• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Login
  • Register

Publishers Lunch

The Publishing Industry's Daily Essential Read

  • Publishers Marketplace
  • Site Guide
  • Help

People, Etc.

March 23, 2020
By Erin Somers

At Hachette Book Group, Dale Wilstermann has been promoted to executive director, Nashville sales; Derek Meehan to senior manager, telephone sales; Laura Fernandez to client sales manager; and Dominique Delmas to publicist at HBG Canada.

Jack Dunnington has been promoted to designer at The Experiment.

Amy Giuffrida and Jolene Haley have been promoted to agent apprentice at the Corvisiero Literary Agency.

Friends and admirers reported online the death of publishing executive Teresa Mlawer on Saturday. Among her many positions in publishing, she became president of Lectorum Publications, the largest distributor of Spanish-language books in the US (later acquired by Scholastic), where she launched a publishing program of Spanish and bilingual books for children.

Awards
Ruchika Tomar‘s A Prayer for Travelers (Riverhead) won the 2020 PEN/Hemingway Award for a debut novel.

Serialized
Lena Dunham is writing a serialized novel, VERIFIED STRANGERS, that Vogue.com is publishing daily, Monday through Friday. A “modern-day romance novel set in Los Angeles and London” it features Ally, “32, single and nursing the kind of heartbreak that has taken years to mend (and may take a few more.)” who limits her dating to “verified strangers,” friends of friends.

But wait, there’s more. “Every second chapter will end with a cliffhanger: Ally is faced with two options for her next move.” Readers can vote on the Vogue Instagram account “on where the story should go next, a decision that Dunham will abide by.”

Forthcoming
David Byrne will adapt his stage musical “American Utopia” as a book, illustrated by Maira Kalman, to be published September 8 by Bloomsbury. The show is due to return to Broadway that month as well. (Kalman designed and illustrated the curtain for the show.)

Sales
NPD Bookscan said that sales of juvenile non-fiction education, reference, and language print books rose 38 percent in the week ending March 14 (and are up 12 percent for the year to date). NPD analyst Kristen McLean says in their release, “With more schools closing temporarily due to COVID-19, and with many parents now working from home, we are definitely seeing an uptick in kids’ educational and activity book sales this week. Leading topics include math, language arts, puzzles, sticker books, word games, geometry, study aids, and coloring books.”

Other sales spikes included books on canning and preserving food (up 29 percent, week over week); container gardening (up 30 percent w-o-w); and home do-it-yourself (up 8 percent w-o-w). McLean notes, “Book buying presents an interesting window into consumer psychology at moments like this. We will continue to track book trends weekly as the situation continues to evolve.”

Filed Under: Awards, Free, Industry Statistics, Obits, Personnel

sidebar

Primary Free Sidebar

Login


Forgot password
Quick Pass users click here to log in
Get Full Access
The publishing industry's essential daily read

Each Publishers Lunch Deluxe subscription includes full access to our searchable multi-year archive of industry news, a nightly email reporting 10 to 50 deal transactions, and our database of industry contacts, scripts, and posting privileges.

Learn More

RSS Automat

  • UK Publisher Peter Usborne, 85, Died "Unexpectedly but Peacefully" March 30, 2023 Bookseller
  • Dublin Literary Award Shortlist Announced March 30, 2023 Prize site
  • Leigh Bardugo Signs with WME for Film/TV Representation March 29, 2023 Variety
  • Solid State Books Workers Announce Plans to Unionize March 28, 2023 Union website
  • Following Sale, America's Test Kitchen Lays Off 23 Employees, Including All of ATK Kids Staff March 28, 2023 Union instagram post
  • Acquire and Fire: Hachette UK In Consultations to Eliminate About Half the Staff of Welbeck March 28, 2023 Bookseller
  • Jefferson, de Kretser Win Folio Prizes March 27, 2023 Prize announcement
  • Harper UK Edits Agatha Christie Novels to Remove "Offensive" Language March 27, 2023 The Guardian
  • NYU Launches Five-Day "Advanced Publishing Institute" Program for January 2024 March 25, 2023 NYU site
  • Hachette UK to Publish "Spare Us!" Parody on April 6 March 23, 2023 Publisher site
© 2023 Publishers Lunch. All Rights Reserved.