At Abrams, publisher Steve Tager takes on the new role of chief marketing and business development officer, focused on driving new business initiatives, including exploiting company’s digital assets. The marketing and publicity departments will also report to him.
Deborah Aaronson takes over as vp, publisher for the adult trade group. She has been with the company since 2000. Elisa Urbanelli returns to the company as associate publisher for the adult group, also acquiring in categories including art and museum publications. She was previously a managing editor for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and most recently was a freelance editor. VP, sales Mary Wowk will broaden her focus beyond North American to include the rest of the world.
CEO Michael Jacobs says: “The changes we are making will allow Abrams to continue to grow and evolve in ways that are both strategic and tactical. By capitalizing on and channeling the significant strengths the company already possesses, we will position ourselves to meet the challenges of the current and future publishing landscape.”
Kobo UK country manager Phil Wood has left the company, the Bookseller reports, with evp and general manager Wayne White replacing him on a temporary basis.
Amazon caused some confusion when they first posted their assorted Best Books of 2012 lists. The main announced list of editors’ favorites was as we reproduced, with Louise Erdrich’s The Round House as their No. 1 pick. But portions of the Amazon store linked to other print and Kindle “2012 Best Books of the Year › Top 100 Editors’ Picks” that showed the titles in completely different order, leading other publishers to tout their No. 1 picks. The store has now clarified the wording on those additional lists to indicate they show the selected titles according to “How They’re Selling.”
Poet Jack Gilbert, 87, died early Tuesday morning in a care home in Berkley, CA. He had been suffering from dementia for several years. His first collection, VIEWS OF JEOPARDY (1962) won the Yale Younger Poets Prize and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Knopf published Gilbert’s COLLECTED POEMS last March.
A number of prominent awards, largely Canadian-based, were handed out this week. First, Wade Davis has won the Samuel Johnson Prize in Nonfiction for INTO THE SILENCE: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest.
Canada’s Governor General Literary Awards were also announced Tuesday in a number of categories, including:
Fiction: Linda Spalding, THE PURCHASE (McClelland & Stewart)
Nonfiction: Ross King, LEONARDO AND THE LAST SUPPER (Bond Street Books)
Tamas Dobozy, one of the GG Award nominees, won the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize for his novel SIEGE 13 (Thomas Allen Publishers)
Finally, the Hilary Weston Prize for Nonfiction was awarded to Candace Savage for A GEOGRAPHY IN BLOOD: Unearthing Memory from a Prairie Landscape (Greystone Books.)