Kensington will merge its two digital-first imprints eKensington and Lyrical Press into a single unit under the Lyrical Press name. The merged imprint will continue to be under the helm of Adam Zacharius, and directly managed by Alexandra Nicolajsen as well as Martin Biro, who has been promoted to associate editor, digital books. Renee Rocco remains managing director.
Kensington Publishing president and ceo Steven Zacharius said: "As the largest independent publisher in America, Kensington is able to bring innovative ideas and a personal touch to each of the books we publish. By combining our two digital imprints, we've created a more robust brand that benefits from the focus of our entire company. Our new structure will make Lyrical Press the place where authors want to go for digital publishing."
Francis Greenburger has joined OR Books' board of shareholders. Greenburger is the chairman and CEO of Time Equities and owner of Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. He bought shares from controlling owners and founders John Oakes and Colin Robinson, contributing more working capital to the publisher. The shareholders' group includes Overlook Press owner Peter Mayer; director of the University of Chicago Press Distribution Center Don Linn; managing director of Turnaround Distribution Bill Godber; literary agent Frances Goldin; and owner and publisher of Just World Books Helena Cobban.
Anthony LaSasso has joined Bloomsbury as senior publicist. Previously he was a publicist at CN Times Books.
Brittany Edwards has been promoted to culinary publicity manager at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Beth Parker is leaving Gotham/Avery, where she was associate director of publicity, to start her own PR firm, Beth Parker PR. She may be reached at beth@bethparkerpr.com.
The University of Arkansas Press joined the Chicago Distribution Center as a distribution client publisher as of July 1.
Finally, for what it's worth, Amazon's much quoted remark saying Hachette "should stop using their authors as human shields" is not a new offering. The same verbatim statement was provided to us by a spokesperson on July 9 (and quoted in our July 11 story explaining how "sincerity" works.
