Book Publishers to Release Some of Most Anticipated Titles on Tuesday

They're hoping to cash-in on familiar faces for the holiday season, after a lackluster sales year so far.

At WSJ, "Book Publishers Hope Holidays Bring Cheer":

The biggest bets are on familiar names and faces, a reminder of how much track records matter to readers at this time of the year. HarperCollins Publishers, for example, has printed 700,000 hardcover copies of Mitch Albom’s “The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto,” a story narrated by a guitarist touched by the supernatural. HarperCollins, like The Wall Street Journal, is owned by News Corp.

Tuesday also marks the return of Jon Meacham, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. Random House is printing 390,000 copies of Mr. Meacham’s new work, “Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush,” making it the publisher’s biggest nonfiction work of the year.

On the lighter side, Grand Central Publishing will publish 120,000 hardcover copies of model Christie Brinkley’s “Timeless Beauty: Over 100 Tips, Secrets, and Shortcuts to Looking Great,” while Simon & Schuster has teed up 75,000 copies of TV producer Shonda Rhimes’s memoir “Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand in the Sun and Be Your Own Person.”

The relatively large print runs come at a time when the digital book market is in flux. E-book sales in the first half were down 10% from a year earlier, according to an industry report, a decline that industry executives attribute in part to higher prices set by the major publishers.

“There may not be one stand-out title yet, but I think the breadth and complexion of this holiday’s new titles is better than in 2014,” said Mary Amicucci, Barnes & Noble Inc.’s vice president of adult trade and children’s books...

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