Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Latest from The Bookseller


child reading
The number of children visiting libraries in the UK has fallen to 70%, driven by a decrease in girls’ visitor numbers, according to a Department for Culture, Media and Sport report.
The Taking Part 2014/15 Annual Child Report said 70.3% of children aged 5-15 visited a library in the last 12 months, a similar percentage to 2013/14 but a “significant decrease” (-7%) from 75.3% in 2008/09.
Rosalind Porter
Six years after being made redundant from Granta magazine, in a period of intense upheaval which also saw the departures of editor Alex Clark and Granta Publications m.d. David Graham, Rosalind Porter has returned as deputy editor.  
Porter rejoins the magazine after an 18-month stint as editorial director of fiction at Oneworld.
Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press saw sales rise 5% year-on-year at constant currency rates to £269m in the year ended April 2015, according to its latest annual report. The increase reflected "significant" expansion in its Education division, which was offset by lower increases in Academic.
However profit fell 23% to £6.7m (£8.7m in 2013/14) for the year, with CUP saying a significant factor in the drop was "a sharp decline in government spending in South Africa, affecting all publishers."
Marwyn
Marwyn, the investment group that took over Peppa Pig rights owner Entertainment One in 2007, has launched a cash vehicle to buy media companies, according to news reports.
The Financial Times said the AIM-listed vehicle is led by Rebecca Miskin, former digital strategy director at magazine group Hearst Magazines UK, and Juan Lopez-Valcarcel, former chief digital officer for Pearson.
Carol Drinkwater
Actress and writer Carol Drinkwater has signed a two-novel deal with Michael Joseph.
The Penguin Random House division acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, including Canada, to the novels from Jonathan Lloyd at Curtis Brown.
Drinkwater, who starred in the BBC drama “All Creatures Great and Small”, is  the author of the Olive Farm series of memoirs, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson and about her life on a farm in Provence. She has also published two recent successful Kindle Singles, The Girl in Room 14 and Hotel Paradise.
Curtis Brown
Curtis Brown and Conville & Walsh received more than 2,000 pitches for books on the first Twitter #PitchCB day.
Held on Friday 24th July, #PitchCB invited unpublished writers to tweet a one-line pitch for their work.
Agents from Curtis Brown and Conville & Walsh looked at the pitches throughout the day, favouriting any they liked. Any users whose tweets were favourited by agents can now submit to that agent via Curtis Brown’s online submissions portal.


Hodder & Stoughton
Hodder & Stoughton has acquired a “powerful account of grief, motherhood, depression and the healing power of horses”.
Assistant editor Maddy Price bought UK and Commonwealth rights to Clover Stroud’s book, provisionally titled To The Horses, from Kirsty McLachlan at David Godwin Associates.
Shappi Khorsandi
Ebury has bought comedian Shappi Khorsandi’s debut novel.
Gillian Green, Ebury Fiction publishing director, bought world all language rights to Nina is Not OK from Off The Kerb Productions.
Harper Audio
HarperAudio has signed a deal with the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) to add 150 of its audio titles to the RNIB Talking Books Service over the next 12 months.
The first batch to be converted will include Wilbur Smith’s Golden Lion, Bernard Cornwell’s Warriors of the Storm and David Walliams’ upcoming new children’s book, which will be available to Talking Books members the same day as they released to the general trade.
Audible
Audible has partnered with TV show “Crackanory” for the programme’s third series.
As part of the deal, Audible will receive bespoke sponsorship idents on both linear and VoD broadcasts of the new series, and Audible users will be access audio versions of their favourite stories from the third series of “Crackanory”, which airs on UKTV channel Dave.
Top Gear
Orion has bought a book about "Top Gear" by its script editor Richard Porter.
Deputy group publisher Jon Wood acquired world rights to And On That Bombshell from Luigi Bonomi at LBA Literary Agency.
For 13 years, 22 series and 175 shows, Porter was script editor of "Top Gear", from the pilot episode in 2002 until the very last show presented by Jeremy Clarkson with Richard Hammond and James May in 2015.
Ruby Tuesday Books
Book packager Ruby Tuesday Books will from this autumn publish its own non-fiction titles for the UK market.
 

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