Penguin Random House chief human resources officer Frank Steinert will leave the company after the first quarter in 2019. CEO Markus Dohle writes that Steinert “contributed passionately and immensely to our company by improving and strengthening our services for the most central part of our business: our employees.” Paige McInerney is promoted to the new position of evp, director of human resources for Penguin Random House US, reporting to Madeline McIntosh, and will join the US board. She has been with the company since 1991, when she started to Putnam Berkley. Dohle writes that he “will directly oversee the most […]
Archives for December 2018
Sourcebooks Acquires Poisoned Pen Press Titles, For Expanded Mystery Imprint
Sourcebooks will acquire the majority of titles published by Poisoned Pen Press, which it will combine with its own mystery titles in a Poisoned Pen Press imprint. Young adult mysteries under the Poisoned Pencil name will be incorporated into the Sourcebooks Fire imprint. Poisoned Pen editor-in-chief Barbara Peters and her husband, president and founder Robert Rosenwald say in a joint statement, “We know that what started small twenty-one years ago has, like Sourcebooks, continually grown. To enhance the experience of our authors and their readers, as well as of our staff, this is the right time, with a fantastic fit, […]
Accountant Who Stole From Donadio & Olson Given Two Years In Prison; Agency Declared Bankruptcy
One of the year’s stranger — and more unsettling — capers came to a close on Monday, as former Donadio & Olson bookkeeper Darin Webb was sentenced. After pleading guilty in July to one count of wire fraud for defrauding the agency and its clients of $3.3 million, District Judge Edgardo Ramos sentenced Webb to two years in prison. He was also sentenced to three years of supervised release thereafter, plus “a forfeiture money judgment in the amount of $3,300,000, and restitution in an amount to be determined.” The government had recommended a stiffer sentence of 51 to 63 months in […]
People, Etc.
Marian Wood, vice president and publisher of Marian Wood Books, will retire at the end of the year. She has been with Putnam since 1999. Ivan Held president of Putnam, Berkley, and Dutton wrote in a memo to staff, “While her list of writers is a tribute to her acumen as an editor, each of her books has received the skill and passion a good book deserves. As she has been known to say, ‘There is no reason to publish a book you don’t love. If you take that path, you do damage to the house, to the writer, and […]
So Many Books, So Much Trouble Printing
2018 is notable for at least two related phenomena. The year began and ended with big nonfiction titles — Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff, and then Becoming by Michelle Obama –that sparked significant demand and had publishers scrambling to print enough hardcovers. That brings into relief a challenge that was present all year and will clearly carry over into 2019: Tight markets for both paper and book printing and binding had publishers juggling all the time to keep popular titles and steady backlist alike in stock. The issues look systemic, but paper and printing shortages were exacerbated by some of the […]
Rowman & Littlefield Acquires Hal Leonard Imprints, Titles
Rowman & Littlefield acquired the Hal Leonard Performing Arts Publisher Group’s Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, Limelight Editions, Backbeat Books, and Amadeus Press imprints, along with the titles published under the Hal Leonard imprint. They did not acquire the Hal Leonard name, or the company’s businesses of publishing sheet music and music instructional materials and distributing musical instruments. R&L acquired approximately 3,500 titles in the deal, with Hal Leonard retaining a small set of about 50 books that had been published under the flagship imprint. The acquired Hal Leonard titles will be incorporated into Rowman & Littlefield, and the other imprints will continue […]