Juliet Pickering will move to Blake Friedmann in the UK on February 4 as a book agent. She was most recently at AP Watt (now part of United Agents). Pickering's client list is moving with her.
At NetGalley, Stuart Evers has been hired as UK community manager, based in London, and Steve Manes joins the development team. The electronic galley service's community recently passed 100,000 members.
At parent company Firebrand, Steve Rutberg has been hired as director of marketing and sales. He has held positions at WoltersKluwer Health, Taylor & Francis, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Prentice Hall, and McGraw-Hill. Additionally, Annie Johnston has joined the company as content services specialist. She was formerly digital content manager at Independent Publishers Group where she managed the IPG Digital program.
At Penguin, Dennis Lee has been promoted to director of business management.
At Chronicle Books, Amy Achaibou has been promoted to associate design manager, new format development, reporting to both the children's and lifestyle groups.
In a statement following yesterday's WSJ article, Barnes & Noble emphasized that they are still opening the occasional new store and experimenting with store design: "It should be noted that Barnes & Noble opened two new prototype stores in 2012 and in 2013 plans to test several other prototypes, as well."
After taking full control of HarperCollins India last year, the company is now launching an education division there, Collins India, with sales director NS Krishna moving over as managing director. Collins Education managing irector Colin Hughes says, "This major new initiative is HarperCollins' largest ever investment in international education publishing, aiming to open up new opportunities in the rapidly growing market in Indian schools, where upwards of 90,000 schools teach in English."
