Dena Rayess has been promoted to assistant editor at Chronicle Books.
Roseanne Wells has been promoted to agent at the Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency.
Kaitlyn Johnson joined Belcastro Agency. She was previously with Corvisiero Literary Agency.
Last week, Terence Campo joined Little Bee Books as production manager (he was at Sterling), as did Elizabeth Peskin (who was at Random House Children’s).
In the UK, Paul Martinovic has been appointed promoted to associate editor at Picador. He will focus on backlist and popular non-fiction, and starting his own pop culture list.
Luke Taylor has been promoted to retail director at Waterstones, where Beccy Preece becomes logistics director, and Andrew Stephenson will join as HR director on February 3.
Awards
Michelle Obama won a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album for her narration of her 2018 memoir BECOMING.
Libraries
As the American Library Association convenes their mid-winter meeting in Philadelphia, a Gallup poll conducted in December reaffirms that “visiting the library remains the most common cultural activity Americans engage in, by far. The average 10.5 trips to the library U.S. adults report taking in 2019 exceeds their participation in eight other common leisure activities.” The survey finds that “libraries are most utilized by young adults, women and residents of low-income households.”
Marketing
Ingram has posted an insightful, and free, Publisher’s Guide to Navigating the World of Digital Book Marketing.
Metadata
It’s a big year for metadata transitions. The Book Industry Study Group (BISG) has developed a “countdown calendar” to help guide industry as it moves to ONIX 3.0. They note, “The calendar is tied to Amazon’s plan to require ONIX 3.0 by the end of 2020.” First up is February 21, when “publishers are encouraged to have a timeline in place to test their ability to generate ONIX 3.” As noted previously, this year is also when everyone needs to be fully ISBN-13 compliant, since the new block of 979-prefixed ISBNs has no 10-digit equivalent.