Random House’s ambassador to independent booksellers Ruth Liebmann “will expand her role to provide the same critical support to the Penguin Publishing Group with our independent booksellers as she does currently for the Random House divisions.” She takes on the broader title of vp, account marketing, Penguin Random House (and she maintains her oversight of the Random House Events Department). President of sales Jaci Updike writes, “Every day, Ruth makes an exceptional difference with our independent booksellers. A former New York City bookseller, Ruth began her career at Random House in 1995 as a Manhattan sales rep. Over the past two decades, in a variety of positions, she has become an important resource for our independent accounts, as both an unflagging in-house proponent for their needs, as well as a persuasive early advocate who rallies them in support of our publishers’ books.”
Brittany Frick has been promoted to specialty retail sales manager at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
At Zondervan, Melinda Bourma has been promoted to associate publisher, Bibles.
Erik Hane has joined Overlook Press as associate editor. He was previously assistant editor at Oxford University Press.
Obituaries
Poet and songwriter Rod McKuen, 81, died on Thursday after suffering from pneumonia.
Helen Eustis, 98, author of the Edgar Award-winning debut novel The Horizontal Man (1946), died January 11 at Beth Israel Hospital in New York.
Lists
Bookfinder.com released their list of the 100 most searched for out-of-print books in 2014 and for once there is some news: Norman Dixon’s On the Psychology of Military Incompetence was in first place, followed by Jack Howell’s The Lovely Reed: An Enthusiast’s Guide to Building Bamboo Fly Rods, with Madonna’s Sex dropping to third place.