Lance Fitzgerald will join Simon & Schuster as VP, director of foreign rights for the S&S and Touchstone imprints on November 28, so as to allow for a month of overlap with Marcella Berger, who is retiring at the end of the year. He is currently director of subsidiary rights at Penguin. In addition, Marie Florio has been promoted to deputy director of subsidiary rights for the Touchstone, Threshold, Howard, and Simon & Schuster imprints, effective immediately.
At Ten Speed Press, Kristin Casemore has been promoted to publicity director, cookbooks, and Katy Brown has been promoted to senior designer. In addition, Stephanie Chan has been promoted to assistant editor at Crown.
After 13 years as Toronto Star books editor, Dan Smith has been reassigned to a new section overseeing feature-length analysis of current affairs. Smith will not be replaced, and books will fall under the responsibility of entertainment desk team editor Dianne Rinehart, who tells Quill and Quire that readers should “stay tuned” for changes to the paper’s book coverage.
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In the UK, Jenny Heller will join Quercus as publishing director on October 10, continuing to focus on nonfiction. She has been a publishing director at Harper UK.
Rebecca McNally, whose departure from Macmillan Children’s Books in the UK was announced yesterday, is joining Bloomsbury Children’s UK on October 31 as publishing director and international editor-in-chief for children’s books. She will report to Emma Hopkin.
Kate Moore will join Virgin as editorial director in mid-September. Previously she was a commissioning editor for Michael O’Mara. In addition, Virgin has promoted Hannah Knowles to senior editor.
Scott Pack has been named publisher of Harper UK’s community writing site Authonomy. He will still keep his role as The Friday Project publisher and director of digital content development. In addition, Rachel Faulkner has been named digital project editor for Authonomy. The company intends to find more books suitable for publication from the site (having published a big six titles since Authonomy began in 2008).
In Ireland, Eoin Purcell is joining New Island as commissioning editor. But he will continue editing Irish Publishing News and to work with his existing consultant clients from Green Lamp Media as well.
At Levy‘s annual show in late August, Hachette Book Group was named their “publisher of the year” (and also received an award as best hardcover/trade publisher).
From the UK, photography site FotoLibra is creating the Heritage Ebooks line, officially launching at the Frankfurt Book Fair. The first 40 Kindle and EPUB titles cover the architectural follies of England. As founder Gwyn Headley readily admits, “though the actual content of our ebooks as English architectural county guides won’t be of great interest to non-Brits, the way we integrate live online location finders into eguidebooks will be, as well as our cost-saving method of acquiring images.”
In Australia, Kim Scott has become the first winner of the new $100,000 (AU) Victorian Prize for Literature for THAT DEADMAN DANCE. Scott took the Miles Franklin Award for the book in June.
Finally, RR Donnelley continues its spending spree by acquiring Genesis Packing & Design, which provides custom packaging, including designing, printing, die cutting, finishing and assembling.
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