Over the weekend Phoenix Books announced the death of company president Michael Viner, 64, on Saturday, following a battle with cancer. They note Viner was “widely credited with revolutionizing and reinventing the audiobook industry as the co-founder of Dove Audio.”
At the Hugo Awards presented this weekend, Neil Gaiman won the prize for best novel for The Graveyard Book.
Borders Group has named three vice presidents to lead their store operations: Mike Steele is zone vice president for the West Coast; John Melnick is zone vice president for the Northeast; Dave Marsico is zone vice president for the Midwest. The Southeast is led by existing zone vice president Bill Christensen. All zvps report to svp, operations Steve Davis.
Steele is a 22-year Borders veteran, while new hire Melnick was zvp for Michael Stores and Marsico is another grocery chain recruit, having spent the last four years as market director for Meijer.
At Simon & Schuster, Veronica Lee has been promoted to sales manager, international sales; Lauren Weidner comes over from HarperCollins as associate sales manager, Latin American/Caribbean; Bill Kinneman has been promoted to director of business intelligence, supply chain; and Megan Noyes has been promoted to manager of digital operations, supply chain.