Michael Gentile has been promoted to vice president, education sales and marketing, Penguin Random House, expanding his role to include oversight of education sales across all children’s and adult divisions. On the children’s side, he will report to to Felicia Frazier, senior vice president, children’s and education sales, and on the adult side to Kim Shannon, senior vice president, adult retail and education sales.
Whitney Aaronson joins Random House Children’s as senior product manager for the digital marketing team. She previously worked for Simmons Research as UX product manager. Rob Roglev joins as senior developer for the digital marketing team. He previously worked for DK Publishing as director of interactive media.
Andrew LaVallee will join the NYT later this month as the books desk’s senior editor for news and features. He has been at the WSJ for the last 13 years, most recently as arts editor, overseeing books and culture coverage.
The Nation’s editor at large, journalist and author D.D. Guttenplan, will take over as editor, effective June 15. Katrina vanden Heuvel will become editorial director and remain publisher of the magazine.
Bookselling
Philadelphia’s Penn Book Center in University City, founded in 1962, will close in May. Co-owners Ashley Montague and Michael Row, who bought the store in 2005, said they’ve experienced “losses due to the explosion of online sales of books at cut-rate prices.”
Initiatives
Harvard Business Review Press announced an exclusive agreement with RBmedia to publish “at least 120 audiobooks over the next three years,” starting in summer 2019. They will publish audio versions of all frontlist titles, along with selected backlist not previously released in audio format.