At Random House, Jeff Weber has been promoted to vp, director, online and digital sales. Also at Random House Digital, Susan Livingston has been promoted to vp, strategic business planning and Randi Rosenkranz has been promoted to vp, digital development.
Executive vp and managing director of Egmont USA Douglas Pocock is leaving the company to return to England for family reasons. Cally Poplak, managing director of Egmont Press, has taken over management of the U.S. business from London.
Andrew Savikas has been named ceo of Safari Books online. He spent the past five years as program chair for O’Reilly’s Tools of Change conference.
In digital news, Google eBooks has rolled out their Australian store as well, closely following their debuts in the UK and Canada. Participating retailers include the Dymocks chain, which has almost 100 stores.
Following yesterday’s announcements from Barnes & Noble, company ceo William Lynch indicated to the Bookseller informally “publishers and consumers in the UK should expect an announcement within the next four months about the Nook going international.” His quote was, “We want to do it right.” There has been speculation that Nook might partner with the UK’s Waterstone’s.