#random house publishing

[psychic-refugee]

I find a lot about the production of the Wednesday novelization odd.

One, the author’s name is not prominent and feels almost hidden.

Here are some examples of novelizations of popular IP that were television series/film first and foremost.

The authors are all on the cover and their names prominent. I can easily find who the author is. Even with the last pic where the name is the smallest and at the bottom, it's still on the cover.

Here is the front, back, and back inner jacket of the novelization.

Mejia’s name is nowhere to be found on the front. There is plenty of room to put their name without obscuring the art. They purposefully did not put their name.

On the back, Mejia’s name is the same size print as everything else and isn’t the center focus. The eyeline is more drawn towards the writers of the series rather than who wrote the novel.

Mejia has no author bio pic nor any bio information where it might normally go. Inside the cover jacket, they chose to have a blurb about the series rather than showcase the author.

Again, it feels like they’re hiding who the author is. Why?

Secondly, here are some examples of Netflix original shows that have novels. These are some of their most popular IP they have association with via the shows. All of them have that “Netflix Original” seal.

Normally I hate this as it wrecks the cover art, but it’s never stopped Netflix from all but pissing on everything they can associate their name with.

Why no seal for this novelization? There’s literally no mention of Netflix at all.

This to me suggests Netflix was not involved AT ALL. I don’t think anyone at Netflix was collaborating on this. I think this is a pure licensing deal, where Random House paid MGM to be able to use the characters.

Thirdly, and I find most baffling, is the total lack of promo.

Random House has several IG accounts, NONE of them have promo’d this book.

@randomhouse @randomhousekids @penguinrandomhouse

How can such a popular series have ZERO mention anywhere? How is it even the publisher doesn’t want to promo this book?

Even the author themselves half arsed promo’d the book. One post and it’s lukewarm at best? With only 130ish comments? That’s like nothing for a fandom of Wednesday’s size.

The Netflix writers haven’t mentioned it which suggests zero involvement. Netflix doesn't even want their name on it.

Jenna and Emma haven’t mentioned it or acknowledge it in any way, despite their supposed championing wenclair.

There are no professional reviews of it anywhere. Did they not send out advanced copies? Or were all of the reviews terrible and they scraped it?

Even the Wednesday Netflix account hasn’t mentioned it. Rather than promo the book, they chose to promo Lego instead.

Are they all embarrassed about this novel and hope it goes away quickly?

I know the book is hot garbage, but I’m in the fandom. The fans are supposed to have mixed reviews.

The publisher and network shouldn’t be treating the book and the author as a dirty little secret.

This book has literally no support from anyone. Not even the people who have a vested monetary interest in the novel.

This is so weird.

[bargainsleuthbooks]

Book Reviews: Kennedy Edition #NetGalley #NewBooks Jackie: A Novel; Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, Our Jackie: Public Claims on a Private Life; Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed

It's time for another round-up of reviews of new or soon-to-be published books. This time, I'm reviewing four books about the #Kennedys. #NetGalley #ARCReview #BookReview #Asknot #LittleBrownandcompany #ourjackie #nyupress #jackieanovel

Anyone that has followed this blog for any length of time knows that much like the British Royal Family, I am down for most any book on the Kennedys. This year, I have already read four new books that shed more light on the family that some call American royalty, some more flattering than others. Here’s a round-up! Most books can be found at the affiliate links below or try your local library!…

[nomorearchives]

[pipperoni32-blog]

I Am Rome

by Santiago Posteguillo / 4.5 stars

**Expected release date in English March 5, 2024**

This isn't a book I would normally read, I'll start off by saying. While I grew up with a history buff brother - and one who loved Julius Caesar especially, I've never had more than a passing interest.

I was invited by the publisher through NetGalley to read this book, and when I saw the title and what it was about, I gave it a try. Part of me felt I owed it to my brother to finally find out who one of his favorite historical figures really was. And oh my gosh, what a great decision! I would have missed out on so much!

Centering around the trial against the corrupt senator Dollabella, whom no one would have though anyone was brave enough - or foolish enough - to try accusing. But Caesar does, asked to represent a group of Macedonians who have been grievously wronged. Our story also goes back to Caesar's birth and his childhood, pivotal moments throughout his youth and early days leading up to the trial, as well as before his birth, following his uncle Marius and setting the tone of what the Rome looked like that Caesar grew up in.

I've always thought of ancient Rome as bloodthirsty and corrupt. I'm sure there were some great achievements from that ancient civilization, but they've always been lost on me. Spoiler alert - Rome of Caesar's day was bloodthirsty and corrupt, and the common people were oppressed and ruled by fear. I didn't realize how much there was a spark, a hope for change. It came many times, represented and movements led by several men. But you can see how hot that fire burns, and those hopes come to rest on the shoulders of a young man by the name of Julius Caesar.

I am so thankful I got the chance to read this ARC, and also got to learn something so new! For lifelong history fans, or ones just starting to step out of their comfort zone, this was the perfect book for me. Denser than what I usually read, I did take a slower approach to reading, breaking it up into a few chapters at a time, to better absorb everything and really get a deeper understanding.

Also - for those of you like me who finish this and think - but what about the rest of his life? Did Caesar accomplish what he set out to? Did he exact change? There's a second book on it's way - published in Europe first, so it'll take a bit with translation. But watch out, I'll definitely be keeping a close eye on the publishing news for the next one!

[theresalikesbooks]

Book Review | The Cheat Sheet

Title: The Cheat Sheet by Sarah Adams Pages: 336 Genre: romance, contemporary fiction Publisher: Random House (Apr. 26, 2022) Summary Is it ever too late to leave the friend-zone? Hi, my name is Bree Camden, and I’m hopelessly in love with my best friend and star quarterback Nathan Donelson (so is half of America, judging by the tabloids and how much the guy dates). The first step is…

[doodlesink]

Must Love Flowers by Debbie Macomber--Book Review

Happy Tuesday!  Must Love Flowers by Debbie Macomber is out today.  Stop by to learn more about this touching tale.  Happy Reading!

https://bibliophileandavidreader.blogspot.com/2023/07/must-love-flowers-by-debbie-macomber.html

[lilibetbombshell]

[literarysiren]

Book of Accidents insisted on making itself sound inclusive so much that it cheapened my experience, but I also know plenty who loved it, and love Chuck Wendig's writing! Everything works for someone.

[dracomorphism]

As of yesterday, The Internet Archive lost its appeal in the Hachette v. Internet Archive case. Over 500,000 books are at risk of permanent removal. It goes without saying how essential of a resource that The Internet Archive is. In the day and age where misinformation goes rapidly unchecked, and proper information is locked behind paywalls, we need to protect this platform.

Today, I ask that those who see this post sign and share this open letter for the Internet Archive.

As some of my friends and mutuals know, I love the humanities. I recently completed my BA in Anthropology with my senior project focusing on the importance of ethical practices in preservation. Free, accessible means of pursuing knowledge matters to me above all else.

I strongly urge that you do your part, and support The Internet Archive in its time of need.

[joytri]

bucket list item: buying every single one of the clothbound penguin classics ever made

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Private equity plunderers want to buy Simon & Schuster

Going to Defcon this weekend? I'm giving a keynote, "An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet's Enshittification and Throw it Into Reverse," on Saturday at 12:30pm, followed by a book signing at the No Starch Press booth at 2:30pm!

https://info.defcon.org/event/?id=50826

Last November, publishing got some excellent news: the planned merger of Penguin Random House (the largest publisher in the history of human civilization) with its immediate competitor Simon & Schuster would not be permitted, thanks to the DOJ's deftly argued case against the deal:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/07/random-penguins/#if-you-wanted-to-get-there-i-wouldnt-start-from-here

When I was a baby writer, there were dozens of large NY publishers. Today, there are five - and it was almost four. A publishing sector with five giant companies is bad news for writers (as Stephen King said at the trial, the idea that PRH and S&S would bid against each other for books was as absurd as the idea that he and his wife would bid against each other for their next family home).

But it's also bad news for publishing workers, a historically exploited and undervalued workforce whose labor conditions have only declined as the number of employers in the sector dwindled, leading to mass resignations:

https://lithub.com/unlivable-and-untenable-molly-mcghee-on-the-punishing-life-of-junior-publishing-employees/

It should go without saying that workers in sectors with few employers get worse deals from their bosses (see, e.g., the writers' strike and actors' strike). And yup, right on time, PRH, a wildly profitable publisher, fired a bunch of its most senior (and therefore hardest to push around) workers:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/18/books/penguin-random-house-layoffs-buyouts.html

But publishing's contraction into a five-company cartel didn't occur in a vacuum. It was a normal response to monopolization elsewhere in its supply chain. First it was bookselling collapsing into two major chains. Then it was distribution going from 300 companies to three. Today, it's Amazon, a monopolist with unlimited access to the capital markets and a track record of treating publishers "the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/31/seize-the-means-of-computation/#the-internet-con

Monopolies are like Pringles (owned by the consumer packaged goods monopolist Procter & Gamble): you can't have just one. As soon as you get a monopoly in one part of the supply chain, every other part of that chain has to monopolize in self-defense.

Think of healthcare. Consolidation in pharma lead to price-gouging, where hospitals were suddenly paying 1,000% more for routine drugs. Hospitals formed regional monopolies and boycotted pharma companies unless they lowered their prices - and then turned around and screwed insurers, jacking up the price of care. Health insurers gobbled each other up in an orgy of mergers and fought the hospitals.

Now the health care system is composed of a series of gigantic, abusive monopolists - pharma, hospitals, medical equipment, pharmacy benefit managers, insurers - and they all conspire to wreck the lives of only two parts of the system who can't fight back: patients and health care workers. Patients pay more for worse care, and medical workers get paid less for worse working conditions.

So while there was no question that a PRH takeover of Simon & Schuster would be bad for writers and readers, it was also clear that S&S - and indeed, all of the Big Five publishers - would be under pressure from the monopolies in their own supply chain. What's more, it was clear that S&S couldn't remain tethered to Paramount, its current owner.

Last week, Paramount announced that it was going to flip S&S to KKR, one of the world's most notorious private equity companies. KKR has a long, long track record of ghastly behavior, and its portfolio currently includes other publishing industry firms, including one rotten monopolist, raising similar concerns to the ones that scuttled the PRH takeover last year:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/07/books/booksupdate/paramount-simon-and-schuster-kkr-sale.html

Let's review a little of KKR's track record, shall we? Most spectacularly, they are known for buying and destroying Toys R Us in a deal that saw them extract $200m from the company, leaving it bankrupt, with lifetime employees getting $0 in severance even as its executives paid themselves tens of millions in "performance bonuses":

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/06/03/private-equity-bosses-took-200m-out-of-toys-r-us-and-crashed-the-company-lifetime-employees-got-0-in-severance/

The pillaging of Toys R Us isn't the worst thing KKR did, but it was the most brazen. KKR lit a beloved national chain on fire and then walked away, hands in pockets, whistling. They didn't even bother to clear their former employees' sensitive personnel records out of the unlocked filing cabinets before they scarpered:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/09/23/exploring-the-ruins-of-a-toys-r-us-discovering-a-trove-of-sensitive-employee-data/

But as flashy as the Toys R Us caper was, it wasn't the worst. Private equity funds specialize in buying up businesses, loading them with debts, paying themselves, and then leaving them to collapse. They're sometimes called vulture capitalists, but they're really vampire capitalists:

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/05/private-equity-buyout-kkr-houdaille/

Given a choice, PE companies don't want to prey on sick businesses - they preferentially drain off value from thriving ones, preferably ones that we must use, which is why PE - and KKR in particular - loves to buy health care companies.

Heard of the "surprise billing epidemic"? That's where you go to a hospital that's covered by your insurer, only to discover - after the fact - that the emergency room is operated by a separate, PE-backed company that charges you thousands for junk fees. KKR and Blackstone invented this scam, then funneled millions into fighting the No Surprises Act, which more-or-less killed it:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/21/all-in-it-together/#doctor-patient-unity

KKR took one of the nation's largest healthcare providers, Envision, hostage to surprise billing, making it dependent on these fraudulent payments. When Congress finally acted to end this scam, KKR was able to take to the nation's editorial pages and damn Congress for recklessly endangering all the patients who relied on it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/14/unhealthy-finances/#steins-law

Like any smart vampire, KKR doesn't drain its victim in one go. They find all kinds of ways to stretch out the blood supply. During the pandemic, KKR was front of the line to get massive bailouts for its health-care holdings, even as it fired health-care workers, increasing the workload and decreasing the pay of the survivors of its indiscriminate cuts:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/11/socialized-losses/#socialized-losses

It's not just emergency rooms. KKR bought and looted homes for people with disabilities, slashed wages, cut staff, and then feigned surprise at the deaths, abuse and misery that followed:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kendalltaggart/kkr-brightspring-disability-private-equity-abuse

Workers' wages went down to $8/hour, and they were given 36 hour shifts, and then KKR threatened to have any worker who walked off the job criminally charged with patient abandonment:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farben

For KKR, people with disabilities and patients make great victims - disempowered and atomized, unable to fight back. No surprise, then, that so many of KKR's scams target poor people - another group that struggles to get justice when wronged. KKR took over Dollar General in 2007 and embarked on a nationwide expansion campaign, using abusive preferential distributor contracts and targeting community-owned grocers to trap poor people into buying the most heavily processed, least nutritious, most profitable food available:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/27/walmarts-jackals/#cheater-sizes

94.5% of the Paycheck Protection Program - designed to help small businesses keep their workers payrolled during lockdown - went to giant businesses, fraudulently siphoned off by companies like Longview Power, 40% owned by KKR:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/20/great-danes/#ppp

KKR also helped engineer a loophole in the Trump tax cuts, convincing Justin Muzinich to carve out taxes for C-Corporations, which let KKR save billions in taxes:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/02/broken-windows/#Justin-Muzinich

KKR sinks its fangs in every part of the economy, thanks to the vast fortunes it amassed from its investors, ripped off from its customers, and fraudulently obtained from the public purse. After the pandemic, KKR scooped up hundreds of companies at firesale prices:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/30/medtronic-stole-your-ventilator/#blackstone-kkr

Ironically, the investors in KKR funds are also its victims - especially giant public pension funds, whom KKR has systematically defrauded for years:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/22/stimpank/#kentucky

And now KKR has come for Simon & Schuster. The buyout was trumpeted to the press as a done deal, but it's far from a fait accompli. Before the deal can close, the FTC will have to bless it. That blessing is far from a foregone conclusion. KKR also owns Overdrive, the monopoly supplier of e-lending software to libraries.

Overdrive has a host of predatory practices, loathed by both libraries and publishers (indeed, much of the publishing sector's outrage at library e-lending is really displaced anger at Overdrive). There's a plausible case that the merger of one of the Big Five publishers with the e-lending monopoly will present competition issues every bit as deal-breaking as the PRH/S&S merger posed.

(Image: Sefa Tekin/Pexels, modified)

I’m kickstarting the audiobook for “The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation,” a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and bring back the old, good internet. It’s a DRM-free book, which means Audible won’t carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/08/vampire-capitalism/#kkr

[scifrey]

Okay, so remember how I've been Ded Of Editing this last year and just absolutely consumed by bookish stuff?

The bookish stuff is now out in the world.

TIME AND TIDE

Releases November 2024.

Exciting news: the eGalley is up on NetGalley and Edelweiss! This means, with the promise of an honest review, you could potentially read the book right now. However, if you're not interested in an ARC, you can preorder your Copy Here.

*

Historical fiction with a touch of time travel, for fans of Diana Gabaldon, Alexis Hall, and Olivia Waite’s Feminine Pursuits series, where a modern bisexual woman is thrown into Regency England and must figure out how to survive, while she falls in love with a woman who will become a famous author.

Just a twenty-first century gal with nineteenth-century problems…

When Sam’s plane crashes catastrophically over the Atlantic, it defies all odds for Sam to be the sole survivor. But it seems impossible that she’s rescued by a warship in 1805. With a dashing sea captain as her guide, she begins to find her footing in a world she’d only seen in movies.

Then Sam is betrayed. At the mercy of the men and morals of the time, and without the means to survive on her own, she’s left with no choice but to throw herself on the charity of the captain's sisters. She resigns herself to a quiet life of forever hiding her true self. What she doesn't expect is that her new landlady is Margaret Goodenough—the world-famous author whose yet-to-be-completed novel will contain the first lesbian kiss in the history of British Literature, and a clever woman. Clever enough to know her new companion has a secret.

As the two women grow ever closer, Sam must tread the tenuous line between finding her own happiness in a place where she doesn’t think she’ll ever fit in, and possibly (accidentally) changing the course of history.

[bargainsleuthbooks]

#FunnyYouShouldAsk #ElissaSussman #BookReview #AudiobookReview #GoodreadsChoiceNominee #Romance #chicklit #RandomHouse

#Funnyyoushouldask by #Elissasussman is the kind of #contemporaryromance that you either love or hate, and I loved it on #Audiobook. #bookreview #audiobookreview #randomhouse #goodreadschoicenominee #romance #chicklit #goodreads #bargainsleuth

Then. Twentysomething writer Chani Horowitz is stuck. While her former MFA classmates are nabbing book deals, she’s in the trenches writing puff pieces. Then she’s hired to write a profile of movie star Gabe Parker. The Gabe Parker–her forever celebrity crush, the object of her fantasies, the background photo on her phone–who’s also just been cast as the new James Bond. It’s terrifying and…

[uwmspeccoll]

Milestone Monday

January 8th is the birthday of Frank Nelson Doubleday (1862-1934) who at age ten bought his own printing press to create advertisements and local Brooklyn news circulars and seventy-five years later was known as the co-founder of the largest publisher in the United States. At fifteen years old, Doubleday went to work at Charles Scribner’s Sons, eventually publishing Scribner’s Magazine and heading their subscription book department. After eighteen years, Doubleday left the company and partnered with Samuel Sidney McClure (1857-1949) to open their own publishing venture Doubleday & McClure Company in 1897. 

Over the years, Doubleday & McClure Company worked with numerous notable authors and would evolve through a dizzying number of partnerships, acquisitions, and name changes while it grew into an international communications company, eventually settling into a merger with Knopf Publishing Group under Penguin Random House in the early 2000s. In its infancy, still known as Doubleday & McClure, the company found great success with Rudyard Kipling’s (1865-1936) bestseller The Day’s Work. 

Published in 1898, The Day’s Work contains thirteen fictional short stories accompanied by illustrations throughout. The stories were written between 1893 and 1896 while Kipling was living in his Bliss Cottage in Vermont and simultaneously working on The Jungle Book. Unlike many of Kipling’s other collections, there are no poems dividing the stories within The Day’s Work. The black and white illustrations within the collection were drawn by four different artists including, William Dodge Stevens (1870-1942), William Louis Sonntag Jr. (1869-1898), Ernest Leonard Blumenschein (1874-1960), and William Ladd Taylor (1854-1926); each leaning into their strengths to support Kipling’s vivid narrative.  

Read other Milestone Monday posts here! 

– Jenna, Special Collections Graduate Intern 

[elwenyere]

Truly wild to see the degree to which employers in the post-George-Floyd era are publicly saying "thank goodness we don't have to pretend to care about that anymore."

[gulyas069]

gotta love random design changes in a book series