Having overseen McGraw-Hill Education during its spinoff from McGraw-Hill to its standalone status as a private company owned by Apollo Global Management, ceo Lloyd G. “Buzz” Waterhouse, 61, will retire by the end of the year. He’s been in the post only since June 2012. Spokesman Daniel Sieger told the WSJ Waterhouse is stepping down for “a combination of personal and professional reasons,” but will remain on the board. A search is underway for a replacement.
On Monday Crown “inadvertently” fed out catalog data indicating a May 6, 2014 pub date for former Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner‘s memoir and a working title of STRESS TEST. After those bits caused a stream of Tweets and follow-on news stories, Crown spokesperson David Drake clarified: “There is no title yet and no official publication date for Secretary Geithner’s forthcoming book. Due to an error on our part, an internal working title and placeholder publication date were inadvertently fed to our catalog system and have subsequently been removed. The final title and publication date of the book will be announced in due course.”
Scholastic is celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of the US release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone with their re-release of all seven trade paperbacks with new jacket art by Kazu Kibuishi. GMA released a short interview clip with author JK Rowling in which she indicates Dumbledore is “the one I miss the most.”
Scholastic says there are over 150 million Potter books in print in the US, and indicates the series has sold 450 million copies worldwide.
Australia’s Hardie Grant is purchasing UK-based illustrated books publisher Quadrille, on undisclosed terms. Hardie Grant, which maintains a small staff of its own in the UK, has distributed Quadrille in Australia. Hardie Grant founder Sandy Grant says, “We have worked with Quadrille since we first started, we admire their creative publishing, and their amazing list of books and stationery, and we are very happy to make this acquisition to expand our business in the UK and beyond.” The Bookseller reports that Quadrille’s sales have been £1.7 million so far in 2013.
Gillian Flynn has signed with William Morris Endeavor for representation in book-to-film deals as well as her own film and tv writing, though Stephanie Kip Rostan at Levine Greenberg remains her literary agent for books. Shari Smiley had served as the film co-agent for Flynn’s three film and tv deals.
Literary agent Frances Black and media relations executive Debra Caruso have announced the formation of E-Lit Books. The epublishing company is focused on helping issue titles by their clients when they are unable to find acceptable homes with major publishers. “We have so many wonderful authors whose manuscripts are not getting attention from the big publishers, but that doesn’t mean they’re not writing great books,” Black says in the announcement. She adds that the inclusion of “media relations, both social and traditional, will be the ‘it’ factor in our delivery system.”
In bookselling, the Chester County Book Company will reopen September 3 in a new, smaller space.
The Target Book Club‘s September pick is the new trade paperback edition of Defending Jacob by William Landay. And among this week’s notable new releases is Publishers Lunch news editor Sarah Weinman’s already-praised anthology, Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives: Stories from the Trailblazers of Domestic Suspense.
Finally, for court-watchers, Judge Denise Cote will convene a hearing this afternoon on the revised proposals for an injunction against Apple in the ebook pricing case.