Ben Ball will join Simon & Schuster Australia in the newly created role of publishing director, Scribner. He will report to managing director Dan Ruffino, leading the recently launched Australian arm of the imprint. He was previously with Penguin Group Australia for 12 years, most recently as publishing director, literary.
Milena Brown becomes assistant director of marketing at Atria, moving over from the publicity department.
Christian Lorenzten‘s Harper’s Magazine cover story on “the fate of the book review in the age of the algorithm” is live now. The real news is his acknowledgment that “my contract to review books at New York magazine was dropped” around October 2018. “I had been told that although its books coverage would be expanding, what I did—book reviews—had ‘little value.'” The magazine announced that expansion of books coverage in September, and books editor Boris Kachka said the planning started in June based on reader surveys. But NYM’s hiring of male critics has been controversial as well, highlighted by Rebecca Traister in the magazine’s own pages in November 2017.
Asteri Holdings has acquired “the digital assets” of DK’s Prima Games,which the publisher said last November they would discontinue in spring 2019 following a “significant decline” in the video game guide sector. What that announcement means, we were told after querying, is that Asteri acquired the Prima Games website.
RBMedia’s UK division WF Howes has an audiobook product and distribution deal with publisher Head of Zeus, expected to yield 100 audio titles a year.