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 joined the Martha Kaplan Agency, specializing in children’s and YA.
Tegan Morrison will join Bonnier Books imprint Echo Publishing in Australia in January as associate publisher. She replaces Angela Meyer, who left in October to pursue her writing career. Most recently Morrison was a consultant at Brio Books, and prior to that was associate publisher for ABC children’s books at Harper Australia.
There will be a public memorial service for the late Toni Morrison on November 21 at NYC’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine, beginning at 4:00 PM. Scheduled speakers include Oprah Winfrey, David Remnick, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Kevin Young, Angela Davis, Fran Lebowitz, Jesmyn Ward, Edwidge Danticat, and Michael Ondaatje.
Imprints
Zondervan will launch Zondervan Thrive in March 2020, a nonfiction imprint focused on categories including personal development, fulfillment, health and wellness, self-care, marriage and family, abuse/trauma, anxiety, and personality typologies. They expect to publish four titles next year, and build to approximately 10 titles a year.
Printers
With more plant closings and hundreds more layoffs part of the cost cutting at LSC Communications, reductions are planned for early next year at their Dover Publications unit, PW reports. President of the LSC’s publishing group Rajeev Balakrishna says in a press release, “We are taking these necessary steps today to preserve Dover as a successful publishing house for the future.” He adds, “We greatly appreciate all of the hard work and years of service of our employees affected by this restructuring.” The company’s frontlist will focus primarily on adult coloring books and children’s books.
LSC’s stock continues to fall, now trading at just 74 cents a share, for a market cap of less than $25 million. Those shares will face a potential delisting from the NY Stock Exchange if they stay below $1 a share for too long.
At Quad, meanwhile, two shareholders filed suit in the Federal Court for New York’s Southern District, seeking class action status, alleging that company executives made false or misleading statement about Quad’s business, operations and prospects ahead of their poor third quarter earnings. They argue that Quad should have disclosed that its book business was underperforming and was likely be divested, and that the company should have been more forthcoming in advance of cutting the dividend and announcing more cost-cutting measures. Quad stock collapsed after the announcement and now trades at 40 percent of where it was before the news. The suit is not unexpected, given that the poor results were immediately followed by shareholder rights law firms soliciting clients.
Bookselling
New bookstore and wine bar Book Club opened in NYC’s East Village. The store has a 3,000-title general interest inventory.