Marianne Velmans, publishing director at Doubleday UK, will retire in April, after 31 years with the imprint. She will be succeeded by Kirsty Dunseath who joined as publishing director in March. Transworld manager director Larry Finlay told The Bookseller, “Not only is Marianne a wonderful editor and publisher but she is also a lovely, warm, supportive person. It has been a huge pleasure to work with her for so long. She is smart, dedicated, and a fabulous champion both of her authors and her colleagues. So many have benefitted from her wisdom and care over the years. We will all […]
Archives for November 2019
Oprah Magazine’s Best Books of 2019
Oprah Magazine chose 14 best books of the year. The titles include Oprah’s two recent book club picks, Elizabeth’s Strout’s Olive, Again and Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Water Dancer, which tops the list . The complete list: 1. The Water Dancer, by Ta-Nehisi Coates 2. Maggie Brown & Others, by Peter Orner 3. The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett 4. Dreyer’s English, by Benjamin Dreyer 5. The Need, by Helen Phillips 6. Sontag, by Benjamin Moser 7. Patsy, by Nicole Dennis-Benn 8. Doxology, by Nell Zink 9. Lost Children Archive, by Valeria Luiselli 10. Grand Union, by Zadie Smith 11. Normal […]
Something Extra
We are celebrating the 18th anniversary of PublishersMarketplace.com this month (yes, we really did start a paid subscription website after the first dotcom bubble burst and just weeks after 9/11). This year we’re trying something a little different: You’ll be getting the full, longer Publishers Lunch Deluxe for the rest of this week, to provide a little taste of what our paid subscribers see every day. There’s no easy way of doing the same thing for all the big databases and features behind the paywall at PM but to help inspire you to have a look, use time-limited code fifteen19 […]
Simon & Schuster Sales Down While Profit Gains Continue
Sales at Simon & Schuster dropped in the third quarter of 2019 to $217 million, down $23 million from a year ago (or 9.6 percent). Operating income rose again despite the lower sales, up $1 million to $52 million — marking the 19th consecutive quarter of profit growth — primarily due to “lower production costs from the mix of titles.” In the press release, the company said the sales decline was mainly driven by lower print book sales, due to the comparison to last year’s record-breaking release of Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward. (Two years ago […]
Best Of: Atwood’s The Testaments Tops Amazon’s Best of 2019 List, BN Picks “Finalists”
Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments is Amazon‘s top title for 2019. Elizabeth Gilbert’s City of Girls, which was the top pick on their Best So Far list in June, makes the final list. Other titles that return from the mid-year list (for a total of five) comprise: Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, by Lori Gottlieb (HMH); On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong; and The Silent Patient, by Alex Michaelides, all of which are in our Buzz Books samplers, along with Wild Game, by Adrienne Brodeur from the list. The complete, fiction-heavy top 20, in order: 1. The Testaments, by Margaret Atwood 2. […]
People, Etc.: Atsma Moves to Ecco
Helen Atsma will join Ecco as vp, editorial director on December 2, reporting to Daniel Halpern and filling the position vacated recently by Megan Lynch. She has been editorial director, fiction at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kelly O’Connor Lonesome is joining Tom Doherty Associates as senior editor for Nightfire. She was previously at Orbit, though for the last two years she has been a Bay Area bookseller and at the University of California. Ashley Gilliam has been promoted to senior marketing manager at Scribner. Amy Habayeb has been promoted to associate director, subsidiary rights at Simon & Schuster Children’s. Emily Osborn has […]