At Abrams, Rebecca Kaplan has been promoted to editor-in-chief; Jamison Stoltz to editorial director, Abrams Press; Monica Shah to executive director, special markets & national accounts; Nadine Sferratore to associate director, special sales; Wayne Gurreri to senior manager, special sales; and Shelby Ozer to sales coordinator, special sales. Kay Makanju has joined as trade sales manager specializing in the educational market. Yulia Borodyanskaya has been promoted to vice president, subsidiary rights and export sales. Talia Behrend-Wilcox joins a subsidiary rights manager.
Hilary Claggett has joined Georgetown University Press as senior acquisitions editor, global business, a new list for the publisher. She was previously senior editor, business, economics, and finance, at Praeger.
At Duke University Press, Cason Lynley has been promoted to director of marketing, sales, and finance and Allison Belan to director, strategic innovation and services.
PRH’s recently-acquired Little Tiger Group will rebrand all of its imprints—including Caterpillar, Stripes and 360 Degrees—to carry the Little Tiger name, and Thomas Truong is being promoted to group publishing director, overseeing all the lines.
Tax Relief
In presenting their new budget, the UK government said it would abolish VAT on all electronic reading materials — including ebooks — as of December 1.
Closing
Random House Germany plans to close the New York office of Prestel Publishing as of June 30, and the company will no longer acquire and market US museum catalogs. Eight employees and two interns are affected by the closure and a company spokesperson tells PL, “We are currently in talks in order to provide fair and socially acceptable solutions for everyone involved.” All books under contract for fall 2020 and spring 2021 will be published as planned, still sold through PRH Publisher Services and coordinated through the Prestel UK office. Founded in Germany and based in Munich, the company was acquired by RH Germany in 2008.
Opening Sales
In the UK, Hilary Mantel‘s THE MIRROR AND THE LIGHT sold over 95,000 print books in the first three days on sale, according to Nielsen Bookscan UK.
Awards
The London Book Fair still conferred their slate of international excellence awards. Among them, Maria Lynch at Casanovas & Lynch Literary Agency won the literary agent award and Tuomas Sorjamaa from Ferly won the rights professional award. Mark Bide was given the Simon Master Chairman’s Award, for a career “committed to the creation of a modern, efficient supply chain for the global publishing industry.”