As Genre Shows Go Mainstream, TV Execs Are Looking to Novelists for the Next Hit

TV network options on books have exploded. Publishers Lunch, a trade that tracks book industry deals, lists an ever-increasing number of television options over the last few years, with 2013 setting the record and this year looking good. And with massive success stories like Game of Thrones ruling the roost on cable, a disproportionate number of those books are genre fiction. Bill McGoldrick, head of programming for NBCUniversal’s Syfy network, says part of the appeal is the charge a reader gets from a good book with a thoroughly thought-out world. It captures your imagination, even if you’re using that imagination to figure out what your programming slate is going to look like. “The imagination behind the intellectual property, when you’re a producer or a writer or somebody sitting in my chair, fills out the world for you in a way that the script can’t,” he said. “You get behind the curtain in a way the script doesn’t allow you to do.” McGoldrick is overseeing his network’s adaptation of The Magicians trilogy, a fantasy cycle by Time book critic and tech writer Lev Grossman that reads a little like Bright Lights, Big City meets The Chronicles of Narnia. Everybody’s looking for “the next Game of Thrones,” as you’ll hear often from execs. An accounting of books in development for television these days reads like a laundry list of fan requests from Comic-Con. Diana Gabaldon’s Scottish time-travel series Outlander is getting the royal treatment on Starz (Neil Gaiman’s... Continue reading at 'AdWeek'

[ AdWeek | 2014-09-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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FSG Gets Cozy With the Wolverines for Breakout Hit

Stoking the excitement, or the anger, of sports fans can be highly effective. Just ask FSG, which has a sleeper hit on its hands after reaching out to Michigan Wolverine football fans for its book about former head coach, Rich Rodriguez. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2011-11-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Digital Book Census shows rates creep up

Digital royalty rates paid to authors by publishers are increasing, though there remains... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-11-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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International Bestsellers, November 2011: Literary Novels Hit in Germany, Italy

The top three fiction titles in Germany were all debuts in October, led by In Times of Fading Light, which recently won the 2011 German Book Prize and is set for publication in the U.S. by Graywolf Press in fall 2013. Umberto Eco’s newest book, The Prague Cemetery, which debuted at #3, is newly... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2011-11-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Keeping Regional Shows Relevant

For the past five years publishers have talked about the need to consolidate trade shows—and lower their costs. A struggling economy, the increased power of Amazon, and the erosion of print book sales to ebooks have only accelerated calls for change from not only publishers but from some... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2011-11-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Elf Heads to TV For the Holidays

It may be increasingly common for first-time authors who can’t place their book with a trade house to publish themselves. But it’s pretty rare for a self-published book to sell more than 1.5 million copies—or move to the small screen as an animated film to be aired on CBS in prime time on Black... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2011-11-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Phone hacking scandal hits publishing

Written By: Benedicte Page Publication Date: Fri, 21/10/2011 - 08:33 The News of the World phone hacking scandal has hit the book industry, with the revelation that private material relating to individuals within the trade has been discovered by police during "Operation Weeting". Both agent... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-10-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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New Holland hit by more redundancies

Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Thu, 20/10/2011 - 15:50 Illustrated publisher New Holland has undergone its third round of redundancies in four years, with nearly half the company’s UK staff leaving the publisher, including its managing director. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-10-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Magazines Look to TV…Again

With print media in decline, magazine companies are working feverishly to get a foothold in TV and video. Two that have been especially aggressive on this front are Condé Nast, which just started an entertainment division and hired cable vet Dawn Ostroff to run it; and Hearst Corp., which... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2011-10-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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AOP Summit 2011: Publishers must show courage of conviction

The opportunity to put a value on content and services should be harnessed and not feared by publishers, a panel at the AOP Digital Publishing Summit 2011 has argued. Continue reading at Media Week

[ Media Week | 2011-10-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Global woes unlikely to hit US business at Frankfurt

Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Mon, 10/10/2011 - 08:43 Leading US publishers are looking forward to this week's Frankfurt Book Fair, with both Simon & Schuster and Hachette bringing more editors than they did last year. Hachette US chairman and c.e.o. David Young will be... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-10-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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'The Book Show' moves to primetime

Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Tue, 04/10/2011 - 10:10 Sky Arts is moving "The Book Show" to a new primetime slot on Thursdays when it returns for a fifth series next week. The show, presented by Mariella Frostrup, will be broadcast at 8pm and opens with four episodes from the... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-10-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Another Rodale Exec’s Exit Points to Changes at Publisher

Gregg Michaelson, the integrated marketing president and chief marketing office with Rodale, has left the company. Michaelson was with the publisher since 2001, beginning his tenure with Rodale’s book division. Continue reading at Folio Magazine

[ Folio Magazine | 2011-09-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Study Shows Only 38.4 Percent of Digital Media Users Engage with Mag Content

As publishers prep for the next big tablet hope (Amazon is set to release its much-awaited tablet device on Wednesday), a new survey released from global business advisory firm FTI Consulting, Inc. details how digital media users (including tablet users and non-tablet users) are engaging with... Continue reading at Folio Magazine

[ Folio Magazine | 2011-09-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Strong showing for Faber on First Biography Prize shortlist

Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Mon, 26/09/2011 - 08:35 Faber has scored three of the shortlisted titles for the £5,000 HW Fisher Best First Biography Prize, with books from Bloomsbury, Northumbria Press and Yale University Press making up the rest of the selection. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Women's brands hard hit by downturn

Written By: Benedicte Page, Felicity Wood and Philip Stone Publication Date: Fri, 23/09/2011 - 10:15 A squeeze on consumer spending in supermarkets and the migration to digital are being blamed for the spectacular falls in sales suffered by many of the UK’s biggest commercial women’s novelists... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #lesley pearse #jill mansell #harriet evans #maeve binchy #veronica henry #jodi picoult #marian keyes


Somerset library campaigners hit fundraising goal

Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Wed, 21/09/2011 - 12:30 Campaigners against library closures in Somerset have reached its initial target in fundraising for the forthcoming legal review. Earlier this year, 11 closures in the region were announced with six to shut in October and five... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Walker strengthens licensing for TV titles

Written By: Caroline Horn Publication Date: Fri, 16/09/2011 - 16:12 Walker Books is strengthening its licensing operations in order to exploit forthcoming television deals for its properties including the Tilly and Friends series and Sam McBratney and Anita Jeram’s Guess How Much I Love You.... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Daunt's flat rate discount "could hit author royalties"

Written By: Benedicte Page Publication Date: Fri, 16/09/2011 - 08:31 Waterstone’s proposed higher discount, flat rate terms for publishers, put forward in exchange for scrapping promotion fees, could hit author royalties, according to agents and the Society of Authors. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Horrid Henry sales hit 17m mark

Written By: Benedicte Page Publication Date: Thu, 08/09/2011 - 15:40 UK sales for Francesca Simon's Horrid Henry series have hit 17m, Orion has announced. The figure includes Commonwealth sales and sales through channels including school book clubs. Nielsen BookScan figures, which started four... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Former Marvel Entertainment Exec Joins Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia as CFO

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia names Ken West as its new chief financial officer. West replaces Kelly Turner, who left the company in January. MSLO’s new addition comes from Marvel Entertainment, an American entertainment company where he held the executive vice president and chief financial... Continue reading at Folio Magazine

[ Folio Magazine | 2011-09-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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