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News stories from the book world in January 2001

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2001

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Mixed news about publishing

21 December 2001

McGraw-Hill downsizing

As part of a restructure, the large American publisher McGraw Hill has announced that it will be shedding 925 jobs, which is five per cent of their workforce. Over half of the jobs being lost will come from their educational division.

MightyWords to close  Read more

A New E-publishing Venture

10 December 2001

Authors M J Rose and Doug Clegg, trailblazers of e-marketing, have set up BuzzYour.com, a line of interactive e-workbooks which will provide advice for writers and other creative people on how to succeed through e-marketing.  Read more

Amazon provides Thanksgiving cheer

3 December 2001

To counter the gloom which has overtaken the American economy, there's good news from online bookseller Amazon. On the day after Thanksgiving the online retailer sold 12,000 more items per hour than it did on the same day last year. This news cheered Wall Street so much that Amazon's share price rose by a third.

Clancy non-transfer fee  Read more

Book Sales Plunge in the US

26 November 2001

Recent reports from New York suggest that the only people in the book business likely to do well this autumn are the remainder dealers. A New York Times report indicated that sales even of best-selling authors, usually regarded as 'bankers', have plunged by 25 to 40 per cent.  Read more

Harry Potter and the magic of books

19 November 2001

A recent report in the Wall Street Journal suggests that kids may be turning back to books. Across the US, bookstores are reporting an increase in young book-buyers of between 20% and 75% over the past three years. According to a survey by Leisure Trends, over 25% of people under 25 now say that reading is their favourite pastime, compared to 10% a year ago.  Read more

Publisher goes ahead with The Wind Done Gone

11 June 2001

Now that it has been cleared by the courts to publish Alice Randall's The Wind Done Gone, the American publisher Houghton Mifflin has upped the first print run of the book. This is in anticipation that the publicity created by the Mitchell Estate's attempt to prevent the novel being published will substantially increase sales.   Read more

Judge blocks parody of "Gone With the Wind"

29 April 2001

ATLANTA, April 20 (Reuters) - The estate of Margaret Mitchell, the author of the Civil War epic 'Gone With the Wind,' won a victory on Friday when a federal judge blocked publication of a parody called 'The Wind Done Gone.'   Read more

UK budget will help authors

9 April 2001

The recent UK budget included a proposal which could substantially improve authors’ tax position. It is proposed that authors and other creative artists should be allowed to average their income over two consecutive years for tax purposes, rather than having advances and other payments received by authors taxed as a lump sum.  Read more

Writers Copyright Argued in the Supreme Court

2 April 2001

The US Supreme Court has been hearing arguments relating to the landmark case brought by members of the National Writers Union against the New York Times Company, Newsday Inc, Time Inc, Lexis/Nexis and University Microfilms Inc.  Read more

Who owns e-book rights? Random House sues Rosetta Books.

26 March 2001

Random House, the Bertelsmann-owned largest publisher in the world, is suing the Internet start-up Rosetta Books (www.rosettabooks.com/) for copyright infringement. Rosetta Books was set up recently to sell e-book versions of modern classics through its website.  Read more