Christine Edwards will join Harper Collins in the newly created role of svp, sales on December 30, reporting to Josh Marwell. She is currently vp, group sales director for Crown Publishing Group as well as vp, group sales director for Penguin Random House Audio.
At Harlequin Trade, Jennifer Choi has joined as manager, subsidiary rights; she was previously at Penguin Publishing Group. Cat Clyne has joined as editor for HQN/Graydon House; she was at Sourcebooks. Samantha McVeigh has joined as publicist; she was at Kensington.
In the UK, Doyel Maitra will join Hachette UK as group communications director in March 2020. She is currently head of PR and consumer affairs at MoneySuperMarket.
Matt Brogan will take over next week as executive director of the Poetry Society of America, succeeding longtime leader Alice Quinn.
A public memorial for Toni Morrison was held on Thursday. Angela Davis, Ta-Nehisi Coates, David Remnick, Fran Lebowitz, Oprah, and others gave remembrances. In her speech Oprah recalled the first time she met Morrison in person and was “too bedazzled” to speak to her. Later, she said, “She thought deeply about the role of the artist and concluded that writers are among the most sensitive, the most intellectually anarchic, most representative, most probing of all the artists. She believed it was a writer’s job to rip the veil off to bore down to the truth. She took the canon, she broke it open. Among her legacies were writers she paved the way for, many of them here, in this beautiful space tonight, celebrating her.”
Canada’s RBC Taylor Prize for Non-Fiction will come to an end after 20 years, once their final award is presented on March 2, 2020. Noreen Taylor explains “it became clear last year that we had achieved every goal that Charles and I set out. With winners, finalists, Emerging Writers and more recently the Mentorship program, we have collectively touched the lives of more than 100 writers in this country.”
Boosted
Dr. Fiona Hill‘s book Mr Putin: Operative in the Kremlin got a deserved boost following her testimony on Thursday. Enough to put the lightly-sold paperback out of stock quickly, though it is also available as an ebook.
Publishing Salaries
A Book Money spreadsheet of self-reported anonymous book publishing salaries is growing through an online Google doc, with an open form for submissions. Currently, there are 165 entries across a variety of roles and levels. The spreadsheet also provides space to include gender identity, salary, previous salary and more.
Dulled Dagger
Yes, Nick Confessore at the NYT determined that the Republican National Committee paid $94,800 in October to Books-a-Million in October to purchase copies of Don Trump Jr.‘s book TRIGGERED. Based on the discount offered by BAM he estimates they purchased approximately 4,000 books. “Doesn’t take too much more to hit the list.”
But when TRIGGERED debuted at No. 1 on the NYT nonfiction list, it sold 71,000 hardcovers according to NPD Bookscan. The No. 2 title, Mitch Albom’s Finding Chika, sold 46,000 hardcovers.
Imprints
HMH Children’s is launching Etch, a graphic novel imprint. Editors from all imprints of HMH Children’s will acquire for Etch, which will publish seven books in 2020 and 15 books a year after that. Catherine Onder, svp and publisher at HMH Children’s said, “This variety of perspectives, interests, and expertise is key to our providing graphic novels for every reader.”