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People, Etc.

September 7, 2018
By Erin Somers

Michael Signorelli, formerly senior editor at Holt, has joined Gotham Ghostwriters as managing director of the Bookwriting Group.

Ingram Content Group chief content officer Phil Ollila will be the honoree at the Goddard Riverside Book Fair Gala on October 30.

Amanda R. Cecil has been promoted to director, digital content & social media marketing for Barnes & Noble.

Erica Stone has joined Random House Children’s as school & library marketing coordinator. She was previously the school partnership & offsite sales assistant at Greenlight Bookstore

Former chief executive of Bonnier Publishing Richard Johnson‘s memoir releases Saturday in the UK, and the Bookseller has an advance interview. Fired in February following poor results, Johnson says he had wanted to resign the previous year, and blames the departure of Bonnier Books ceo Jacob Dalborg for the change in direction. “Jacob’s departure killed us. We had a strategy: ‘create the hype’. We wanted to goad, and he explained all that to Sweden. I thought they got it, but obviously without Jacob they couldn’t make sense of it.”

Johnson says the big spending — and debts incurred — on his watch were encouraged by management in Sweden: “From 2014 onwards, the Swedes encouraged us no end to make them bigger and better. They were fully into the whole spirit, especially in 2016. They were well aware of the huge cost but also well aware of the purpose of [the costs], which was a ‘create the hype’ strategy… Jacob didn’t want to wait around, he wanted to expand books massively and he wanted it soon.”

Imprints
Canongate will launch a new paperback crime fiction imprint Black Thorn in May 2019, building on their acquisition of Severn House in 2017. Holly Domney will manage the line as publishing coordinator. Black Thorn will release two paperbacks each month, and the company says it will be the first time that many of these Severn House titles have been available to the trade.

Canongate head Jamie Byng said in the announcement: “When we were assessing Severn House as a possible acquisition, one of the many exciting opportunities that we felt it offered was the launch of a commercial fiction paperback list, drawing from Severn House’s outstanding roster of books and authors. So I am thrilled that we are now able to share our plans for Black Thorn which we believe is going to be a great success and which adds a distinctive new strand to Canongate’s publishing output.”

Initiatives
Audible has boosted their monthly membership package, now letting subscribers listen to two Audible Originals every month along with one regular audiobook.

Filed Under: Free, New Imprints, Personnel

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