Senior marketing manager at Grove/Atlantic and Mysterious Press Jason Pinter will leave the company on July 19 to launch Polis Books, a digital publishing startup focusing on new and backlist fiction from contemporary authors in crime fiction, science fiction & fantasy, and romance/erotica/commercial women’s fiction. Pinter told us Polis Books will formally debut next month (and is looking to hire an additional acquiring editor) and publish its first list this fall. Polis will offer authors “modest advances to begin with,” as “it’s important that our writers know we are investing in them” and royalties beginning at at 40 percent of net receipts, increasing at various sales benchmarks.
As part of a succession plan first announced December 2012, Thames & Hudson has hired Rolf Grisebach for the new post of chief executive officer, starting in September 2013. Most recently he ran Pearson in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, and prior to that headed Macmillan’s $250 million Education and STM division in the USA. Jamie Camplin will retire from his present role as managing director. At the same time, chairman Thomas Neurath will step down, to be replaced by former sales and marketing director Tim Evans, and deputy chairman Constance Kaine will be replaced by Susanna Reisz Neurath, who led T&H’s foreign rights department in the 90s.
Brooke Carey has moved from Portfolio/Sentinel/Current over to Gotham Books, as editor.
Elizabeth Keenan has been promoted to executive director of publicity at Plume & Hudson Street Press.
At Morrow/Avon, editorial director Carrie Feron has been promoted to senior vice president.
At Harlequin, Rachel Burkot has been promoted to associate editor, Kimani, while Dana Hamilton moves up to assistant editor, romantic suspense.
Christine LeBlond has rejoined Susan Schulman Literary Agency as an agent. She began her career there as executive assistant and was a junior agent before joining Periplus Books as rights manager, where she worked for the past 10 years.
At PR By the Book, Elena Meredith has joined as publicist, previously working for Free Spirit Publishing in Minneapolis. In addition, Sima Thakkar has been named social media publicist and Ashley Erickson has joined as assistant publicist.
The National Book Foundation has appointed New York Public Library president and chief executive Anthony Marx, editor of T Magazine Deborah Needleman, and historian (and former National Book Award winner) Annette Gordon-Reed to the board of directors.
McGill-Queen University Press director Philip Cercone has begun a one-year term as president of the Association of American University Presses (AAUP). He takes over from Peter Dougherty, director of Princeton University Press, who will remain on the AAUP’s board.