Stein to head new literary division of The Bright Agency
thebookseller.com – Tuesday July 12, 2022
Arabella Stein is heading a new literary division at The Bright Agency representing fiction, children’s books, YA, general non-fiction and graphic novels.
Bright has represented authors and author-illustrators for many years in children’s fiction and is now expanding to be a full-service creative agency, representing talent across writers, illustrators and animators.
The new arm, Bright Literary, is being led by m.d. Stein, whose list has included award-winning and bestselling picture book creators such as Benji Davies, Chris Chatterton, Yasmeen Ismail and Carys Bexington. She also represents Hannah Peck, who’s 2021 debut author-illustrated chapter book Kate on the Case (Piccadilly Press) was shortlisted for the V&A Illustration awards and the Alligator’s Mouth Award.
Comics/Graphic Novel Sales Jumped 62% in 2021
publishersweekly.com – Saturday July 2, 2022
Sales of comics and graphic novels rose 62% in 2021 over 2020, according to a new joint estimate by ICv2's Milton Griepp and Comichron's John Jackson Miller. Total comics and graphic novel sales to consumers in 2021 in the U.S. and Canada were approximately $2.07 billion, the report found, a sales level that is 70% higher than sales in 2019, the last pre-pandemic year.
Consumer sales of graphic novels, driven by manga, jumped 76% in the year, to an estimated $1.47 billion, while sales of comics increased 53%, to $435 million. Sales of digital comics, which had a big gain in 2020, rose slightly in 2021, to $170 million.
New Media Writing Prize opens for 2022 entries
bournemouth.ac.uk – Saturday July 2, 2022
Bournemouth University's New Media Writing Prize (NMWP) is now in its 13th year and is open for entries searching for the best digital, interactive works of fiction or non-fiction.
Winners will receive prizes in the categories of interactive digital narrative, journalism, and literature. The main prize of £1,000.00 is sponsored by if:book, followed by £500.00 for both best journalistic piece and the people’s choice category, sponsored by FIPP media and Wonderbox digital retrospectively. The competition is free to enter.
The judging panel is comprised of Bournemouth University’s Principal Academic in English & Communication, Dr Jim Pope, and Research Associate on the Ego-Media Project at Kings College London, Lisa Gee. More names will be announced in the coming months.
Verve Promotes Noah Liebmiller & Jessica Zou To Agents
deadline.com – Wednesday June 29, 2022
EXCLUSIVE: Verve has upped coordinators Jessica Zou and Noah Liebmiller to Agents in the Motion Picture Literary Team.
The agency, which has a tradition of surprising staffers with promotions, last week tasked Liebmiller and Zou with putting together a video as part of a signing exercise. I understand they were told that the video was not only important but needed to convey the theatrical gravitas of the signing pursuit. During a recent all-company staff meeting, the video was played to great reception and the promotions were announced by the co-heads of the Motion Picture Lit Team who reflected on how deserving both Liebmiller and Zou were of their new titles.
Clarion Launches New Imprint Headed by Linda Sue Park
publishersweekly.com – Sunday June 26, 2022
HarperCollins Children’s Books has announced the launch of Allida, a new imprint at Clarion Books led by author Linda Sue Park and Anne Hoppe, v-p and editorial director at Clarion. Park is the author of the Newbery Medal–winning A Single Shard and the bestselling A Long Walk to Water, which has sold more than three million copies, among many other acclaimed works for young readers, including picture books, novels, and poetry. Clarion is Park's longtime publisher.
Schedule revealed for 10th anniversary of Bloody Scotland crime writing festival
dailyrecord.co.uk – Thursday June 23, 2022
The programme for this year’s 10th Stirling Bloody Scotland crime writing festival was announced last week.
Organisers are set to welcome Sir Ian Rankin, Anthony Horowitz, Lisa Unger, Jeffrey Archer, Ann Cleeves and Frankie Boyle to the city in September.
There will also be prize-winning writer ‘Alex Gray’s New Crimes Panel’ plus debut authors appearing in various events throughout the programme and twenty new authors ‘In the Spotlight’ on stage ahead of established names.
New Publishing Imprint Listing: EPTA Books
firstwriter.com – Thursday June 23, 2022
Imprint for non-fiction books and coffee-table beauties.
Darley Anderson sheds light on publishing world with virtual open week
thebookseller.com – Saturday June 18, 2022
The Darley Anderson Agency will be hosting a virtual open week at the end of June with Twitter Q&As, pitch contests, Instagram Lives and helpful blog content.
Running from 27th June, the agency will welcome aspiring writers, readers and book fans to give them a glimpse of life at a commercial literary agency through a variety of online events.
The agency said it wanted to shed light on the publishing process, from submission to publication and everything in between, talking all things “entertainment fiction”.
AGNI, BU’s Elite Literary Magazine, Celebrates Its 50th Birthday
bu.edu – Friday June 17, 2022
The latest print edition of AGNI hit subscribers’ mailboxes and bookstores a month late, thanks to a ransomware attack on its Pennsylvania printer. The biannual literary magazine—crammed with essays, poetry, and reviews—battled cultural headwinds even before that delay: while pandemic isolating induced an uptick in reading, other research suggests that almost 60 percent of Americans never crack a book in a given year; pleasure reading of literary fiction especially is nosediving.
If it seems that fate has it in for AGNI as it celebrates its 50th birthday among the nation’s elite literary magazines, coeditor William Pierce makes the glass-half-full case: “I’m skeptical that there was ever a period when 40 percent or even 20 percent read literary work. In the era of Wordsworth, most in England were illiterate.” That even 40 percent of Americans read books actually “cuts against narratives of decline. To me, that’s a shockingly high number.”
Harry Potter publisher Bloomsbury reports record sales amid reading boom
theguardian.com – Wednesday June 15, 2022
Bloomsbury has reported a record year for sales, as the Harry Potter publisher said the increase in reading during the pandemic had become “permanent” after lockdowns eased.
The company benefited substantially from Covid restrictions when homebound consumers turned to new hobbies, including reading, to pass the time.
Bloomsbury’s chief executive, Nigel Newton, said it was clear that people who picked up a reading habit during the pandemic were continuing to buy books, helping to push annual sales up 24% to record highs of £230m for the year to the end of February.
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