Lunch for Wednesday, March 5

From the AAP Annual Meeting
The AAP convened its annual meeting in New York today, but panelists had no big surprises for the attendees. 
 
Amazon's Steve Kessel was generally evasive in responses to Richard Sarnoff of Random House's focused questions. One implied message was don't expect any big physical changes in the Kindle any time soon: "We're pretty focused on the current interation of Kindle." Their focus is on "getting back in stock" with the devices and "increasing the selection beyond the 100,000 or so books that are available today." He had "no comment specifically" on Sarnoff's queries about things like a better screen, color, and enhanced/additional features, but did reiterate that "we made Kindle to be a purpose-driven reading deivce." As for the price, "We think it's a great price point for the value the customers are getting."
 
While sharing precious few details on the Kindle's performance, Kessel does note that "customers tell us they are Kindlizing their phsyical libraries. We have one customer who has already purchased over 800 books for their Kindle" and "we are seeing lots of customers doing things like this."
 
We have longer coverage of Kessel and other speakers in Lunch Deluxe -- the other appearances included Borders CEO George Jones (who said "sales have been way better than expectations" in their new concept store, and addressed co-op, his publishing proram, and higher-priced mass upperbacks), and former Simon & Schuster ceo Jack Romanos (who said "I would urge the industry to be very cautious" in lifting DRM from digital audio files.")
 
First Lady Laura Bush addressed the group briefly, placing our product above her husband: "So many of you are responsible for the greatest love affair of my life -- books." Her main message was to link reading with thinking, and "literacy and liberty."

Octopus Reaches Out to America
Hachette's Octopus Publishing Group has announced a new US division, launching in January 2009. VP of client services at Hachette Book Group US Jonathan Stolper will run the new line as associate publisher of Octopus Books USA, reporting to Octopus deputy ceo Andrew Welham in London. (He was formerly vp of sales and marketing at Abrams). Hachette will distribute the line in the US and Canadian Manda will handle sales in Canada.
 
Octopus has been selling co-editions to US publishers and distributing some books directly through Sterling. Distributed titles will over to Hachette in January 2009.
 
The US line will draw on all of Octopus's UK imprints as well as appropriate Hachette Livre books from other countries, and is expected to issue 150 titles in the first year. Launch titles will include British chef Marco Pierre White's book to tie in with the American broadcast of his television series.
 
Octopus ceo Alison Goff says "this exciting move will allow Octopus to become a truly global publisher and gives us an even stronger presence in the world's largest book market.  We will benefit from locally based US input into our publishing plans and we're very much looking forward to working with our colleagues at our sister company Hachette Book Group USA. "

Today's Extras
As noted above, today's full Lunch Deluxe features much more from today's AAP meeting, as well as including these additional stories and links:
 
The Truth About Consequences?
Harper Doesn't Do Lunch
Cooper Leaves Grove
What Is the Frequency, Oprah? Webinar Troubles
 
along with lots more deals -- from busy reports this week, plus the 130 or so not included in last night's free version of our round-up.
 
Meanwhile, PublishersMarketplace.com always features all of the unique data and tools that drive business every day: Unlimited access to deals, our new Top Dealmakers (with 180 lists of busy agents, agencies, editors and imprints) live contacts, our representation database, comprehensive coverage of reviews and bestseller lists from all over, special tools ranging from the Book Tracker to Amazoom, our custom publishing search index, and the new top reviewers tables.
 
Plus our popular member pages and blogs bring hundreds of thousands of focused page views from the publishing world to about 1,300 posted pages every month.
 
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Another One for Ferris
Joshua Ferris has won the 2008 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for his first novel THEN WE CAME TO THE END. The finalists are Ravi Howard's Like Trees Walking and Rebecca Curtis's Twenty Grand (Harper Collins).

Personnel News
Cathleen Tetro has been promoted to publisher of academic publisher Westview Press, where she has worked for 12 years. Parent company Perseus says "during the past four years, Westview has been completely reinvented and become one of Perseus's most successful lines."

Lots of New Jobs
We added 5 more new jobs to our industry-leading Job Board yesterday, still with over 120 new opportunities live in all.
 
For employers, we provide the unbeatable combination of the largest circulation in the business by far, a total focus on book publishing only, and the best prices anywhere.
 
And for job-seekers, we present great new possibilities every day and conveniences like an RSS ping to keep you posted on every new offering. Among the latest:  

Web Producer - Crown  [Full Time]
Random House (New York, NY)
   
Web Designer - Crown  [Full Time]
Random House (New York, NY)
   
Director, Business Operations - Crown  [Full Time]
Random House (New York, NY)
 
Editor  [Full Time]
Avalon Books (New York, NY)
   
Editorial Assistant  [Full Time]
HarperCollins Publishers (New York, NY)

Publishersmarketplace.com/jobs
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