Seth Fishman is joining The Gernert Company as a literary agent. He was most recently at Sterling Lord Literistic, where he worked since 2005.
At Profile Books in the UK, Daniel Crewe has been promoted to publisher.
The Guardian has an interesting interview with Random UK ceo Gail Rebuck who is careful and measured in her responses–rightfully so, since the paper strains to misconstrue the piece with the headline “How Gail Rebuck turned Tony Blair’s book into a bestseller.” (Rebuck deflects one line of questioning by replying, “We’re not going to go there. You can ask away and I’ll wander next door.”)
She does expect that the Blair book will earn out (though the jury is out on how well it will sell beyond the UK): “I sincerely hope we won’t be losing money on the book. I feel confident that the advance will be earned and that the book will do extraordinarily well in the US and elsewhere.”
On other matters, she says “my idea of hell is a website with 80,000 self-published works on it – some of which might be jewels, but, frankly, who’s got the time? What people want is selection and frankly that’s what we do.”
Guardian
Children’s author Joan Steiner died last Wednesday of cancer. She created four Look-Alikes books, which Little, Brown Children’s says have sold over a million copies in 16 different languages. They will publish her final book, Look-Alikes Picture Puzzles, in spring 2011.
Times Union
Ingram Publisher Services will take over distribution for APA Publications’ Insight Guides and Berlitz Publishing beginning September 19.