Monday, April 27, 2009

Sookie Stackhouse and True Blood around the world

Agent Joshua Bilmes reports of a slew of Charlaine Harris and "Sookie Stackhouse" news:

Harris sold a Sookie Stackhouse Companion to Ginjer Buchanan at Ace Books. Harris will edit the volume and write a new Sookie novella for it.

Since the launch of the HBO series True Blood, based on the Sookie Stackhouse novels, Bilmes has negotiated numerous foreign deals for the series, which is now available or forthcoming in 23 languages. In France, J'ai Lu has continued with the series, buying rights to the newest novel From Dead to Worse, as did Russian publisher AST (which also re-licensed the first two books), while Estonian publisher Keskus continued with Living Dead in Dallas, Dutch publisher Luitingh moved on to Dead as a Doornail, and Open Book in Korea added books number 3 through 8 to their list. Brazilian publisher Saraiva came on board to the series, taking rights to the second, third, and fourth Sookie novels, while Santillana in Spain took pocket rights to the first three books and volume rights to the remainder of the series. Portuguese publisher Navalha will launch with the first three Sookie novels, Norwegian publisher Cappelen with the first two, Japanese publisher Softbank with the first three, and Israeli publisher Kidmat Eden with Dead Until Dark. In the UK, the Hachette group has decided to consolidate the entire Sookie Stackhouse series under Jo Fletcher at Orion/Gollancz, moving the first four books over from their Little Brown/Orbit imprint. Gollancz will rejacket the books, beginning in early 2009, for the Australian market, to coincide with the launch of True Blood on the Showcase channel. Later in Spring 2009, they'll launch in England, ahead of the British True Blood launch on Fox.

HBO offers other True Blood launch dates around the globe: 23 December 2008 on France's Orange; December 2008 on Canal Plus in Spain; January 2009 in Israeli network DBS; 1 February 2009 on Be.tv in Belgium; 9 February 2009 on HBO Asia; February 2009 throughout Eastern Europe via HBO CE; and March 2009 for SVY (Sweden) and YLE (Finland) second airings.

In domestic publication numbers, Nielsen Bookscan records that a boxed set of the first seven Sookie paperbacks has been the #1 selling boxed set in the country for four straight weeks, with weekly sales thousands of copies ahead of the next closest title on the list. More than 100,000 copies of the boxed set have been shipped. From Dead to Worse, the most recent hardcover, now has 180,000 copies in print.

And in non-Sookie Harris news, Poland's Fabryka Slow bought rights to her Harper Connelly novel Grave Surprise, and Germany's DTV took rights to the anthology Wolfsbane and Mistletoe, which Harris co-edited with Toni L.P. Kelner.

http://sfscope.com/2008/12/sookie-stackhouse-and-true-blo.html

6 comments:

Mima said...

I have to say that I am not happy about the change with the Brazilian publisher. The first book was published by Ediouro.
I just hope they don't change the terminology as it usually happens when a different translator and publisher are involved.

Anonymous said...

As nice as it is to have the show tie-in books, I wish it was easier to get the original covers after they have been released.

True Blood is VERY different to the books, and while I love both, I do not enjoy having a True Blood cover on a book containing a completely different version of the story.

Anna Paquin is not book Sookie in any way, shape or form - nor is anything else the same. I like having two versions of the story, but I don't want them mixed up.

rose said...

Hello Anonymous,
I buy most of my books from Amazon. You can get gently used books with the original covers there. If you want hardcovers of the early Sookie books, you'll need to get them from the Science Fiction Book Club. They have different covers from the original mass-market paperbacks, but at least they don't have the True Blood artwork on the cover. Hope this helps.

" Dallas " said...

yes rose is right the first few sookie books were NEVER released in hardback and they ALL still haven't been

here is a "Go ask Dallas" about it..with a CH quote

http://lovingtruebloodindallas.blogspot.com/2009/04/go-ask-dallas-sookie-stackhouse-books.html

Anonymous said...

"Nielsen Bookscan records that a boxed set of the first seven Sookie paperbacks has been the #1 selling boxed set in the country for four straight weeks, with weekly sales thousands of copies ahead of the next closest title on the list."

Correction: this boxed set has been the #1 selling ADULT boxed set each week since the beginning of 2009.
Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga Set has not relinquished the #1 Overall Boxed Set spot since the second week of the year, while the Sookie Stackhouse set has been a distant second on the same list.

Mary said...

check out sookie stackhouse/Charlaine Harris info at www.borders.com/trueblood including special stuff from Charlaine Harris