One more pre-holiday message. As usual, Publishers Lunch will be suspended for a bit, while PublishersMarketplace.com remains open all the time and will be logging deals, news, jobs and other items as they come in, albeit at a more leisurely pace. (14 new jobs were posted this week alone if you are in the market for something new next year.) We expect to send one catch-up issue of the newsletter at the end of next week unless something compelling happens in the meantime. The best way to stay on top of things is always with a PublishersMarketplace.com membership: We still have […]
Archives for December 2018
People, Etc.
Mike Evans will join McGraw-Hill on January 1 as chief financial officer. He was chief operating officer and CFO at Renaissance, which specializes in pre-K-12 learning analytics. Longtime associate art director at Knopf Peter Mendelsund has been named creative director of The Atlantic, and his frequent design partner Oliver Munday will become senior art director, with both starting in February. PW did not pick a “person of the year’ for 2018, instead honoring five people who were publishers of imprints with Trump books, and one editorial director: Eric Nelson, Broadside; Rolf Zettersten, Center Street; Steve Rubin, Holt; Jonathan Karp, Simon & […]
The Final, Definitive Very Best of the Best Books of 2018 Lists
With 58 votes tabulated we’re ready to stop counting and present the final and ultimate (despite some newcomers) aggregation of selective “best of 2018” book lists from all over — including major publications of all kinds, but also retailer and library selections, major award nominees, and more. This year the top books were out of step with the major awards (unlike last year, when Booker winner George Saunders had our No. 1 book, or the 2016, when Colson Whitehead took multiple honors). Giller winner Washington Black was the most decorated and nominated title on this year’s overall top 10. Fifteen […]
Tate Publishing Owners Take Plea Agreement, Will Provide Restitution to Defrauded Authors
Ryan and Richard Tate, the ceo and founder respectively of Tate Publishing & Enterprises, accepted a plea agreement with the Oklahoma Attorney General at a hearing yesterday. The Tates were charged with 38 felonies and six misdemeanors for fraudulent business practices that “swindled more than 2,200 individuals out of their property and money they paid to have their music or books published or produced through the companies.” Under the deal, the brothers’ sentences are suspended but they will spend the next two decades on probation and face “revocation” and “prison time” if they fail to comply with the agreement. They will […]
Briefs
At Lerner Publishing Group, Rachel Zugschwert has been promoted to vp, marketing, and Greg Hunter to editorial director, Graphic Universe, both effective January 1, 2019. Forthcoming Zadie Smith‘s first short story collection GRAND UNION will be published by Penguin Press in fall 2019, and in the UK by Hamish Hamilton on October 3, 2019. It will contain ten new stories, as well as 10 more of “her very best, drawn from two decades of remarkable short fiction.” Initiatives Boston creative writing center GrubStreet has been selected by the city to open a new “civic-cultural space” on the first and second floors of Fifty […]
The Year In Mergers, Acquisitions, and Finance
Though 2018 was not as active a year for publishing mergers, acquisitions, and finance as was 2017, it was by no means quiet — and reflects certain marketplace shifts towards consolidation and scale we’ve been paying close attention to for the last several years. Penguin Random House made with a number of modest purchases around the world, including the books division of Rodale, paperback publisher Hind Pocket Books in India, and a controlling stake in Brazil’s Companhia das Letras, while also selling off the app company Smashing Ideas, which was an early outside purchase under ceo Markus Dohle’s tenure in […]