Penguin Canada
Penguin Canada Earns More Prestigious Awards
Penguin Group (Canada) followed up its 2008 Publisher of the Year win with four awards from the Canadian Booksellers' Association in 2009, including Marketing Achievement of the Year, Sales Representative of the Year, and a double win for 2008 Scotiabank Giller Prize winner Joseph Boyden. Boyden's critically acclaimed Through Black Spruce won the Fiction Book of the Year Award, and he won Author of the Year honours for his outstanding literary work, contribution to Canadian culture and support to the bookselling industry.
Through Black Spruce has sold over 90,000 copies in hardcover since its publication last September. Three Day Road, hailed internationally as a masterpiece, has sold over 150,000 copies and maintains a strong presence on the country's bestseller lists. Boyden's biography of Métis leaders Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont will be published as part of Penguin Canada's Extraordinary Canadians series in 2010.
Extraordinary Canadians, for which Penguin took home the Marketing Achievement of the Year Award, re-imagines Canada's most influential historical figures from the fresh perspective of writers such as Joseph Boyden, Douglas Coupland and Vincent Lam. A photo gallery featuring recent events and news on upcoming titles can be found at www.extraordinarycanadians.ca.
Adrienne Kerr, Penguin Canada Sales representative for Southwest Ontario, and formerly a bookseller for Nicholas Hoare and book buyer for HDS Retail, was honoured by the CBA as Sales Rep of the Year. Kerr has subsequently moved to Editorial to become Penguin Canada's commissioning editor for commercial fiction, and in a flurry of acquisitions has acquired three new books from international bestseller Sophie Hannah and two backlist titles from Robert Sawyer, recently profiled on Time.com and the author of FlashForward, the hot new series from ABC-TV starring Joseph Fiennes.
Penguin Group (Canada) author Alice Munro has won the third Man Booker International Prize. The prize, worth £60,000 or roughly $100,000 CDN, is the international version of the UK's Man Booker Prize and is awarded once every two years to an author for a body of work with outstanding international impact.
Penguin Canada Makes Major Acquisitions
Penguin imprint Hamish Hamilton has bought World English Language rights (excluding the US) to the long-awaited sequel to Vikram Seth's much-loved million copy bestseller A Suitable Boy (more details in Penguin India portion Bird's Nest). This is the first worldwide acquisition by Hamish Hamilton UK, together with its newly formed imprints in Melbourne, Toronto and Delhi. Also recently signed to Hamish Hamilton Canada is Miguel Syjuco, winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize. Syjuco's prize-winning novel, Ilustrado, will be published in Canada in April 2010. Rights have sold in 16 countries.
Other significant acquisitions by Penguin Canada include a new novel by Giller Prize Winner Joseph Boyden, The Long Song by Andrea Levy, Imagine: The Science of Creativity by Jonah Lehrer, , an untitled memoir by Steven Page, former lead singer of The Bare Naked Ladies, Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes, a highly touted YA debut by LA based Canadian screenwriter Jonathan Auxier, and Journey of Injustice: Canada's Underground World of Human Trafficking by Benjamin Perrin, one of nine individuals in the world to receive a "Trafficking in Persons Hero" award from the U.S. Department of State as part of the annual global Trafficking in Persons report released by Hillary Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State.
Steig Larsson's Books Lead Penguin Canada's Bestsellers Across the Provinces
Raging across Canadian bestseller lists and currently the top selling Penguin titles in both hardcover and paperback at Indigo are Steig Larsson's phenomenally bestselling The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire. The books have sold over 15 million copies worldwide in 34 languages. Canadian rights were snapped up by Executive Editor Nicole Winstanley and the series continues to show huge upward growth potential.
Bestselling YA Author Eoin Colfer to Pick Up Where the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Left Off
Penguin Group (Canada) won the rights to publish the sixth novel in the ever-more increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, in a competitive auction among Canada's major publishing houses. Eight years after the tragically early death of its creator, Douglas Adams, widow Jane Belson has sanctioned the project to be written by the bestselling children's writer, Eoin Colfer, author of the Artemis Fowl novels. The new book "And Another Thing..." will be published in hardcover, e-book and audio book by Penguin in October 2009.
Bram Stoker's Great Grand Nephew Brings Dracula Back with the Un-Dead
The acquisition of the first authorized sequel to Bram Stoker's classic novel, Dracula, was another exciting moment for the commercial fiction department at Penguin Group (Canada) Co-written by the great grand nephew of Stoker and already optioned for a movie that is slated to begin filming in early 2009, The Un-Dead is a true sequel, picking up some twenty-five years after the close of the original and featuring all of the intrepid demon hunters, as well as a surprise appearance or two. The novel was acquired as part of a three book deal. Dacre Stoker was born and raised in Montreal, and the Canadian Stoker family is coming out to see the exciting marketing and publicity plans Penguin Group is rolling out.
Stuart McLean Gives Extreme Vinyl a Spin in His Newest Book
Penguin will release #1 bestseller and CBC radio host Stuart McLean's Extreme Vinyl Café on September 29th along with a mixed display of new editions of the Vinyl Café backlist. Promotional plans for Stuart's concert tour and an oversized "Book on Tour" are in place along with aerial advertising at Word on the Street. McLean will promote the Book on Tour on his radio show and start it on a cross-Canada mission for most autographed book in Canada. Postcards for the book will be distributed at concert tour venues including a 12 city Ontario tour in October followed by appearances in Newfoundland and Labrador, Vancouver and Victoria in November, and a 12 city cross Canada Christmas tour in December. The "book on tour" will travel from Halifax to Vancouver, with advertised signings at independent book stores in Stuart's concert tour cities, and promotion on CBC Radio.
Lastly, Penguin Canada author Jack Whyte, crossed the one million copy mark in August with the publication of Order in Chaos, the concluding novel in the Templar Trilogy. The Globe and Mail ran a front page story in Books & Focus with the headline One Pen, One Sword, One Million Sold. Whyte's new Scottish trilogy features Robert the Bruce, William Wallace and the Black Douglas and launches in August 2010 with The Forest Laird.