Former Atlantic Books editor-in-chief Ravi Mirchandani will join Pan Macmillan’s Picador as associate publisher on September 1, reporting to publisher Paul Baggaley.
Founder and president of 800-CEO-READ Jack Covert retired on May 30, thirty years after he started the business books company. In a note on his blog last week Seth Godin remarked: “Jack Covert is one of the most important people in my little village of book publishing, a single individual outside the normal circles of New York, someone who cares and does something about it. Jack Covert relentlessly sees possibility when other people are ready to shrug their shoulders and walk away.”
Karen Shapiro joins Sourcebooks in the newly created position of publishing manager for the entertainment group. Previously she was general manager of publishing & development manager for Hinckler Books in Australia.
Daniel Loedel has moved over to Scribner as assistant editor, reporting to Nan Graham. Previously he was an assistant editor at Atria.
Indigo is promoting svp, finance Laura Carr to chief financial officer as of June 25, taking over from Kay Brekken, who “has accepted a position outside the company.”
Random House Publisher Services will distribute Legendary Comics titles to the trade as of August 1.
Internationally, Bloomsbury will take back responsibility for selling the company’s products in export international markets from the Penguin international sales team as on March 1, 2015. Jacqueline Sells will lead the Bloomsbury international sales team. Group sales and marketing director comments in the announcement: “The size and diversity of our current list has given us this opportunity to bring our selling operation in-house. We appreciate and have enjoyed working with Penguin over the past 15 years.” They note that “Bloomsbury will continue to work with the stockholding Penguin partners in Spain and Italy, Singapore, Malaysia and Canada.”
Aram Fox Literary has taken on French publisher Pocket Jeunesse (PKJ), a department of Univers Poche, in the US and Canada, as a client.
Would you like to know more about the latest big investor to take a significant position in Barnes & Noble‘s stock (as we reported on May 19)? Here is the WSJ on David Abrams of Abrams Capital: “The hedge-fund manager has personally become a billionaire, and earned billions more for his wealthy investors, over the past five years running what is effectively a one-man shop, according to company and investor documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and people who have worked with him.” They estimate that Abrams earned $400 million in compensation in 2013.