Current editorial director of her eponymous Little, Brown imprint Reagan Arthur will take over as svp and publisher of the division in April when Michael Pietsch moves up to ceo of Hachette Book Group USA. Arthur will also join the company’s management board. Pietsch says in the announcement, “Throughout the world of writers, booksellers, librarians, bloggers, scouts, literary agents, and international publishers, Reagan’s name has come to carry that same weight. Reagan was born to the work of publishing, she understands it deeply, she possesses a publisher’s relentlessness and charm, and she is hungry for more.”
Arthur adds, “I’m thrilled and honored to have the opportunity to work with some of the greatest writers and colleagues in the business. Michael is an incredibly tough act to follow, but I’ve been lucky to learn from him, and I’m excited to be part of this next chapter in Little, Brown’s 175-year history of publishing important, lasting fiction and nonfiction.” Her standalone imprint will be retired.
Mary Ann Naples is returning to book publishing as publisher of Rodale Books, starting March 4, following detours to OpenSky and then, briefly, Zola Books (as head of business development; she will now join Zola’s strategic advisory board.) Naples had been a co-founder of literary agency The Creative Culture after working at Hyperion.
Elsewhere, the AP reports that Tim Geithner is working with attorney Bob Barnett to arrange meetings with publishers about a book deal. “An official with knowledge of his plans says the goal is for publication in 2014,” with the book focusing on Geithner’s response to the financial crisis.
And the public editor at the NYT looks into a reader’s question about whether it is policy “to publish excerpts from all books written by its reporters, or just certain books.” It happens to happen a lot–editorial director of book development Alex Ward notes that of 6 Times Books issued in 2011, three were excerpted and a fourth was connected to two front page articles–“but many years have gone by when none of our books are excerpted,” says. Margaret Sullivan sticks strictly to the reader’s question about excerpts, and does not investigate more broadly the frequency at which books by Timespeople are reviewed and otherwise mentioned in the newspaper.