Sarah Jean Grimm has joined Catapult/Counterpoint/Soft Skull as publicity manager. Previously she was a senior publicist at the Crown Publishing Group.
Heather Huston has joined Harper Christian as senior director of marketing, specialty division, with a focus on Thomas Nelson Gift, Zondervan Gift, and Tommy Nelson. Most recently Huston was vp, marketing at Rural Media Group.
Diane Banks Associates has rebranded itself as Northbank Talent Management, now working with former chair of Channel 4 Luke Johnson, who is providing financial backing (and will serve as chairman) to help create a broader talent agency that includes to books, broadcast, brand licensing and public speaking.
Chuck Palahniuk writes that he was a major victim of the bookkeeper Darin Webb who was charged with embezzling $3.4 million from literary agency Donadio & Olson. “All the royalties and advance monies and film option payments that had accumulated in my author’s account in New York, or had been delayed somewhere in the banking pipeline, it was gone. Poof. I can’t even guess how much income…. That’s why my big shows on book tour stopped. Because the payment for Fight Club 2 and the two coloring books and Adjustment Day never seemed to arrive.”
Palahniuk notes, “On the minus side, this chain of events leaves me close to broke.” But, “On the plus side, I’m incredibly rich. Rich beyond my ever imagining, with friends and readers who’ve rushed to my rescue.” He also notes, “I apologize for cursing my publishers. And I apologize for any rants about piracy. My publishers had paid the royalties. Piracy, when it existed, was small scale.” (He recently left longtime publisher Doubleday, to return to Norton, which he says “has absorbed the huge extra costs of this year’s book tour, costs I could no longer afford.”)
Distribution
Consortium will start distributing Dottir Press, Floris Books, Hazy Dell Press, New Europe Books, and World Editions on June 1.
Awards
Will Hill’s AFTER THE FIRE won The Bookseller’s YA Book Prize 2018. (Sourcebooks will publish in the US in October.)