4. Tor Books partners with Seven Seas to form new manga imprint

Tor Books, an imprint of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, which claims to be the largest publisher of science fiction in the world, has formed a new manga imprint with Seven Seas Entertainment, LLC. Seven Seas, founded in 2004, publishes manga, manga-inspired novels and illustrated juvenile fiction, and is one of the only publishers that produces original manga content in the US.

The new Tor/Seven Seas imprint will showcase the efforts of both companies working together to jointly acquire and co-publish some of Japan's best-selling and most exciting manga series, light novels, and other fiction. Beginning with books scheduled for publication in early 2008, Tor will also be distributing new Seven Seas titles every month, under the Seven Seas imprint.

Manga (pronounced mahn-gah, with a hard “g”), the Japanese version of comic books, is a publishing phenomenon that, in 2006, represented a $4.4 billion market in Japan and a $175-200 million market in the U.S.

In August 2008, Tor and Seven Seas will publish their first collaborative venture under the Tor/Seven Seas imprint, the manga Afro Samurai, written and illustrated by Takashi Okazaki. Afro Samurai, created in Japan but releasing here in the U.S. for the first time, was the basis for the popular Spike TV anime series that premiered in 2007 and featured the voices of Samuel L. Jackson, Ron Perlman and Kelly Hu. The publication of Afro Samurai will kick off a multi-platform promotional campaign, including an Afro Samurai video game by Namco and the launch of Spike TV's second Afro Samurai season, both slated for fall 2008.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Afro Samurai's author, Takashi Okazaki, explained that Afro's character was inspired by musicians he saw on old episodes of the television program "Soul Train," which aired in the 1990s in Japan, and that "I also loved Japanese samurai flicks. So one day, I combined the two."

Jason DeAngelis, founder and chief creative officer at Seven Seas, lived, worked, and studied martial arts in Japan for six years. His fluency in Japanese brought him work translating such prominent manga titles as Berserk and Gundam Seed. Jason oversees the production of Seven Seas' original projects.

5. Breaking news from the book barons

The third book by stock market guru Jim Cramer was released in December. Jim Cramer's Stay Mad for Life ($26) is likely to enjoy hefty sales as he promotes it on his popular CNBC television show. According to Ed Nawotka, writing for Bloomberg, Cramer’s two previous books, Jim Cramer's Real Money (2005) and Jim Cramer's Mad Money (2006), sold 476,000 copies and 258,000 copies respectively, based on Nielsen BookScan data. Simon & Schuster printed 350,000 copies for the initial December bookstore release of the new Cramer book... While Cramer has a national television audience for his platform, prosperity gospel preacher Joel Osteen not only has that but a devoted Christian following as well for his platform. So while Cramer’s book had a piddling first printing of 350,000 copies, Osteen’s recently released second book had an initial printing of three million copies, nearly 10 times that. Osteen’s Become a Better You recently debuted at No. 1 on major bestseller lists. In a confidential deal with Free Press reported to be worth as much as $13 million, Lakewood Church of Houston Pastor Osteen delivered a guaranteed audience. The nondenominational church he pastors is America's largest congregation with 45,000 members. Broadcasts of Osteen's weekly services are shown on seven networks in the United States and reach more than 100 countries. His church also has e-mail lists of 750,000 people, and his first book, Your Best Life Now, has sold nearly five million copies since 2004. Chain bookstores began taking advance orders for Become a Better You from customers two months prior to publication… Hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management has been slowly increasing its ownership of Borders Group. In November, it reported that it owns 17.1 percent of the company, up from 11.7 percent in October. Usually when an investor takes a large position in a stock, its price goes up. But Borders stock has been steadily declining in value as Barnes & Noble takes away market share from it… According to The Times of London, Guiness World Records has been put up for sale by its owner, Hit Entertainment, with a price tag close to £60m (over $120 million). The company wants to concentrate on developing kids’ characters such as Bob the Builder and Barney the Dinosaur. Hit hopes buyers will recognize Guiness’s valuable intellectual property and recurring revenues. First published in 1955, GWR has sold 110 million books worldwide and has been translated into 37 languages. GWR was sold to Hit by Diageo, owner of Guinness stout, in 1997… Alibris, a much maligned book marketplace that has long played fourth fiddle to Abebooks, Amazon Marketplace and eBay, has announced that founder Marty Manley is stepping down after 10 years to start a new company. Alibris President and COO Brian Elliott will become CEO of the online book, music, and movie exchange as of 2008…

6. Mosley writing new series featuring African-American PI in New York

Walter Mosley, the award-winning New York Times best-selling author, has agreed to a three-book deal with Riverhead Books. The books will be edited by Sean McDonald of Riverhead, who acquired world hardcover, paperback and audio rights to the works from literary agent Gloria Loomis of Watkins Loomis. Two of the books will be part of a new mystery series Mosley is launching that will feature Leonid McGill, an African-American private investigator based in contemporary New York City. The character was first introduced by Mosley in one of his short stories, "Karma," which was included in the Best American Mystery Stories of 2006 anthology. The first book in Mosley's new series will be published in hardcover by Riverhead in 2009, with NAL publishing the title in paperback the following year. Mosley will also be writing a literary novel for Riverhead.

On Dec. 26, not part of the Riverhead deal, Bloomsbury will release 60,000 copies of Mosley's third book this year into stores: Diablerie is an erotic thriller about a philandering computer programmer for a New York City bank.

Mosley is the author of 27 critically acclaimed books and his work has been translated into 23 languages. His popular mysteries featuring Easy Rawlins began with Devil in a Blue Dress in 1990, later made into a movie starring Denzel Washington. Others in the series include Black Betty, A Little Yellow Dog and the current New York Times bestseller, Blonde Faith.

Mosley has also written novels outside of his two mystery series including literary fiction (Killing Johnny Fry, Fortunate Son, The Man in My Basement, RL's Dream, Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned, and Walkin' the Dog), science fiction (The Wave, Blue Light and Futureland), works of nonfiction (This Year You Write Your Novel, Life Out of Context, Workin' on the Chain Gang and What Next) and a young adult novel, 47.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Mosley now lives in New York City.

7. This time it’s Jezebel: books focus on Bible’s bad girls

Few historical characters rival Jezebel for negative stereotypes. Today, “she’s a household word for badness,” one scholar says. Culturally, she’s portrayed as a brash, sexually provocative woman wearing too much make-up, another observes.

So in her new book, author Lesley Hazleton strives to set aside stereotypes and cultural images and show whom Jezebel, one of history’s most infamous women, really was.

“She was a magnificent, proud, powerful queen of Israel,” said Hazleton, author of the recently released Jezebel: The Untold Story of the Bible’s Harlot Queen. “She was anything but the harlot and the slut of legend.”

Jezebel was a Phoenician princess whose marriage to Israel’s King Ahab was one of political convenience. She ran into trouble with the prophet Elijah when she brought her many gods to monotheistic Israel.

After a 31-year reign, she died a gruesome death, pushed out of a window and trampled by horses, then eaten by dogs.

In today’s society, Jezebel means prostitute, an association Hazleton said springs from the “dismaying literalism” with which people have read an Old Testament metaphor.

Biblical authors, not unlike modern writers, knew they could get their readers’ attention by sexualizing their material, Hazleton said. And so, they used the term “harlot” to describe people who abandoned Israel’s God to pursue foreign gods.

Jehu, the man who killed Jezebel, forever linked the word “harlot” with her name when he asked her son: “What peace, so long as the harlotries of your mother Jezebel and her witchcrafts are so many?” (2 Kings 9:22).

Alice Ogden Bellis, a professor at Howard University School of Divinity and author of Helpmates, Harlots, and Heroes, a book about Old Testament women, agreed the writer’s metaphor has been dangerously misconstrued.

“The narrator is not accusing her (Jezebel) of any sexual impropriety,” she said.

Hazleton’s book is the latest installment in a continuing trend of books focusing on the overlooked stories of biblical women. Liz Curtis Higgs wrote Bad Girls of the Bible in 1999, focusing on some of the not-so-nice women in the Bible.

She agreed Jezebel had a powerful personality and strong leadership abilities, but does not put the queen in such a good light in her book.

“Hers is a tragic story when you get right down to it, because she had so much potential,” Higgs said. “But she was working for the wrong God.”

Bellis wrote her book when she couldn’t find a textbook to use in her graduate school class on Hebrew women. Her work surveys the literature - academic, creative and sermonic - written about biblical women.

In the last 30 years, “most of the books written about women in the Bible have been written by women,” Bellis observed. And while some women wrote on this subject before the 1970s, she said most treatments were nonacademic.

The advent of birth control, though, combined with increased accessibility to higher education, launched women from the home into careers that allowed them to write scholarly works.

“Basically, the profusion of books on women in the Bible... has coincided with the women’s movement and the increasing numbers of academically trained female biblical scholars,” Bellis said.

Recent years have brought an “increased interest in historical women, period,” Higgs said. Women are interested in stories that have stood the test of time, she said.

As a Christian, Higgs finds herself inspired by stories of virtuous women. But as a human, the stories of the Bible’s “bad girls” intrigue her. “They’re the ones I’m most like,” she said. (Source: news release by Heather Donckels, Religion News Service)

8. There be sharks: Be careful of where you’re swimming in the book biz

Where should you look for a publisher if you’re a fledgling romance writer? One place where you might find it helpful to start is at the Web site of Brenda_Hiatt. She’s done extensive research on romance publishers and what they pay for books published in conventional and digital formats. She has information on the solid romance publishers and what they pay. You might be cautious of publishers who are on list but don’t pay at least a $1,000 advance against royalties. You won’t likely sell many books with the ones who don’t pay advances – and publishing with one that doesn’t pay at least a $1,000 advance will likely exclude you from participating as a panelist at the annual convention of the Romance Writers of America… Many writers who have trouble finding a conventional publisher turn to self-publishing or to e-book publishers. The latter, while they usually pay royalties but not advances, are more likely to publish material that would never see the light of day at the conventional houses. The problem with them is, as you might guess if you’ve been reading back issues of the Southern Review, is that not all the e-book publishers, especially those who specialize in erotica, are financially solid. Look at Triskelion and Mardi Gras for examples. Some of the less solvent ones promise to pay royalties but don’t. If you publish with one of the marginal fly-by-nighters, you could easily end up with your copyright tied up in a future bankruptcy action. Before commiting, you might check the Web site of Piers Anthony, who tracks the fortunes of digital publishers. The reason e-book publishers are more likely to accept marginal material is that the cost of entry into e-book publishing is even less than the cost of print on demand or POD publishing of ink and paper books. In part because of the low cost of entry, the e-book industry is growing at double-digit rates, compared to the conventional book industry, where sales are stagnant. But the e-book industry is still miniscule compared to the conventional book publishing industry. The Association of American Publishers puts 2006 e-book sales at $54 million, representing 0.02 percent of total book sales of $24.2 billion. Romances are one of the more popular e-book genres. Harlequin Enterprises Ltd. publishes 120 to 140 romantic novels per month, all of which are also sold as e-books. It has also started selling short stories exclusively as e-books, selling them for 89 cents. But even at Harlequin, e-books still make up less than one percent of sales, according to Malle Vallik, the company's director of digital content…

9. Oklahoma couple prosper by publishing local, regional history titles

Bob and Yvonne Evans of Barnsdall, Okla., after a career deve