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Briefs: People, Awards, Donations, Controversies and More

March 19, 2020
By Erin Somers

At Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Taryn Roeder has been promoted to vp, director of publicity and Michelle Triant to senior publicity manager. Shara Alexander has joined as associate director of publicity.

At Abrams Children’s, Lora Grisafi has been promoted to senior designer, marketing. Natali Cavanagh has joined  as marketing coordinator. She was previously marketing assistant at Little Brown Children’s.

At Harper Children’s, Anna Bernard has been hired as senior publicist (she was at Bloomsbury Children’s) and Lauren Levite has joined as publicist (she was at Tor/Forge). Aubrey Churchward has been promoted to publicity manager, and Mitch Thorpe is now senior publicist.

Tara Gilbert has been promoted to associate agent at the Corvisiero Literary Agency.

Sales
Print sales tracked by NPD Bookscan fell by 10 percent in units for the week ending March 14, compared to the previous (not compared to the same week a year ago), the AP reported. “The biggest gains were in nonfiction books for kids, notably workbooks.” Year to date, print unit sales as monitored by Bookscan are up slightly over the same period in 2019.

Donations
HarperCollins
has donated $50,000 to BINC to support bookstores in need of financial assistance as a result of the pandemic. The donation is being made as part of News Corp’s global philanthropy program. President of sales Josh Marwell said in the release, “Publishing is a community built on strong relationships—and now more than ever, it is clear that our community needs to come together and support one another.”

The ABA said it would donate $100,00 to BINC.

Virtual Promotions
Scholastic will hold a virtual book fest on Friday, March 20 from 3-5 pm EST. Events include themed costume contests, online Q&As with authors, trivia events, and more.

Simon & Schuster emailed readers about some forthcoming promotions and initiatives, including “a new program for all subscribers to redeem 1 free ebook per week from a curated list.”

Awards
The 2020 Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals announced shortlists.

Controversies
NYT op-ed columnist Bret Stephens remains stuck on the cancellation of Woody Allen‘s memoir. Surprisingly, “I decided to ask for a copy of the book and read it.” (It’s not clear whom he asked; Grand Central tells PL they did not provide him with the book.)

Thriller author and the former head of the sex crimes division of the Manhattan district attorney’s office Linda Fairstein has sued Netflix for defamation over her portrayal as a “racist, unethical villain” in Ava DuVernay’s series about the case. Fairstein seeks a “full and fair correction, apology, or retraction” from Netflix, and a disclaimer calling the series a dramatization, “not a true story.” Her publishers and literary agent ended their relationship with Fairstein last year after the series debuted. According to Netflix, the suit is without merit. “We intend to vigorously defend ‘When They See Us’ and Ava DuVernay and Attica Locke, the incredible team behind the series,” Netflix told the NYT.

Community Resources
With all the updates continuing to grow, we have built some additional open, standing webpages to collect sharable industry information that you can recirculate. (We’ll continue to update these pages, so let us know as you add initiatives and information.)

How to help booksellers [http://publun.ch/supportBooksellers]

How educators can get publisher permissions [http://publun.ch/permissions]

How students can access educational books for free [http://publun.ch/students]

How the industry is aiding booksellers with special terms [http://publun.ch/specialterms]

That list of stores that are closed to traffic but still shipping and/or delivering orders
[http://publun.ch/stores]

Filed Under: Awards, Free, Personnel

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