Random House

Random House Children’s Books will team up with Sesame Workshop for a new series of digital books focused on “early learning and reading readiness.” They will publish more than 20 classic Sesame Street books in digital formats, beginning today with Elmo Says Achoo! and Elmo’s Breakfast Bingo.

Here’s more about the project: “An additional 19 titles will be released this spring, including Get Moving with Grover, Big Bird Says . . . and Baker, Baker, Cookie Maker. Several titles will include audio narration from Sesame Street’s Bob McGrath, who has performed on Sesame Street since its premiere in 1969.”

The project will publish select titles from Random House’s large list of Sesame Street books. What other titles would you like to see released in digital form?

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.

Random House Children’s Books has partnered with literacy organization First Book to give underprivileged children access to books.

For every new subscriber First Book gets on their Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr accounts this week, the publisher will donate a brand new book to their cause. First Book communications manager Brian Minter reported in an email: “The campaign has been really successful so far; we’ve added over 26,000 new followers, and we’d love to finish the week on a high note.”

Here’s more from Bookmark: “If you grew up with books of your own at home, you know what a powerful impact they had on your life. But kids from low-income families typically have no books of their own at home, and few, if any, in their classrooms. You can imagine the impact THAT has. But today, and for the rest of this week, you can do something about it.”

Politico and Random House are gearing up for election season with the new Politico Bookshelf — an online destination designed specifically for books about politics.

Politico editors have curated the Random House-operated bookshelf with their recommendations for books about current events, politics, history and biography. Readers can purchase the recommended books from various retailers including Amazon, Apple and Barnes & Noble.

eBookNewser has more: In addition to the bookshelf, Pollitico and Random House have partnered to publish a series of instant digital books about the 2012 presidential election. The first eBook, which comes out Wednesday, November 30th, is called Playbook 2012: The Right Fights Back by Politico Chief White House Correspondent Mike Allen and writer Evan Thomas. The series which will be published by Random House, will be the first of four books in the series.

Random House’s revenues for the first half of 2011 earlier were €787 million, down slightly from the company’s revenues in 2010 for the same period which hit €791 million, according to Bertelsmann, the group that owns the publisher. The earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) was €69 million, up from €40 million. The publisher attributed this favorable EBIT to strong U.S. performance.

According to Random House, overall gains were driven by bestsellers, and eBook sales across all territories. Random House had 145 New York Times bestsellers during the first half of the year, including the No. 1 bestselling Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. In addition, the publisher sold almost four million copies of George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire.

In the U.S., digital sales accounted for more than 20 percent of all revenues and eBook sales tripled in the first half of 2011, as compared to sales in the same period in 2010.

In the UK, the publisher increased its year-over-year sales and published more than a quarter of all Sunday Times bestsellers.

Triumph Books publisher Mitch Rogatz has teamed up with a private investor to re-acquire the sports publisher from Random House.

Rogatz had sold the publisher to the conglomerate publisher in 2006. The deal takes effect today, and Triumph Books will now be distributed by Independent Publishers Group. Financial details were not revealed about the acquisition.

Rogatz had this comment: “We are extremely fortunate to have been associated with an organization as professional and capable as Random House these past 5 years. I have great respect for everyone we were lucky enough to work with—the common denominator has always been integrity and commitment.”

Read more

Writer Tao Lin has landed a $50,000 deal with Vintage Books for his novel, Taipei, Taiwan. According to The New York Observer, Lin (pictured, via) will also receive an additional $10,000 bonus if the profits for his novel earn out his advance.

Lin hopes to finish the manuscript in fall 2012 and expects publication in 2013 or 2014; he intends to make it a “short” book one “could almost memorize” (between fifty and sixty thousand words). Literary agent Bill Clegg of the William Morris Endeavor negotiated the deal. Associate editor Tim O’Connell will edit the project.

In a previous interview with The New York Observer, Lin revealed: “The novel is autobiographical and begins in 2009 when the protagonist is 25. It spans ~2.5 years and is set in Taiwan, NYC, Las Vegas. It contains a marriage, somewhat extreme recreational drug usage, parents, a book tour. It’s written in a Lorrie Moore-esque prose style but denser, like my first story-collection but more refined. The protagonist in my 3rd novel experiences Siddhartha-like unhappiness and confusion.”

Read more

Both Mauro DiPreta and Amanda Patten have joined the Crown Publishing Group at Random House.

DiPreta is now the associate publisher of HarperCollins’ It Books at HarperCollins, but he will join Crown as editor-in-chief and vice president of Crown Archetype. In a brand new position, he will direct editorial teams at Archetype, Harmony Books, Crown Business, and Crown Forum, but also acquire and edit books for the imprints.

Patten will now serve as senior editor at Crown Trade Paperbacks after spending eight years at Simon & Schuster. Here’s more about the post, from the internal memo: “Amanda will oversee paperback conversions and backlist development for Three Rivers Press, Crown Business, and Crown Forum. She will also acquire and edit original titles in the pop culture, humor, and practical nonfiction categories.”

Random House has teamed up with Politico to create a series of four instant eBooks about the 2012 presidential election.  The series (currently untitled) will only be available in digital format.

According to The New York Times, the first title will be released sometime before Christmas. They will be co-authored by the political news site’s chief White House correspondent Mike Allen and Princeton University journalism professor Evan Thomas. Allen’s writing can be regularly viewed on Politico’s Playbook and Thomas has worked as a political journalist for both Time magazine and Newsweek. Executive editor Jon Meacham will edit the series.

Here’s more from the release: “[The four eBooks] will give readers an unprecedented look behind the scenes of the election in real time, providing detail, color, in-depth analysis beyond the hourly headlines and commentary, and ultimately a look at the final results, and how and why it all happened … Each book will include exclusive reporting from the campaign trail and will chronicle the campaign as it unfolds.” (via Publishers Weekly)

Random House Publishing Group will relaunch its Loveswept imprint as a “digital-exclusive imprint,” reviving a romance line that originated at Bantam Books in the 1980s. Explore more than 900 titles from the original line at RomanceWiki.

The original Loveswept imprint featured early work by writers like Sandra Brown, Janet Evanovich and Tami Hoag. Random House will also revive the original tagline: “Love stories you’ll never forget by authors you’ll always remember.” The books will also be released in a trans-Atlantic partnership with Random House Group U.K.’s Transworld Publishers division.

Here’s more about the line: “The 2011 Loveswept publishing program will be a digital-exclusive imprint, comprised of original, newly written e-books, as well as beloved Ballantine Bantam Dell romances and classic Loveswept titles. The program launches with eight titles in August, and continues with one new e-only release monthly in the fall.”

Today Bertelsmann AG (Random House’s corporate parent) unveiled the acquisition of Seattle-based agency, Smashing Ideas. They did not disclose the terms of the deal.

The move will dramatically expand Random House’s digital resources. Smashing Ideas has produced scores of digital projects, including everything from Alice for the iPad to Sony Movie Channel to a SpongeBob game.

Here’s more from the release: “They serve a roster of prominent clients such as Mattel, Nickelodeon, PBS, Cartoon Network, and Disney. Last year alone, Smashing Ideas generated 500 million game plays and half a billion page views for its clients. Smashing Ideas added an ePublishing unit last year, coinciding with the arrival of tablet devices in the marketplace. Smashing Ideas will continue to operate independently out of their Seattle headquarters, as well as their U.K. office, primarily focusing on its current and future client businesses.”