Zareen Jaffery will join Kokila as executive editor on January 13. She was previously executive editor at Simon & Schuster Children’s.
Rachel Beck has joined Liza Dawson Associates as agent. She was previously an agent with Holloway Literary.
Emily Duval has been promoted to manager, library marketing at Random House Children’s. Natalie Capogrossi has joined Random House Children’s as assistant manager, school marketing. She was previously a teacher and intern at Writer’s House.
At, Princeton Architectural Press, Jessica Tackett has been promoted to marketing manager; Parker Menzimer has been promoted to production editor; Stephanie Holstein has been promoted to associate editor; and Marisa Tesoro has been promoted to production coordinator.
Awards
The Audio Publishers Association will give a lifetime achievement award to Stephen King at the 2020 Audie Awards, to be presented on March 2.
Finalists for The Story Prize are:
Everything Inside, by Edwidge Danticat
Sabrina & Corina, by Kali Fajardo-Anstine
Grand Union, by Zadie Smith
Sales
One surprise hit over the holidays was Andrzej Sapkowski‘s fantasy series starring Geralt the witcher (THE LAST WISH, THE SWORD OF DESTINY, and BLOOD OF ELVES). The Netflix adaptation of The Witcher, which started streaming December 20, quickly became the service’s second most popular series release for all of 2019. Publisher Orbit tells PL that, “Since the series launch at the end of December we’ve sold more than a quarter of a million copies of The Witcher books across all formats and editions.” A second season is planned, but not any time soon.
In the meantime, Orbit will begin publishing Sapkowksi’s new The Hussite Trilogy with The Tower of Fools, scheduled for October 2020.
Bookselling
On the seizure by the city marshal of the Book Culture store on Columbus Avenue, co-owner Chris Doeblin now admits that he was given an eviction notice on December 20, after which he paid part, but not nearly all of what was owed to the landlord. He still owes $145,000: “If the landlord insists on all the arrears all at once, $145,000, I don’t have an answer for that.”
He tells Crain’s that $300,000 of the money raised from community loans has already gone to “sustain” the Columbus Avenue store — “If I forfeit that, all the investment the community lenders made would be lost as well.” The solution is for supporters to lend him an “additional investment of $140,000 now to get the doors open again at Columbus and continue our efforts.” And then some. “The obvious question is when are we throwing good money after bad. The fact is that we will need more investment, partnerships or access to capital to ensure our viability in the long term, as much as $300,000 more.”