Jeff James will join Thomas Nelson as vp, marketing for Nelson Books on June 29. Previously he was the founder and ceo of Mythology, a marketing consulting practice for Fortune 500 firms.
Steven Sussman will join Skyhorse as director of sales on June 29. Previously he was director of sales at Dover Publications.
Antonella Pearce joins IPR License as business development manager. She was at the Publishers Licensing Society (PLS).
J.K. Rowling has written extensively about the “reactionary, prejudiced, narrow-minded, ignorant and bigoted” Dursley family and their deep-seated resentment of Harry Potter on Pottermore, covered here by the Guardian.
Partnerships
Findaway World, which provides the audiobook catalog that Scribd offers through their ebook subscription plan, is adding a partnership with Playster. Now in beta and aiming for an official launch later this summer, Playster is a subscription streaming media service that combines ebooks with digital movies, music and games in a single subscription. Their book publishing participants include Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins.
Obituary
Longtime Zondervan editor, author, teaching pastor, and New Testament scholar Verlyn Verbrugge died on June 21 of pancreatic cancer. He was 72 years old.