American Booksellers Association ceo since 2009 Oren Teicher announced Monday that he will retire at the end of the year. The ABA board has retained the search firm of Isaacson, Miller and has appointed a search committee, intending to complete the search process by September 30.
Teicher said, “To say the least, this was not a decision I reached lightly, as I have cherished every single day over the last 30 years that I have worked at ABA. But the time has come, and I firmly believe it’s the right decision for me, and for ABA. There are also a number of important things still to get done, and I expect to continue working on those as vigorously as I can while I remain CEO.”
Barnes & Noble has added another high-level executive, with Joe Gorman starting today as executive vice president, operations — reporting directly to executive chairman Leonard Riggio. He was previously executive vice president, operations at GNC (and had leadership positions at Riggio-founded GameStop, and Home Depot), Riggio said, “Joe is a seasoned executive and given his wealth of retail experience we believe he is the perfect fit for our business.”
Cecily Kaiser will join Penguin Workshop as director of preschool publishing, starting April 1, creating a developmental program that will encompass board book, novelty, and 8×8. She was previously children’s publisher, Phaidon Press.
Seema Mahanian joins Grand Central as an editor, acquiring commercial fiction. She has previously worked in editorial at Scribner and at Penguin.
Jennifer Jensen has joined Chronicle Prism as associate director of marketing. Previously she worked at Harper Collins. Jamie Real has been promoted to associate managing editor, children’s.
Emily Mannon has joined Holiday House as trade marketing coordinator.She was previously marketing and project coordinator at Trustbridge.
Shari Maurer has joined the Stringer Literary Agency as associate agent based in New York. Most recently, she was a writer at Romper.
Acquisitions
Rowman & Littlefield acquired 39-year-old publisher specializing in nautical fiction McBooks Press on March 15. Founder Alex Skutt comments in the announcement, “We work hard and—at the age of 70— it’s time for me to retire.”
Lyons Press editor Tom McCarthy will oversee the line.
Tommy Orange won the $25,000 PEN/Hemingway Award for his debut novel There There.
The 2019 Carnegie And Kate Greenaway Medals also announced shortlists. National Book Award-winner Elizabeth Acevedo is among the Carnegie nominees for The Poet X, and 2014 Greenaway winner for This Is Not My Hat Jon Klassen is nominated again for The Wolf, The Duck and the Mouse.
Digital reading subscription service for kids Epic! continues to expand their line of Originals. Started last fall, they add three more series today. The company says it has more than 1.7 million paid monthly subscribers, with 300 million book reads last year.
Rakuten OverDrive is partnering with German digital distribution service Libreka to bring its ebook and digital audiobook catalog to public libraries in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.