Little Brown to Publish The Twilight Saga: The Complete Film Archive

EW has just released some exciting news from Little Brown, the publishers of the Twilight novels:

For those of you anticipating Nov. 16th — the release of the final Twilight movie — with a mix of utmost dread and excitement, the good folks at Little, Brown will be releasing the definitive, lushly photographed tome to commemorate the record-breaking film series on Oct. 9. EW got the first peek at the cover and the scoop on what you can find inside — from the looks of it, you’ll have a hard time prying this must-have from a true Twihard’s cold, dead hands. Feast your eyes below!

See details and the full cover art at EW

Meg Tingley: The Editor Who Discovered Twilight Speaks Out

Meg Tingley is about to celebrate her 25th anniversary at Little Brown, the company that publishes The Twilight Saga novels and companion books. She talks to Big Think’s Pub Crawl Blog about what her instinct was when Twilight came across her desk and why she is proud of the series.

Pub Crawl: When you first read it, did you know that Twilight would end up being what it is today? Why did you pick this book when others had turned it down?

Megan Tingley: Did I ever imagine that girls would be screaming and crying at Stephenie’s book signings, or women would be naming their baby daughters Isabella, or that Twilight would propel an explosion in paranormal literature? Of course not! That said, I did have a distinct feeling when I read it—my heart was racing and my mind was reeling. The scenes came alive for me in a such a way that I felt I was right in the action with the characters. And I could see it as a book immediately. In fact, the text excerpt that appears on the back of Twilight is a passage I circled on the original manuscript while I was reading it for the first time on the plane—before I had even bought it. So, there was never any doubt or hesitation on my part that the first novel would be successful, but obviously I couldn’t have predicted the extent of that success.

PC: When it comes to books for young readers, are there other forms of success besides NY Times Bestsellers and blockbuster movies?

MT: Bestsellers and movies are exciting but to me success is more about creating an enduring work. The idea that people will still be reading and loving some of the books I have published many, many years from now is deeply gratifying. With Twilight, the thing I am proudest of is that this series instilled a passionate love of reading in so many young people. So many teens have said Twilight was the first book they loved reading and we get letters from parents thanking us for getting their kids reading and writing. Stephenie is an inspiring role model and it is so great to see kids idolize a writer alongside the usual rock bands, sports stars, and celebrities.

Bree Tanner Sales Raise 1.5 Million for Red Cross

LITTLE, BROWN BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
AND STEPHENIE MEYER
DONATE 1.5 MILLION DOLLARS TO THE AMERICAN RED CROSS INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE FUND
FROM SALES OF THE SHORT SECOND LIFE OF BREE TANNER

NEW YORK, NY (December 13, 2010) – Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, a division of Hachette Book Group, and Stephenie Meyer have donated 1.5 million dollars to the American Red Cross International Response Fund from their proceeds from The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: an Eclipse Novella. As previously announced, one dollar for each book sold in the US from the first printing would go to the American Red Cross. The donation was made today by Hachette Book Group CEO David Young and Little, Brown Books for Young Readers Publisher Megan Tingley to The American Red Cross Senior Vice President of International Services David Meltzer.

“I’m so grateful that Little, Brown, the American Red Cross, and my fans made this generous gift possible,” said Stephenie Meyer. “It’s amazing to have the opportunity to help those so greatly in need.”

“We’ve had the incredible great fortune to have one of the biggest publishing phenomenons in recent years along with The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner becoming one of the top selling titles of 2010,” said Hachette Book Group CEO David Young. “Giving back is extremely important to the company, so it is particularly gratifying to be able to share our success with an organization as worthy as The American Red Cross.”

After the devastating earthquake in Haiti on January 12th the International Response Fund (IRF) afforded the American Red Cross the ability to provide immediate funding for food and other urgently needed emergency relief items.

“The generous contribution of Little, Brown to the IRF is essential to the ability of the American Red Cross to provide help and hope for people during their darkest hours,” said David Meltzer of the American Red Cross. “After the devastating Haiti earthquake, which took the lives of more than 230,000 people, the IRF allowed us to quickly purchase, ship and distribute aid. The Red Cross is extremely grateful for the support Little, Brown is providing toward our humanitarian mission.”

In the weeks and months following the Haiti earthquake, the American Red Cross worked with the global Red Cross network and other partners to secure enough food for 1 million people for one month; provide tarpaulins to one of out every three homeless people in Port-au-Prince; and vaccinate almost 1 million children and their parents against common diseases like diphtheria, tetanus, pertusis, measles and rubella. Since the early days of the response, the Red Cross has also provided safe, drinkable water for approximately 250,000 in the capital each day.

The International Response Fund allows the American Red Cross to partner with other Red Cross societies immediately following large-scale disasters by providing financial assistance and relief supplies and by deploying trained disaster relief staff. For example, in the last year the IRF has supported the American Red Cross response to the floods in Pakistan, the earthquake in Chile and the aftermath of Hurricane Tomas in the Caribbean to name just a few disasters. The IRF also supports a number of other humanitarian services around the world, including global health programs to combat HIV/AIDS, measles and malaria, disaster preparedness projects, reconnecting families separated by disaster and war, and educating American students about the humanitarian rules in war.

“This kind of donation helps us provide a depth and breadth of services which is hard to match,” said Meltzer. “Last year, the American Red Cross helped 68 million people through programs funded by the International Response Fund.”

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner has become one of the biggest selling titles of 2010 and has dominated bestseller lists both in the US and around the world. The novella, the first new work from Meyer in nearly two years, debuted at #1 on the USA Today, Wall Street Journal and IndieBound bestseller lists as well as bestseller lists in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and the UK.

In five years, Stephenie Meyer has become a worldwide publishing phenomenon. The Twilight Saga’s translation rights have been sold in nearly 50 countries and 116 million copies have been sold worldwide.

The American Red Cross name is used with its permission, which in no way constitutes an endorsement, express or implied, of any product, service, company, opinion or political position.

ABOUT HACHETTE BOOK GROUP
Hachette Book Group (HBG) is a leading trade publisher based in New York and a division of Hachette Livre, the second-largest publisher in the world. HBG publishes under the divisions of Little, Brown and Company, Little Brown Books for Young Readers, Grand Central Publishing, FaithWords, Center Street, Orbit, and Hachette Digital.

ABOUT THE AMERICAN RED CROSS
The American Red Cross shelters, feeds and provides emotional support to victims of disasters; supplies nearly half of the nation’s blood; teaches lifesaving skills; provides international humanitarian aid; and supports military members and their families. The Red Cross is a charitable organization — not a government agency — and depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform its mission. For more information, please visit www.redcross.org or join our blog at http://blog.redcross.org.

Etsy: The Fuzzy Line of Creativity and Trademark/Copyright Infringement

Two of the biggest online entities for fan creativity are CafePress and Etsy. Often for fan artists there is a tricky balance between creating an item that is inspired by a book or the movie vs. something that takes the rights of others.  It gets even trickier when you have a book in the mix because now you have a publishing company’s rights to deal with as well.

CafePress entered into an agreement with Summit to allow fans to produce fan items from the Twilight Saga. There are tens of thousands of items from water bottles to tee shirts. There are some limits, like no images from the movie, and no fangs, but you can quote the movie, and use character names.

On the other hand, Etsy has no such agreement, and this leads to confusion over what is allowable. CNET covers some of the controversy:

One of the biggest entertainment franchises in the world, for example, is almost completely absent from Etsy: the Twilight teen-vampire book and movie series. There are items that describe themselves as “Twilight inspired,” but posts in Web forums by Etsy sellers who have had Twilight-related items removed from the e-commerce site indicate that Summit Entertainment, the movie studio that owns the trademark to the Twilight franchise, has been policing Etsy for more obvious infringements.

For legal reasons, Etsy’s Feingold declined to comment on these reports or on which specific brands’ trademark holders have called up the company with takedown notices, and Summit representatives did not respond to a request for comment. But considering Summit’s history of filing suit against unofficial Twilight media, it’s not surprising.

One of the reasons why this is so complicated is because trademark holders are required to enforce their property or risk losing the trademark altogether.

“They are required to protect their trademarks, if they are to continue to have them, so that it doesn’t fall into the public domain,” explained David Foox, a onetime patent litigator who is now an artist. Foox said he’s experienced these complications from both sides. “If you have a trademark, and you registered it, it means you have carved out a part of this idea that has been developed into a brand.”

Foox said that as an artist, he sees fan creations, including those where the fans aim to profit, as a measure of success, but that as an attorney, he recognizes the legal requirement to protect trademarks.”

See more on CNET.

So what exactly can you or can’t you do? Some things are obvious. You can’t take things like the Little Brown cover art, the movie stylized writing, movie stills, photos taken by professional photographers and use them without previous permission and in all likelihood payment for using them. Those are all unquestionably trademarked items. They are infact a violation of the Etsy Terms of Service. You just can’t take those and not expect to be slapped with a takedown when the intellectual property owner finds out.

On the other hand creating a fingerless gloves similar to the ones Alice wore in New Moon and calling them “Twilight Inspired” (vs actually saying “these are Alice’s gloves”) is probably fine.  Creating a bookmark that says, “A Perfect Rainy Day in Forks” or “Volterra, Where Tourists Come In, But They Don’t Come Out.” are both probably sufficiently vague.

So what about making a pendant that quotes the spider monkey line and has Team Edward on it. What about making locket and inscribing it with “Renesmee”? …Welcome to the gray area, and THAT’s what is causing a lot of the trouble!

What also leads to trouble is that when a complaint is lodged about one item, at times an entire shop will be suspended rather than just the one item in question which results in a loss of revenue for the shop owner until the matter is cleared up. Cafepress, for example, doesn’t remove entire shops, just the item(s) in question.

Twilight isn’t the first franchise to do this. Warner Brothers, who control the Harry Potter franchise, took down all Harry Potter CafePress shops circa 2003. They sued a women having Harry Potter dinners at her restaurant. They also vigorously enforced their copyright on fansites (Ask the guys on Mugglenet what they have gone through over the years  to make various tee shirts).

Additionally, if you really want a legion of lawyers to descend try taking anything that has to do with Disney. Disney is legendary with their vigorous defense of their intellectual property. I’m sure this family business didn’t bank on the 1 million dollar lawsuit over Winnie the Pooh!

So as of now, it looks like CafePress is the safest place for Twilight fan creations. Etsy, is going to be a proverbial crapshoot.

Twilight Sales Finally Reach Inevitable Slow Down

twilight-booksAccording to Lagarder, the parent comply of Hachette & Little Brown, Twilight sales have finally reached a plateau of sorts. According to an article in The Book Seller:

“Lagardère Pubishing saw a 6.5% decline in revenues for the first quarter of 2010, with sales down from €30m to €433m for the period to end-March 2010 after what it described as “the expected erosion in Stephenie Meyer sales”.

Hachette UK said its sales had been “strong” in the first quarter of 2010, with underlying sales across HUK up on 2009 and “considerably ahead of expectation”. This was despite continuing international economic uncertainty, and a fall of 6% in the overall UK market. Hachette UK added that “inevitably, sales of Stephenie Meyer’s backlist have steadied after their phenomenal performance in 2010”.

Business Week is also reporting on the trend.

“Lagardere last year benefitted from the success of Meyer’s vampire-themed “Twilight” novels, published by its Hachette Book Group unit. In 2010 guidance issued in March, the company said its publishing division would see a “return to normal” after brisk sales of “Twilight” books and related products.

Last month, the company fought off a challenge from American activist shareholder Guy Wyser-Pratte, who sought a board seat to force a “strategic review” and changes to a corporate structure that gives Arnaud Lagardere extra powers.”

You can see a bit of the trend on this week’s New York Times Bestseller Lists. The Twilight Graphic novel is in second position in its category(graphic books). The Twilight Saga books are in forth in their category (Children’s series: note there is no YA distinction) behind the House of Night series, Percy Jackson, and Diary of a Whimpy Kid. It should also be noted that The Host paperback edition is in fifth place in its category. So while not gone from the lists, the books do not have their previous stranglehold on the top spots in all categories.

What will really be interesting to watch is how well the Bree Tanner novella performs when it goes on sale June 5th. It will mark the first time any new Twilight specific information has come out in almost two years. How many people will opt for a hardcover version vs. how many people will want the PDF free version.

Twilight: The Graphic Novel, Volume 1 Shatters Graphic Novel Debut Sales Record

Twilight_cafeteria_graphic novel

This just in from Little Brown:

“The graphic novel adaption of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight sold over 66,000 copies in its first week, the largest debut for a graphic novel in the US, according to publisher Yen Press. Twilight: The Graphic Novel, Volume 1, illustrated by Korean artist Young Kim, already broke the record for largest first printing for a graphic novel with 350,000 copies.

“We are absolutely thrilled to see such a historic debut for the Twilight graphic novel,” said Kurt Hassler, Publishing Director of Yen Press. “For many of Stephenie’s fans, this incarnation of Twilight is their first experience with graphic novels, and we sincerely hope that it will help foster a lifelong appreciation of the craft.”

The release date for the second volume is forthcoming.”

Electronic Piracy Threatens Publishers and Authors

The New York Times examines various author and publisher sentiments on the double-edged sword of electronic books.  Now that they are in this format, it’s a never-ending battle to keep them off of file sharing sites.

“It’s exponentially up,” said David Young, chief executive of Hachette Book Group, whose Little, Brown division publishes the “Twilight” series by Stephenie Meyer, a favorite among digital pirates. “Our legal department is spending an ever-increasing time policing sites where copyrighted material is being presented.”

Everyone from Stephen King, to Ursula K. Le Guin, to Harlan Ellison chimes in about a problem that Russell Davis describes as, “…a game of Whac-a-Mole. You knock one down and five more spring up.”

Despite the piracy, the Twilight Saga is still bringing in big bucks for parent company Hachette.

Get the full story on the New York Times.