Craig Popelars is joining Tin House Books as publisher, starting June 1. He was previously associate publisher at Algonquin Books. Win McCormack, current publisher and owner of Tin House Books, says, “Craig Popelars is a powerhouse in the field. He has exactly the kind of vision, energy, and experience needed to take Tin House Books to the next level.” At Penguin Random House Canada, Robert Wheaton expands his role to include strategy, becoming chief strategy and operations officer. He continues to report to ceo Kristin Cochrane. Charidy Johnston moves up to vp, sales, continuing to report to Wheaton. She takes […]
Archives for April 2019
Zhao’s Postponed Blood Heir to Publish in November
Amélie Wen Zhao’s debut YA novel Blood Heir, originally scheduled for publication June and postponed earlier this year, will be published on November 19 by Delacorte. In January, Delacorte postponed indefinitely their publication at the author’s request, after some online readers accused Zhao of racism and insensitivity to the history of American slavery. Though Zhao had apologized “to the book community” at the time and expressed gratitude “to those who have raised questions,” now she tells the NYT that she reread her book several times and decided her critics were not right. She revised the novel, but says the final […]
Kobo CEO Tamblyn’s Tips for Raising eBook Revenues
It’s only appropriate that a Book Industry Study Group (BISG) annual meeting Friday that opened with predictions of continuing tight markets for book paper and manufacturing concluded with Kobo (“often thought of as ‘Kobo-Who-We-Wish-Were-Bigger-In-the-US'”) ceo Michael Tamblyn running down six ways to sell more digital product — and retain readers’ attention — with better metadata. His biggest and most important suggestion/ask — which has been a staple of some of my own speeches for years — was, “Add series data. Every damn time.” As Tamblyn noted, series represent a whopping 52 percent of their ebook sales. Yet it is “one […]
People, Etc.
The Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel Prize for literature, has named Mats Malm its new permanent secretary. The previous permanent secretary, Sara Danius, resigned last April after a sexual harassment and leaking scandal. Anders Olsson has been filling the role since last June. Malm, a professor of literary theory at the University of Gothenburg, joined the academy four months ago. Katie Hope will join the Princeton University Press as marketing director in June, leading marketing and sales teams in Princeton and Oxford. She was most recently director of marketing and author relations at MIT Press. Jake-Ryan Kent was promoted […]
Market Expected to Remain Tight for Printing and Paper
The opening session of the Book Industry Study Group (BISG)’s annual meeting in New York on Friday addressed one of last year’s knottiest issues: Shortages of both book printing paper and book manufacturing capacity. While last year brought a “perfect storm” as Janet McCarthy Grimm, vp of Lindenmeyr Book Paper, said, the “strains on our system” that limit production of book paper are expected to continue. While “paper is much more readily available than it was at the end of last year” that’s consistent with seasonal changes in the paper business. Grimm warned, “We all need to be watching for […]
People, Etc.
Quarto’s interim chief financial officer Michael Mousley has been named a non-executive director. Group finance director Steven Grace will oversee finance for now, and an undisclosed new chief financial officer will join the company in July. Separately, Pearson has added two independent non-executive directors to its board: Graeme Pitkethly, CFO at Unilever, and Sherry Coutu, an entrepreneur and angel investor who founded Interactive Investor International plc and currently chairs Founders4Schools, Raspberry Pi Trading and the Scale-Up Institute. At Chronicle, Aki Neumann has been hired as junior production designer, children’s (she was a project editor for Octane Press). Former Angry Robot […]