Liz Kelsch has been promoted to director of marketing for nonfiction and mystery at Sourcebooks.
Picks
Reese Witherspoon‘s book club pick for February is Jasmine Guillory’s The Proposal.
Distribution
Rizzoli New York will distribute Pavilion Books, Pavilion Children’s, Portico, Pitkin, and the National Trust via Penguin Random House Publisher Services, starting July 2019. Previously these lists were distributed by IPG.
Bookselling
A new bookstore, Still North Books, will open in Hanover, NH in the space that belonged to Dartmouth Bookstore, which closed last year after 146 years of operation. The new owner Allie Levy, who previously worked in the marketing department at HMH, says the new store will include a cafe and beer/wine bar. She plans to raise the $100,000 she estimates she needs for stock through an Indiegogo campaign.
Legal
Jay Asher’s legal complaint against the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (and 50 Jane Does) is now available, and offers some new detail in his version of the facts. Some notables: That in his telling, there was no “investigation” of the Does’ accusations that he had harassed them, contrary to SCBWI ceo Lin Oliver’s February 2018 statement; that while all parties agreed he would take a step back from the organization, Oliver urged him to re-up his membership–yet a year later said he had been ejected; and finally, that the original anonymous email sender had recanted on her accusation, and later contradicted her own claims (while making fresh claims of intimidation, which Asher denies). The lawsuit doesn’t assign a dollar figure to his damages, instead requesting the sum come out of a jury trial.
Whether not any part of his 16-page complaint has merit, defamation lawsuits are extremely difficult to prove, according to legal experts interviewed by Vulture. Asher filed the lawsuit in California, where the burden of proof on accusers is particularly high thanks to its Anti-SLAPP law, in place to protect the public’s freedom of speech by reducing fear of litigation.
Read the full complaint.