Stephen Brayda will join the Harper One Group on April 24 as art director for Harper Via, Amistad and Harper Espanol, reporting to Judith Curr. He was previously with Riverhead. Director of events at Copperfield’s Books Barbara Lane debuts a column for the San Francisco Chronicle, Chapters and Verse, where she will “discuss what I love about the literary world, often focusing on our rich Northern California scene, personalities, trends, controversies and more.” Forthcoming As agent Esther Newberg had indicated in an interview a year ago, the unfinished memoir by the late Prince Rogers Nelson will be published October 29 […]
Archives for April 2019
Reese’s Book Club Explores A Subscription Box
Content platform Hello Sunshine, home of Reese Witherspoon’s wildly successful book club, is considering a subscription box offering. Tech Crunch was the first to notice that a survey sent to Hello Sunshine’s email list April 16 included several box-focused questions. The 43-question survey, appropriately incentivized with a contest to win a book box, asks readers what subscriptions they already receive; what matters most in a subscription, with 12 options that include personalization, saving money, and “a box full of surprises”; and how they prefer to pay for subscriptions. It also asks how social impact affects readers’ buying decisions, one of […]
People, Etc.
Michelle Brower has been named a partner at Aevitas Creative Management. Dean Smith will join Duke University Press as director starting July 1. He has been director of Cornell University Press since 2015 (and for the record is no relation to the late legendary UNC basketball coach of the same name). Smith succeeds Steve Cohn, who is retiring at the end of June. Cohn has been at Duke University Press since 1984, and has served as director since 1993. Luana Horry has been promoted to associate editor at Harper Children’s. Danielle Keir has been promoted to senior publicist at Berkley. Janine Sato has been […]
People, Etc.
Kathleen Doherty, vp and publisher, Tor Teen & Starscape will retire on June 14, after 34 years with Tor/Forge. Doherty joined the company in 1985 to start the special sales department, eventually launching Tor Classics, Tor Kids, and more. After she leaves, senior editors Susan Chang and Melissa Frain and editor Ali Fisher will report to Fritz Foy until a successor is named. At Arcadia Publishing, Christen Thompson rejoins the company on April 29 in the new position of director of special projects. (She is also the co-owner of the North Charleston bookstore, Itinerate Literate, which opened last year.) And […]
Penguin Random House Starts Frequent Reader Rewards Program
Penguin Random House has launched a Reader Rewards Loyalty Program, a free promotional initiative that lets readers earn one free book for every 12 PRH titles they purchase. EVP, director, marketing strategy & consumer engagement Sanyu Dillon says in the announcement that their research “shows that today’s consumer expects to be rewarded by the brands they purchase from frequently, and this program delivers an initial step toward building deeper, more meaningful relationships with readers.” Readers register for an account through the PRH website, where FAQs on the new program are posted, and submit evidence of purchases — in any format, […]
The New AAP Reporting Pool Looks to be Smaller, But February Statistics Show A Gain
The AAP continues with their program of much more timely release of the monthly StatShot statistics, publishing the February 2019 report. Unfortunately, as we suggested in reporting on the January data, asserting any meaningful comparisons has become more dubious still — particularly for adult books — given the large changes in the pool of reporting publishers. A year ago, adult trade sales for February were reported as $334 million, a gain over $301 million in 2017. But this year, the final re-reported version of the February 2018 adult trade data (reflecting historical data from the new pool of contributing publishers) […]