Jonathan Lyons will join Folio Literary Management as executive director of subsidiary rights, and will also serve as the agency’s legal counsel on select issues, including contract, copyright, and estate law. He has been running his own agency and law practice. Molly Jaffa has been promoted to director of international rights, and will continue to develop her client list.
Jennifer Doerr has joined Yale University Press as senior publicist. She previously held director of publicity positions at Macmillan Children’s and Skyhorse Publishing.
At Random House Children’s, Chelsea Eberly was promoted to associate editor.
In the UK, Bloomsbury is launching a new imprint, Circus, “unashamedly literary” and publishing “mostly fiction.” They will publish 9 books the first year, growing to four titles a month thereafter. Saying they are “determined to make our books look more desirable and collectible than ever,” Circus titles will be published as “unusually-sized trade paperbacks with photographic covers, wide flaps and colour printing inside the cover.” The line launches May 10 with Will Davis’s THE TRAPEZE ARTIST.
Red Wheel/Weiser, Conari Press, Hampton Roads Publishing, and Hierophant Publishing are collaborating on a new venture to help authors of spiritual and self-help books who want to self-publish called Turning Stone Press. The new venture provides complete editorial and production services including copyediting, book and cover design, all overseen by Red Wheel/Weiser’s art and production directors. Print and digital editions of each book will be available through all major retail channels. “Turning Stone Press provides a unique opportunity for authors to work with the best editorial, production, and marketing personnel in the spiritual and self-help genre, the same people who select and produce all the other books in the Red Wheel/Weiser, Conari Press, Hampton Roads, and Hierophant publishing family,” said president of Hampton Roads Publishing and Hierophant Publishing Randy Davila in a statement.
Lee & Low Books has acquired Children’s Book Press, founded in 1975 as one of the first specialty publishers devoted to multicultural children’s books. Children’s Book Press will continue to operate as a separate imprint, and the deal increases the number of Lee & Low titles in print to approximately 650. “This is a tremendous honor for us to keep the prestigious collection of Children’s Book Press alive, and have the opportunity to build on its 36-year history,” said Lee & Low Books publisher Jason Low in a statement.