BTW News Briefs

PEN Center USA 2015 Literary Award Winners Announced

PEN Center USA has announced the winners of its 2015 Literary Awards. The Los Angeles-based nonprofit for writers, which serves as PEN’s headquarters for the Western U.S., awards prizes each year in poetry, nonfiction, fiction, screenwriting, journalism, and other categories.

Among this year’s winners are:

• Creative Nonfiction Award: Meghan Daum, The Unspeakable (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Fiction Award: Robert Thomas, Bridge (BOA Editions, Ltd.)
• Graphic Literature Innovator Award: G. Willow Wilson
• Poetry Award: Claudia Rankine, Citizen (Graywolf Press) 
• Research Nonfiction Award: McKenzie Funk, “Windfall” (Penguin Press)
• Translation Award: Ainsley Morse and Peter Golub, Anatomical Theater (Zephyr)
• UC Press First Book Award: Jordana Moore Saggese, “Reading Basquiat” (University of California Press)
• Young Adult/Children’s Award: Leslye Walton, The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender (Candlewick Press)

The awards ceremony at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on November 16 will be hosted by comedian Aisha Tyler for a second year. Other awards to be given out include a lifetime achievement award for filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola; a First Amendment Award to CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou; and the “Award of Honor” to investigative journalism nonprofit ProPublica.         

Pearson to Hold Onto Penguin Random House Until 2017

Pearson Plc, which agreed to sell the Financial Times in July, intends to hold onto its final asset, Penguin Random House, until at least 2017, according to Pearson CEO John Fallon in a recent report by Bloomberg.

Fallon said Pearson will wait to sell Penguin Random House since business is good, with the company generating earnings of $511 million last year, Bloomberg reported.

Pearson has the option to sell its 47 percent stake in Penguin Random House as early as next month under an agreement with Germany’s Bertelsmann SE, which owns the rest.

Pearson is allowed to sell its stake to Bertelsmann on the third anniversary of the 2012 agreement to combine Pearson’s Penguin with Bertelsmann’s Random House.

Ingram Publisher Services Adds Five New Clients

Ingram Publisher Services has announced the addition of five new publisher clients: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Made for Success Publishing, Books & Books Press, Waterhouse Press, and Hoffman Media.

Wilfrid Laurier University Press, established in 1974, publishes history, literature, music, sociology and social work, life writing, film and media, indigenous studies, environmental studies, and cultural criticism.

Made for Success Publishing, a Seattle-based company, has published business books, e-books, and audiobooks since 2005 for professional speakers and executives.

Books & Books Press is the publishing imprint of independent bookstore Books & Books, which has multiple locations in Florida and is owned by former American Booksellers Association president Mitchell Kaplan.

Waterhouse Press is a New Hampshire-based romance publisher, which launched in 2014.

Hoffman Media, LLC is a special-interest publisher based in Birmingham, Alabama, that specializes in women’s lifestyle books and magazines.

Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2015 Shortlist Revealed

The Booker Prize Foundation has announced the shortlist for the 2015 Man Booker Prize for Fiction.

The six names, chosen from a longlist of 13 that was gleaned from 156 submitted books, were announced Tuesday.

This is the second year that the prize, first awarded in 1969, has been open to writers of any nationality, writing originally in English and published in the U.K. Previously, the prize was open only to authors from the U.K. and the Commonwealth, Republic of Ireland, and Zimbabwe. 

The 2015 shortlist of six novels is:

• Marlon James (Jamaica): A Brief History of Seven Killings (Oneworld Publications)
• Tom McCarthy (UK): Satin Island (Jonathan Cape)
• Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria): The Fishermen (ONE, Pushkin Press)
• Sunjeev Sahota (UK): The Year of the Runaways (Picador)
• Anne Tyler (US): A Spool of Blue Thread (Chatto & Windus)
• Hanya Yanagihara (US): A Little Life (Picador)

The 2015 winner will be announced on October 13 at a dinner at London’s Guildhall and will be broadcast by the BBC.

ASTRA Names New President

Kimberly Mosley has been appointed the new president of the American Specialty Toy Retailing Association (ASTRA).

The toy and children’s product association conducted a nationwide search to fill the position previously held by President Kathleen McHugh. Mosley, who has a Masters of Business Administration and is a Certified Association Executive, comes to ASTRA from the American College of Healthcare Executives.

“ASTRA is a fiscally and programmatically strong organization with a long tradition of responsiveness to the business needs of its members,” Mosley said. “I will continue that important tradition. I am eager to work with members to strengthen the segment of the toy industry that is committed to quality toys with high play value, and to bring specialty toy professionals together to help each other succeed.”

Mosley will assume the role of president on September 28.

Authors Guild Survey Finds Members’ Incomes Down 30 Percent Since 2009

A recent Authors Guild survey of its members found that authors’ incomes have decreased by 30 percent since the organization’s last survey in 2009,

The figures for full-time book authors dropped from $25,000 to $17,500. The Guild further found that authors are spending more time marketing than ever before, and that hybrid authorship is up, reflecting that the business of being an author is both more varied and less profitable than in 2009.

“The Wages of Writing: Key Findings from the Authors Guild 2015 Member Survey,” carried out by publishing industry research firm the Codex Group, can be found here.