In the wake of John Fallon‘s plan to retire as chief executive of Pearson, longtime chief financial officer Coram Williams has read the signs and taken a “comparable role at a company based in Continental Europe.” Williams will leave the company and its board later this year after a transition period, and deputy cfo Sally Johnson will take over his role.
Alida Becker will retire from the NYT Book Review, where she has worked for over 30 years as preview editor, on January 25, though she will continue her association as a contributor and columnist. Senior staff editor on the National desk Dave Kim will move over to the Book Review as a preview editor, primarily covering literary fiction, on January 23.
At Random House, Clio Seraphim has been promoted to editor and Emma Caruso to associate editor.
At NPD Bookscan and PubTrack Digital, Brooke Borneman will join as director, client development in early February (she was senior marketing manager at HMH) and Chloe DeFilippis joins as specialist, client development on January 21 (she was a sales associate at Phaidon.
Terezia Cicel has been promoted to associate editor at Viking.
Tim McCall has been promoted to vp, associate publisher of Melville House.
At Chronicle Books, Sarah Billingsley has been promoted to editorial director, food and lifestyle. Bridget Watson Payne becomes editorial director, art. Christina Loff moves up to senior director of marketing, adult trade. Ashley Despain has been promoted to production developer, children’s.
In the UK, Ed Faulkner will leave his position as publisher at Harper UK’s Harper Nonfiction to become publisher of the Allen & Unwin UK imprint in the spring. He will join the Atlantic Books board as well. (Allen & Unwin is the majority shareholder in Atlantic Books in the UK.)
Now that Lisette Verhagen has left David Godwin Associates and joined PFD, the latter will represent DGA’s translation rights.
Also
Seth Myers will host this year’s PEN America Literary Awards ceremony.
Former president Barack Obama’s inclusion of Jenny Odell’s novel How to Do Nothing on his list of favorite books from 2019 gave the book a sales boost. It provided what publisher Dennis Johnson calls “the rocket fuel to land on the best-seller list” and garner an NYT article as well. NPD Bookscan shows the book getting a lift of just over 1,000 copies for one week, moving approximately 2,900 hardcovers that week.
Forthcoming?
Caroline Calloway, the Instagram personality that her former friend and ghostwriter Natalie Beach wrote about extensively in The Cut last September, says she has actually written a little book, SCAMMER, which she will self-publish to her fans this spring. She says that AND WE WERE LIKE, the memoir that she and Beach were supposed to have written for Flatiron Books, will be published in winter 2020.