Archives for February 2006

Personnel News and Announcements Jason Pinter is moving from Warner after two and a half years there, to become an editor at Three Rivers Press, starting next week. Terra Chalberg is moving to Simon Spotlight Entertainment, where she will be an associate editor. She started at Scribner in 2002 and then worked at Simon & Schuster. Michele Matrisciani will join HCI as editorial director in early March. She has specialized in self-help, psychology, health, women’s issues and diet and fitness books at McGraw-Hill. On the corporate side, MacAdam/Cage has announced a “strategic relationship” with Random House Canada, under which they […]

Penguin Nudges Up For Year Penguin joins the ranks of publishing industry companies delighted to show a gain of one or two percentage points for the year, with sales of 804 million pounds ($1.399 billion) up two percent from last year’s soft year of 786 million pounds, and up one percent on a currency-adjusted “underlying” basis. Operating profit was up four percent on an underlying basis, to 60 million pounds ($104 million). The company expects “to grow at a similar rate to 2005, with margins improving steadily as we benefit from efficiency gains.” Penguin USA CEO David Shanks says that […]

FICTION Debut Laureen Vonnegut’s first novel, OASIS, set in Morocco, a fever dream of a novel spun from the threads of murder, survival, conspiracy and rebirth that centers around a Russian beauty, her dead Moroccan husband, and an endless stretch of desert punctuated by a tiny oasis of bizarre and untrustworthy characters, to Amy Scheibe at Counterpoint, for publication in October 2006, by Joe Regal at Regal Literary (world). Journalist Nicholas Kulish’s LAST ONE IN, in which a New York City tabloid’s war correspondent is hit by a truck in Manhattan just as the war in Iraq is about to […]

McCabe Will Leave Reed; Muller Takes Oversight of BEA Chris McCabe, the caretaker show manager who took over running BEA in June 2004, is leaving Reed Exhibitions “to pursue new opportunities” after a rather disinterested stretch running the book convention. Reed is assigning corporate oversight of the show to a more publishing-focused executive, adding BEA to the portfolio of Courtney Muller. She has just been promoted to group vice president, as a part of a broader management reorganization at Reed Exhibitions that includes the departure of the previous executive to whom McCabe had reported as well. Muller was show manager […]

Riverhead Says No to Frey Page Six reports that Riverhead has decided not to go forward with their announced two-book deal with James Frey, confirmed by an unnamed “rep” for Frey. No official word from the publisher has been issued, nor have we heard any bulletins from Frey, his former agency Brillstein-Grey, or publisher of a Million Little Pieces Doubleday about plans for donating part of the Oprah windfall somewhere useful and noble — but there’s still a little more than a month to go before that seven-figure royalty check is issued. Page Six Preiss Companies Close The companies created […]

Hills to Retire, and More Personnel News Longtime editor Fred Hills will retire from his job at the Free Press in mid-April after a career of over 40 years in publishing (including 26 years at Simon & Schuster). His authors over the years have included Vladimir Nabokov (Look at the Harlequins), Raymond Carver (his first story collection, Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?), Daniel Yergin (The Prize), M. Scott Peck, and countless others. Free Press publisher Martha Levin comments in a memo, “We consider ourselves extremely fortunate to have worked with Fred. The breadth of his experience is such that […]