Dominic Myers became head of Amazon Publishing in Europe on September 2, based in Luxembourg but overseeing the UK and German publishing businesses and “launching new offices” they “expand our European publishing efforts.”Most recently non-executive director at some consumer-focused startups, he had been managing director of Waterstones in the UK up until it was sold by HMV. Amazon says that their German publishing unit has released 118 titles so far this year.
At Simon & Schuster, Carolyn Connolly has been promoted to senior vice president, human resources. CEO Carolyn Reidy writes to employees: “we are fortunate to have in Carolyn a leader whose broad view of what human resources can do to help Simon & Schuster attract, develop and retain those employees has been a major contribution to our success.”
Mary-Alice Moore has been promoted to the new position of VP, publishing strategy and product development at Highlights for Children. She will continue to directly oversee the Highlights book group as well. In addition, Sue Cole has joined the company as production director. Previously she was production director at Grove Atlantic.
Updating the Random House 2-day Transit holiday shipping program, those distribution clients who are serviced out of Penguin’s facilities (Overlook Press, Europa Editions, Library of America, Kensington) are not eligible this year, just like Penguin itself.
Former longtime Penguin president of sales Dick Heffernan officially opened for business online Tuesday with his new enterprise, Kinsale Harbor, which manufactures cotton dress shirts for men.
In awards, John Kenney won the 2014 Thurber Prize for American Humor for Truth in Advertising (one of our first group of Publishers Lunch Buzz Books).
Lionel Shriver‘s “Kilifi Creek”won the BBC’s National Short Story Award. You can listen to it here.