Former president and publisher of the Crown Publishing Group Jenny Frost has joined Scholastic as epublisher and svp ebook strategy. Frost has been working as a consultant for the past two years.
Sterling vp marketing and publicity Leigh Ann Ambrosi will join Crown Archetype in the newly created position of vp, Brand Publishing Project Director on June 4, reporting to Tina Constable. In her position, Ambrosi will serve as project director for select publications by key health, fitness, and self-help authors within the Crown Archetype and Harmony Books imprints, and she will also serve as the primary liaison with the author and their representatives and will play a key role in crafting and executing long-term strategy, from pre-publication set-up through book launch and beyond.
In a memo to staff Constable said that Ambrosi’s addition to Crown Archetype “will enhance our ability to provide robust, long-term support for our brand authors and extend the lives of their publications. I am confident that Leigh Ann’s wide-ranging experience, proven project management skills, and natural sense of leadership will make a valuable contribution to Archetype’s publishing program.” Ambrosi will also work with newly appointed director of Brand Strategy for Crown Kimberly Snead to create annual brand development plans for major authors.
Publishing Trends reports that Najafi Companies partner Daniel Shum has taken over as ceo of their Direct Brands unit (which units their book club operations), taking over from Debi Fine, who has left the company.
Philipp Keel has been named publisher of Diogenes Verlag, succeeding his father, longtime publisher Daniel Keel, who died in 2011. Together with executive directors Winfried Stephan, Stefan Fritsch, Ruth Geiger, Daniel Kampa and Katharina Erne, and ceo Rudolf C. Bettschart, Keel will assume the operative leadership of the corporation, while Jakob Keel remains president of the board of directors.
Longstanding member of the Google Books team Roland Lange has shifted positions with the company. He is now major accounts lead at YouTube.
At Highlights for Children/Boyds Mills Press, Rebecca Davis has been named senior editor, Wordsong and Boyds Mills, having previously freelanced for the imprints. Kerry McManus joins as marketing and permissions manager; previously she was assistant director of special projects at Fairfield University. In addition, Sarah Lozo has been named assistant coordinating editor. Previously she was an associate editor at General Code.
Carlos Fuentes, the prolific author and essayist who was a key figure of the Latin American novel-writing boom and was an outspoken figure in his native Mexico, died Tuesday of respiratory failure in a Mexico City hospital at the age of 83. Among his best known works were THE DEATH OF ARTEMIO CRUZ (1962) TERRA NOSTRA (1975) and OLD GRINGO (1985); he was also ambassador to London and France at varying points in his life. In an interview with El Pais published Tuesday Fuentes said he had recently completed a new book, FEDERICO ON THE BALCONY, and was set to begin a new work the following week. Dalkey Archive Press will publish his novel VLAD in the US in July.
Children’s author Jean Craighead George, 92, died “peacefully and painlessly”, according to her agent Ginger Knowlton at Curtis Brown (she took over from her Perry Knowlton, who was George’s agent for 25 years.) Of the more than 100 novels George published, she was best known for the Newbery Award winning novel JULIE OF THE WOLVES (1972) as well as MY SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN (1958) and later sequels published in the 1990s. “Jean herself was a force of nature; with her booming voice and her strong ideas about life and politics; a much-loved writer whose work was among the most influential in the last century; a lifelong and powerful presence in the publishing industry whose impact cannot be measured solely by the millions of books she sold all over the world,” Knowlton said in a statement. “The legacy she leaves behind for those of us at Curtis Brown who act so proudly on her behalf is that of a passionate and fearless naturalist, teacher, and artist. We are so grateful for the many years of good memories, and for all her beloved books that will live on forever.”
Ingram’s Core Source program for the distribution, sales and management of ebooks is expanding among Christian publishers, with the company announcing David C Cook, R.H Boyd Publishing, Our Sunday Visitor, Abingdon Press, and Worthy Publishing as new clients.