Tad Floridis has joined Zola Books as director of international business development, with an initial mandate to take the company into the UK and British Commonwealth markets. Floridis was previously co-founder and associate publisher of Canongate’s US arm.
“We are delighted that Tad will be laying the groundwork for our launch abroad,” Zola ceo Joe Regal said in the announcement. “His wealth of experience will help us target the best opportunities for development of content, identify possible strategic business partnerships, and build expert local teams in each of the markets we plan to enter in the coming months and years.” Though Zola isn’t fully launched in the US yet, spokesperson Seale Ballenger tells us,”We’re putting everything in motion now so we can be prepared once the technology comes on line in the US. That way we can have the business relationships in place to be live in the UK by the Christmas season.”
Jhanteigh Kupihea will join Atria as editor on April 22. Previously she was an associate editor at NAL.
In corporate news, F+W Media is licensing the Burda Style fashion magazine brand and burdastyle.com website for distribution in the USA and Canada, expanding their small North American web presence into a comprehensive multimedia publishing program. Burda Style USA “will be developed as an integrated business model, encompassing the print magazine and the already successful online website and community, as well as e-commerce, in-person and online education services, video content, events, books and e-books.”
The BurdaStyle.com fashion and sewing community has over 800,000 registered active members. The deal builds on F+W’s significant acquisition of crafts powerhouse Interweave in the summer of 2012, with F+W ceo David Nussbaum saying that F+W Media is now “widely seen as the leading media company serving the multi-billion dollar US and UK craft and sewing markets.”