Jennifer Schuster will become executive editor, Crown Archetype and Three Rivers Press, reporting to Tricia Boczkowski, as of April 18. She had been at NAL.
Amelia Possanza will join Flatiron Books as senior publicist on April 11. Previously she was a publicist at Touchstone. In addition, Kimberly Escobar will join as publicist. Previously she was a publicist at Grand Central.
Lisa Baker will join Aitken Alexander Associates as director of translation rights in August, and will also represent her own list of clients. She was rights director for Faber and Faber.
Longtime co-owner of the Once Upon a Crime Bookstore Gary Shulze, 66, died of leukemia. He and his wife Pat Frovarp sold the store last month.
Penguin Random House makes Forbes’ list of America’s best employers, at No. 171.
Agenting
The Hollywood Reporter interviews Sloan Harris and Esther Newberg, co-heads of ICM’s publishing department. Asked about “the perception that editors edit less” now, Newberg replies, “I don’t sell to somebody who doesn’t edit, maybe that’s why it goes often to the same group of people. I hate people saying that publishing has changed in that way. “Just go to Amazon. They don’t edit.” Bad agents are selling to the wrong people.”
More broadly, Harris observes: “Barnes and Noble is in dreadful shape and Borders closed. The big brand-name authors with a track record, we’re still fetching top dollar for them without breaking a sweat. It is progressively more difficult to launch a new voice and to create a sales track that’s sustainable, and that’s all about the inefficiencies of retail.” On the other hand, “The thing that seems to have peaked is the runaway success of certain self-published authors, and the sense that self-publication was going to be a panacea for everything that’s wrong with the business.”
Asked about his dream celebrity memoir, Harris replies: “Clint Eastwood. I would love to get [ICM client] Vince Gilligan to write a novel, too. That guy is a master storyteller and we could create a monster business for him.”
Awards
Toni Morrison will receive the MacDowell Colony’s Edward MacDowell Medal, given to an artist who has made an outstanding contribution to American culture, on August 14.
Will Alexander won Poets & Writers’ $50,000 Jackson Poetry Prize, given to an American poet of exceptional talent who deserves wider recognition.
Distribution
Nicholas Brealey Publishing, now owned by Hachette UK, will transfer North American sales and distribution services to Hachette Book Group as of July 1. They have been distributed by Consortium.