Bob Miller has unveiled the 23 titles that will make up his first list at HarperStudio, the imprint he started last spring at HarperCollins with the goal of finding a model for book publishing that doesn't rely on paying authors outsize advances or allowing retailers to return unsold stock. Mr. Miller's announcement, which he made this morning on HarperStudio's new blog, brings to an end several months of industry-wide speculation about just what kinds of projects he'd be able to sign up.

The most eye-catching title on the list is probably the collection of short, unpublished humor pieces by Mark Twain, which will be out in April.  read more »

It was a small party on Steve Rubin's roof last night, not a big party. Just two "civilians" there, as Jane Friedman, the guest of honor, put it—everyone else was either a publishing executive, an editor, a high-powered literary agent, or a member of her family.

Bob Miller, head of the Harper Studio imprint at the publishing house Ms. Friedman ran until a few months ago, said that if you bombed the terrace, "you'd lose the entire industry."

For Ms. Friedman, it was really just about friendship. Almost everyone who came, she said, except for the publicist Matthew Hiltzik, she'd known for over 20 years.  read more »

News Corp.'s fourth quarter earnings report is in, and it looks like HarperCollins made Rupert Murdoch about as much money this year ($160 million) as it did in 2007. His TV, cable, and film divisions, meanwhile, made him about $1.3 billion each! 

Sorry, sorry, just some perspective. Back to HarperCollins: earnings for this quarter ($29 million) were down slightly compared to Q3, but up by a full third compared to Q4 last year. According to the summary provided in the report, the biggest titles of the quarter were James Frey's Bright Shiny Morning, Elissa Wall's Stolen Innocence, and an updated edition of YOU: The Owner's Manual by Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet Oz.  read more »

Politico was first to the line in the race for Ron Suskind's embargoed new book, reporting last night at 11:23 PM that according to Mr. Suskind's reporting, the White House had ordered the CIA to forge a "back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein" in order to strengthen the link between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks. The book, entitled Way of the World, had been under lock and key ever since the 500,000 copies HarperCollins ordered for the first print run had come in.

As she prepared to go home yesterday, HarperCollins publicity director Tina Andreadis braced herself for a long, nervous night.  read more »

Collins, a division of HarperCollins, agreed to pay legendary Celtics center Bill Russell, 74, over $1 million dollars to write a book about his old coach, the late Red Auerbach. Hard to know, as always, whether that figure is just someone's guess or the real thing. We heard it from two sources, but Collins publisher Bruce Nichols did not immediately return an e-mail asking whether it was high or low. 

Auerbach, who died in 2006, won nine NBA championships as coach of the Celtics, and seven more after he became the team's GM in 1967.

Mr. Russell's book will be called Red and Me; Collins intends to publish in spring 2009. Power-agent Flip Brophy of Sterling Lord Literistic brokered the deal. 

New York takes a swing at the Jane Friedman mystery at the top of this week's Intelligencer, reporting a possibly controversial decision that Ms. Friedman made in April at the London Book Fair when she moved a book party for Egyptian novelist Alaa Al Aswany out of the HarperCollins booth because she found him too anti-Israel.

That "because" is disputed by a source close to Ms. Friedman, who tells New York that the author's politics had nothing to do with Ms. Friedman's decision to move his party out of the HC booth. The same source says that Ms. Friedman's abrupt exit from the company was not related to any of this.

Russell Brand, the British comedian most recently seen playing a sexy rock star in the Judd Apatow-produced comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall, has inked a $3 million dollar book deal with HarperCollins Worldwide, according to a source involved in the negotiations. That jaw-dropping sum got the house world English rights, which means they’ll be able to publish the book—described to Media Mob as a collection of comedic “rants”—through any of their international units and sell whatever rights they don’t want to other publishers.

Because Mr. Brand is a much bigger star in England than he is anywhere else, the UK unit is covering the lion’s share of that massive advance, our source said. Stateside, the book will be published through HC’s Collins division and overseen by editor Gillian Blake.  read more »

A few months have passed since Bob Miller left his longtime post atop Hyperion to start an experimental new imprint at HarperCollins designed to avoid big advances and bookstore returns—two of the most crippling structural issues facing contemporary publishing. So far, Mr. Miller has been operating quietly by himself, using his time to meet with literary agents and retailers, figuring out exactly how to realize his plan, and interviewing potential hires.  read more »

The Times and the Wall Street Journal have Day 2 stories on Jane Friedman’s abrupt exit from HarperCollins; both have interviews with Brian Murray, the new C.E.O., who says News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch, who has owned the publishing house for about 20 years, first summoned him about a promotion on Monday.

An unnamed Times source says Ms. Friedman didn’t discuss vacating her post with Mr. Murdoch until two days later, a couple of hours before Gawker.com floated a rumor that she’d been fired.

In the Journal, Mr. Murray reiterates what he told his staff at yesterday morning’s marketing meaning—that he talked to Mr. Murdoch and was assured that HarperCollins is not going up for sale.

"He told me that the company won't be sold, that HarperCollins is a content company and that News Corp. is a content company," Mr. Murray is quoted as saying.

Why this is all happening now is no clearer today than it was the other night when the news first broke.  read more »

HarperCollins staff are reeling today in the wake of last night's stunning announcement that their CEO of ten years, Jane Friedman, has been replaced by her 41-year-old deputy, Brian Murray. At the weekly marketing meeting held this morning in the central conference room on the second floor of the HarperCollins building, Ms. Friedman briefly addressed staff from all over publicity, marketing, sales and editorial, telling them that today would be her last day.

According to several people who were present, Ms. Friedman—who normally oversees the Thursday morning marketing meetings—spoke with sadness, and left the room to a standing ovation when she was done. Mr. Murray addressed the room of shell-shocked employees immediately afterward, reassuring them that while Ms. Friedman was irreplaceable, the future of the News Corp.-owned publishing house was in good hands.

In what might have been an attempt to quell rumors about the possibility of News Corp. putting HarperCollins up for sale, Mr. Murray said he had had a reassuring conversation with Rupert Murdoch during which the News Corp. chairman indicated that no drastic changes were imminent.  read more »