Zondervan’s interim president Scott Macdonald remain in the position formally as president and CEO. Macdonald joined Zondervan’s business unit The City in December 2010 as acting general manager. HarperCollins ceo Brian Murray says in the announcement, “Scott brings more than 30 years of experience and business leadership to this role. His extensive experience in the Christian retail market as well as sales, operations and management, coupled with his steady demeanor and his strong faith make him the ideal leader for Zondervan.”
Elsewhere, Lauren Flower joins HarperCollins Children’s Books this week as director of integrated
marketing. Previously she spent eight years at Random House Children’s where she was most recently senior manager, new media marketing.
Meredith Barnes joins Lowenstein Associates as a digital strategist and foreign rights manager. Formerly at FinePrint Literary Management, she will be building her own list as well.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will open a Washington, D.C. office this summer devoted to its global corporate social responsibility efforts and the HMH Foundation. Samuel Casey will serve as svp of Global CSR for the company, as well as executive director of the HMH Foundation. He was was president of the U.S. division of CfBT Education Trust and previously served as president of National Heritage Academies, a charter school management company.
A packed ballroom of publishing people gathered Wednesday night to join the UJA-Federation of New York’s publishing division in honoring two of the industry’s own highly-regarded stars for their accomplishments and their service: Penguin Group USA David Shanks was the main honoree, and Barbara Marcus was presented with the organization’s service award. The event raised a new record of $800,000, at a warm gathering of friends and admirers that Shanks quipped is “probably the only thing left that our lawyers will let us do together.”
Former professional literary agent turned “very famous minor television personality” and late-in-delivering Penguin Group author John Hodgman hosted, acknowledging “I do feel like it’s a lot of fun to go see you guys every ten years or so.” Hodgman suggested that “publishing is a business which has no business calling itself a business” but noted that with the advent of digital change the industry is entering “their most vibrant period since Steve Gutenberg invented the Bible.” He added, “I love electronic books because when you buy them, you never have to think about them again.”
Electric Literature, Kore Press and Burton Freeman’s My Own Book are among the recipients of the National Book Foundation’s Innovations in Reading Prizes.
Release
Alibris will launch a book rental service for Gold members starting in August.
We misspelled the first name of Candice Chaplin at Random House.