Webb Younce has joined Thomas Nelson imprint Nelson Books as associate publisher/executive editor, filling the role previously held by Bryan Norman. He and is wife are relocating to Nashville. Most recently he was at Free Press, until it was disbanded as a separate Simon & Schuster unit in 2012.
At Fodor’s Travel, Arabella Bowen has been promoted to the newly created position of vp, editor in chief.
Skyhorse will launch a new library-focused imprint, Carrel Books, in fall 2014, with an initial list of 20-30 titles annually in categories such as medicine/health, history, biography/memoir, and business/careers. The imprint will be overseen by Niels Aaboe, who joined Skyhorse in 2012. President and publisher Tony Lyons said in a statement: “We appreciate the support we’ve received from librarians and the wholesalers that supply them. Without their support, our recent growth would have been impossible. With an imprint whose editorial and marketing team focuses on the needs of librarians and library patrons, we expect further growth and an even closer working relationship with the library community.”
Separately, as previously announced, all Skyhorse imprints will be distributed to the book trade in the U.S. by Perseus as of January 1, 2014.
Earl’s Court Exhibition Center, the current location of the London Book Fair, is due to be demolished as part of an ambitious plan to redevelop that entire section of London. While this has been known for some time, LBF officials — who have a contract for the venue for 2014 — have not commented on the inevitable need to relocate the show. (There is not a fixed date for the demolition yet.) Now the Bookseller confirms that fair organizers have visited the two logical alternatives with the LBF Advisory Board. The known choices are nearby Olympia — the former site that was left behind as the show grew — and Excel, the modern center on the outskirts of London that they tried moving to in 2006, to widespread displeasure. LBF non-executive chairman David Roche tells the Bookseller, “We are at the beginning of the consultation, not the end, it is a wide and open-ended as is possible, and the advisory committee is very broad. As you’d expect from publishing, some of the views we’ve had are quite vigorous.”