Navigation

Publishing Industry News: Oct. 11, 2019

Curious about what’s happening in the world of books and publishing? Catch up on the biggest acquisitions, news, adaptations and more here!

• Climate activist Greta Thunberg has signed a two-book deal with Penguin Press that includes a collection of speeches titled No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference and a memoir titled Our House Is on Fire that her family is cowriting. 

• David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas, has sold the North American rights to his new book, Utopia Avenue, to Random House. It’s set to be released in June 2020.

• The New York Times Book Review is making some changes to its bestseller lists, including tracking mass-market paperbacks after cutting them in 2017; debuting a list of graphic books that will include fiction, nonfiction, children’s, adult and manga categories; adding monthly lists for children’s, middle-grade paperbacks and young adult paperbacks; and cutting its science and sports lists. The changes began Oct. 2 online and will begin Oct. 20 in print. The Review has already reduced the number of titles on its print/e-book lists from 15 to 10.

• The Pew Research Center found in a survey that 20 percent of adults had listened to an audiobook during the 12 months preceding the survey period of Jan. 8 – Feb. 7, 2019. A survey in 2011 found that only 11 percent of adults had listened to an audiobook.

• Hearst Magazines will launch two new illustrated lifestyle book imprints – Hearst Home and Hearst Kids – to produce books about diet, nutrition, health and wellness, decorating, pop culture, cookbooks and more. Its first three titles will be released in spring 2020.

• The UK’s Publishers Association has announced a free, industry-wide Brexit Forum for Publishers that will be held at the Barbican Centre in London – and live-streamed – to discuss three core priorities for the industry: movement of goods, intellectual property and cross-border data flows. Publishers will also be able to apply for support from free legal-advice clinics. 

• LeVar Burton, who’s known for his role as Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation and as the host of Reading Rainbow, will host the 70th National Book Awards on Nov. 19 in New York City.

• Titles that have made the short list for the Scotiabank Giller Prize – which celebrates the best Canadian novel or short story published in English – include Immigrant City by David Bezmozgis, Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club by Megan Gail Coles, The Innocents by Michael Crummey, Dual Citizens by Alix Ohlin, Lampedusa by Steven Price and Reproduction by Ian Williams. 

• Hulu is developing a one-hour Hardy Boys series based on the books by Edward Stratemeyer. It will be oriented to teens and young adults. 

• Alfred A. Knopf will publish actor Jim Carrey’s novel, Memoirs and Misinformation, in May 2020.

• Comics writer Tom King will release a graphic novel, Heroes in Crisis, this month that features classic DC characters – Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman and more – starring in a murder mystery that revolves around a “emotional pain and trauma among superheroes.”

• Doubleday will publish a book by Bill Gates in June 2020 about energy and climate change.