BTW News Briefs

IPG to Import Cuban Books

The book distributor IPG has signed a deal with Corporativo yvt, a Peruvian distributor active in the Cuban book market, to import books by three Cuban publishers into the U.S., Publishers Weekly has reported.

The deal was negotiated by Diana Calice, manager of IPG’s Spanish-language book distribution program. Calice said that since the contract is with the Peruvian distributor — not directly with a Cuban publisher — it does not violate the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, as it is legal to ship books into and out of Cuba via a third party company.

Books from the Cuban publishers Citmatel, Ediciones Cubanas, and Felix Verela will be produced for the U.S. via print-on-demand, Calice told PW, and will likely be ready to distribute in the U.S. in November of this year.

Calice said the deal was made possible by the U.S. Publishing Mission’s trip to Havana in February sponsored by PW and Combined Book Exhibit.

University of Georgia Press to Outsource Distribution to Longleaf

The University of Georgia Press is shutting down its distribution center and is partnering with Longleaf Services, Inc. for order fulfillment. The Press will be moving all of its books to Longleaf distribution facilities by July 1.

Longleaf, a non-profit company, was established by the University of North Carolina Press in 2006 to provide order processing, collection management, warehousing, and fulfillment for university presses. Other university presses that work with Longleaf include Cornell University Press, Louisiana State University Press, University of Nebraska Press, and Syracuse University Press.

Bloomsbury to Restructure, Shift Focus to Non-Consumer Books

Bloomsbury Publishing has announced that it will be instituting a new initiative, Bloomsbury 2020, to reposition itself as a digital B2B (business-to-business) publisher, The Bookseller reported.

Bloomsbury, which publishes the Harry Potter series in the U.K., plans to shift from being primarily a publisher of consumer books to focusing on non-consumer areas in the academic and professional categories and capitalizing on the $5 billion academic libraries market, according to Bloomsbury CEO Nigel Newton. The U.K.-based company has offices in New York, Sydney, and New Delhi.

Bloomsbury will be streamlining its business into two separate divisions: consumer and non-consumer. Starting June 1, the children’s trade and adult trade businesses will merge to form the new consumer division, which will be managed by Emma Hopkin, who is currently the managing director of Bloomsbury’s children’s and educational division.

All other operations will fall under the non-consumer division, to be managed by Jonathan Glasspool, currently the managing director of Bloomsbury’s academic and professional division. Glasspool will report to Bloomsbury Publishing Executive Director Richard Charkin.

Isabel Allende to Receive PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award

Chilean-American author Isabel Allende will be awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from PEN Center USA, the West Coast version of PEN, at the organization’s annual literary awards dinner in September, the L.A. Times reported.

Allende, who lives in Northern California, is widely considered one of the world’s best Spanish-language authors. Her novels have been published in 35 languages and sold 67 million copies. Her latest novel, The Japanese Lover (translated by Nick Caistor and Amanda Hopkinson), was released in November.

Allende, the cousin of former Chilean president Salvador Allende, will be presented with the award at PEN Center USA’s 26th annual Literary Awards Festival at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on September 28, where she will be celebrated for her feminism, her commitment to social justice, and her take on the 1973 military coup in Chile, according to the L.A. Times.

2016 O. Henry Prize Stories Announced

The 20 winners of this year’s O. Henry Prize Stories were announced on May 19 by Literary Hub.

The stories, representing the best short fiction of the year, will appear in an anthology this September from Anchor, edited by The O. Henry Prize Stories series editor Laura Furman.

To be considered for the prize, all stories submitted by magazine editors must be published in an American or Canadian periodical that is not online-only. Stories must be written originally in English and may not be novel excerpts or works in translation.

Furman chooses 20 winners from the stories submitted; each juror then reads the 20 winning stories in manuscript form, without knowledge of author names or publications.

This year’s anthology includes stories by Wendell Berry (“Dismemberment,” The Threepenny Review), Sam Savage (“Cigarettes,” The Paris Review), Diane Cook (“Bounty,” Harper’s); and Ron Carlson (“Happiness,” Ecotone). Six of the year’s top stories are available to read here.