In the UK, Foyle’s ceo Sam Husain, 67, will retire in April, the Bookseller reports. Former toy retailer Hamley’s coo Paul Currie will take over the leadership for the bookseller, and Husain will stay on as a non-executive director.
Also in the UK, Kieron Smith, who had been managing director of bookseller Book Depository before its sale to Amazon, has been hired by Blackwell’s as digital director, starting in February. He fills the slot vacated by Matthew Cashmore. Smith’s recent project, the online Best Little Bookshop, has closed.
Hanna Masaryk is joining Greenburger Associates as children’s/YA scout. She was previously an agency assistant at Curtis Brown.
At Medallion Press, Paul Ohlson moves over to become director of business development, and Brigitte Shepard is promoted to fill his previous position as director of sales and marketing.
Authors
Chipotle has announced their long-awaited second batch of authors to be featured on the fast food chain’s cups, and Vanity Fair’s online site wins the big, worldwide exclusive on breaking the news for the second time (though not really, since Chipotle has updated their Cultivating Thought web site). The new featured authors — once again “curated” by Jonathan Safran Foer — are: Augusten Burroughs, Julia Alvarez, Paulo Coelho, Barbara Kingsolver, Aziz Ansari, and Walter Isaacson.
Distribution
Trafalgar Square Publishing will handle distribution of Scholastic Australia into the US and Canada as of July 1, 2015.
Digital
Following the news that Tesco will close their Blinkbox Books ebook service, the Bookseller reports that the company is in talks to transition their customers over to Kobo (much as Sony did with their Reader Store customers). A Blinkbox Books spokesperson said: “We are currently in talks with Kobo, a global leader in e-reading, to offer a graceful solution for customers. Blinkbox and Kobo would work together to transition users’ libraries to the Kobo service, ensuring readers continue to have access to their previously purchased books and have the option to buy new ones from Kobo.”