Jeff Tegge has joined Legato Publishers Group, the recently announced new distribution affiliate of Publishers Group West headed by former IPG chief Mark Suchomel, as vp, sales. Legge was formerly a colleague of Suchomel’s at IPG, where he also had the title of vp, sales. Christina Quintero has joined Little, Brown Books for Young Readers as art director for licensing. Previously she was associate art director at Grosset & Dunlap/Price Stern Sloan. The Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize is a newly launched award for the best scholarly book in military history. The prize, worth $50,000 will be awarded beginning in February 2014. The ABA announced […]
Archives for June 2013
Jobs v. Jobs: Two Versions of the Same Mail
A small number of communications from Apple’s late ceo Steve Jobs have taken on great import in the ebook pricing trial, in part because Jobs cannot testify to what he meant. As we reported, on Tuesday the government showed a January 14, 2010 reply to Eddy Cue that “was draft by Mr. Jobs,” as the government attorney put it. Regarding increased tiers with “pricing I think will push them to very edge and still have a credible offering in the market,” as Cue put it, the Jobs document reads: “I can live with this, as long as they move Amazon […]
In Court: Fireworks Over Whether McIntosh Will Testify, Double Deleting, HBG’s Agency and More
After an afternoon of fairly dry probing of economic regression analyses, the real sparks in Wednesday’s Apple ebook pricing trial came at the very end of the day, in a battle over whether Madeline McIntosh of Random House will be called to testify. Originally the government was going to call McIntosh — as well as Random House ceo Markus Dohle — but they decided not to, and lead defense attorney Orin Snyder says they “never told us.” The government will accept McIntosh’s written testimony without questioning her, which technically leaves no opportunity for the defense to address her unless she […]
People, Etc.
The UK’s Pushkin Press has hired Tabitha Pelly as publicist, starting July 1. She has worked with them on some previous campaigns on a freelance basis. Edward Hanus has joined LID Publishing as business development manager. In book news, Viking has announced a publication date for Sue Monk Kidd’s new novel, THE INVENTION OF WINGS: January 7, 2014. It’s about the parallel lives of 19th century Charleston slave Hetty “Handful” Grimke and the girl for whom she serves as a handmaid, Sarah Grimke, a real-life historical figure who became a feminist and abolitionist. Revelations about domestic surveillance have spurred interest in George Orwell’s […]
Closing: Harper’s New Zealand Warehouse and Audible’s Author Services Bounty
Consistent with HarperCollins’ “investor day” presentation we cited recently showing the company plans to have just four warehouses worldwide by 2014, the publisher is closing their New Zealand-based warehouse and switching distribution and support services to the company’s distribution center in Australia. The number of job losses was not clear, though general manager Graham Mitchell will leave the company after a transition period. Harper Australia chief executive James Kellow said in a statement the company “remained committed to publishing New Zealand books for New Zealand readers and looked forward to maintaining a local publishing programme in the future.” He added: […]
In Court: Apple Says They Have 20 Percent of US Market
Hachette Book Group’s David Young was all dressed up and ready to testify on Tuesday after Macmillan’s John Sargent (sporting a second, red tie), but a last-minute switch put Apple executive Keith Moerer on the stand instead. Fortunately Young came equipped with a copy of George Pelecanos’s forthcoming October book THE DOUBLE. Among the day’s learnings — though ruled strictly not admissible in court because it is hearsay — is Moerer’s reminder that Steve Jobs “loved iBooks; in particular a book, Winnie the Pooh that was in color.” Jobs made a more meaningful appearance at the end of the day […]