Hachette UK is opening an office in Hong Kong, covering sales and marketing in all Southeast Asia territories excluding Singapore, Malaysia, and China. Paul Kenny, named to the new role of Southeast Asia sales and marketing manager, will manage the office as of September 17. He was most recently regional sales and marketing manager for Pan Macmillan Asia.
“The establishment of an office in Hong Kong is part of our ongoing strategy to develop and manage our sales operations in all our markets,” group commercial director of Hachette UK Richard Kitson said in a statement. “It follows the establishment of our office in the Middle East, our move, in Canada, to Hachette Book Group Canada, the consolidation of our sales operation in Ireland and the opening of our extremely successful company in India. With the market for English books in Asia flourishing, it is the perfect time to establish our own operation in the area.”
At Harper Children’s, Claudia Gabel has been promoted to executive editor at Katherine Tegen Books, concentrating on book development.
At Perigee, Meg Leder has been promoted to executive editor. She has worked there since 2005.
At Chronicle Books, Mercury Ellis has been promoted to senior distribution coordinator, operations, while Graham Barry has joined the department as distribution client coordinator. Barry was previously an operations manager at Amber Lotus Publishing.
HarperCollins has release a free “enhanced e-book ‘first serial'” in advance of September’s publication of Michael Chabon‘s novel TELEGRAPH AVENUE. It includes an original theme song for the book, four excerpts of the audiobook (performed by Clarke Peters of The Wire and Treme), and more–including, most importantly, a “first serial” excerpt from the book itself. (Many of the chapters of the book read well as self-contained vignettes or short stories, so the sample, “Toronado,” provides a nice taste of the book. The sampler is available on major ebook platforms — though there is something unhappy happening at Kindle right now, where it is “not currently available” — and it’s browsable on Harper’s site as well.