Debut

Ashley Prentice Norton's THE CHOCOLATE MONEY: the story of the daughter of a glamorous chocolate heiress, who must navigate a complex landscape of wealth, sex and decadence through a privileged childhood in Chicago and an east coast prep school, with only her narcissistic mother to guide her -- a woman who absolutely refuses to play by the rules, to Adrienne Brodeur at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, in a pre-empt, in a good deal, by Bill Clegg at William Morris Endeavor (NA).

Inspirational

Naomi Rawlings's HER JOURNEY'S END, in which a woman has lost everything including her family to the French Revolution, and in escaping France, she is attacked and left for dead only to be found by a peasant who risks his life to save the aristocratic stranger, to Elizabeth Mazer at Harlequin Love Inspired, by Natasha Kern at Natasha Kern Literary Agency (world).

Women's/Romance

NYT bestseller Tracy Anne Warren's next three Regency historical romances, to Wendy McCurdy at Penguin, in a significant deal, by Helen Breitwieser at Cornerstone Literary (World English).

Golden Heart finalist Aislinn Macnamara's debut A TALE OF TWO SISTERS, about a young woman trying to reject the proposal of the ton's golden boy because her sister has been in love with that same man for years, to Caitlin Alexander at Ballantine Bantam Dell, in a very nice deal, in a two-book deal, by Sara Megibow at Nelson Literary Agency (World).

dcronin@randomhouse.com

Children's: Middle grade

Kate DiCamillo's sixth middle-grade novel, to Karen Lotz at Candlewick Press, to be edited by Andrea Tompa, in a major deal, by Holly McGhee at Pippin Properties.

NONFICTION

Biography

Alan Forrest's NAPOLEON, the remarkable story of how the son of a Corsican attorney became the most powerful man in Europe, to Charles Spicer at St. Martin's, in a nice deal, for publication in September 2011 (NA).

Oprah's Book Pick SOPHIA TOLSTOY author Alexandra Popoff's NURSEMAIDS OF TALENT, which takes a look at six of Russia's greatest writers (including Nabokov, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy) and the women behind them who served as editors, business managers, confidantes, and creative partners while often risking their lives to see their husbands' works in print, to Jessica Case at Pegasus, by Don Fehr at Trident Media Group (World English).

Cooking

Gina Hyams's CHILI COOKOFF IN A BOX, DESSERT AND THEN DINNER!, on the heels of the author's just released Pie Contest In A Box kit, and CHRISTMAS COOKIE CONTEST IN A BOX, to Dorothy O'Brien at Andrews McMeel, for publication in Fall 2012, by Jean Sagendorph at Mansion Street Literary Management (NA).

Co-author of Appetizer Atlas, Art Meyer's HOUSTON CHEF'S TABLE, a celebration of the food and culture of the city's fifty most iconic restaurants, to Katie Benoit at Globe Pequot, by Rita Rosenkranz at the Rita Rosenkranz Literary Agency.

Humor

#1 NYT bestselling author of Sh*t My Dad Says Justin Halpern's new book, a series of essays recounting the twists and turns his romantic life has taken: how he learned about sex by walking in on his parents at age nine, getting caught burying stolen pornography in his back yard by his father a few years later, and surviving as the last of his college friends to lose his virginity, to Mauro DiPreta of It Books, by Byrd Leavell at the Waxman Literary Agency.

Memoir

Tony Macaulay's PAPERBOY, a coming-of-age story in which a twelve-year-old boy wearing Brut aftershave has just been appointed Paperboy to the Upper Shankill by Oul' Mac, to Anna Valintine at Harper, for publication in November 2011, by Prizeman and Kinsella Literary Agency on behalf of Chenile Keogh at Y Books.

chenile@ybooks.ie

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