At Macmillan, Cristina Gilbert takes the new role of svp, strategic publishing development, reporting to Dan Schwartz. She will help look across the company’s list — “What are we publishing too much of, too little? Where are there opportunities for entering into new genres and markets? How is our company’s advance risk distributed across our list and across time?” — to further a “holistic understanding of Macmillan’s publishing profile, its risk exposure as well as its potential.” Patricia Rivera will now report to Gilbert, as well as continuing to assist Don Weisberg. Filling Gilbert’s previous position, Malati Chavali moves over […]
Archives for August 2020
Postal Disruptions Pose An “Existential Threat” to Indie Bookstores
Independent booksellers have long relied on “media mail” from the USPS as the most affordable way to ship books to customers and that has been a literal lifeline for many during the pandemic. Which makes the recent slowdown in processing an existential threat to booksellers as well as our democracy. An article in Fortune helps underscore the point with examples from three such booksellers — in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Cambridge. Black-owned Reparations Club in LA went from rare shipping requests pre-Covid to delivering 99 percent of orders by mail. Recently, founder Jazzi McGilbert “says her store experienced many […]
People, Etc.
Amber Oliver will join Dutton/Plume as editor on August 31, working especially on the new Tiny Reparations Books, as well as acquiring fiction for Berkley. She was most recently associate editor at Harper. Larry Downs has joined Miami-based Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial USA as director and publisher for Origen, its Spanish-language religious division. Previously, he was a consultant to the imprint for two years and svp, publisher, Spanish publishing, Harper Christian. Stephanie Kim has joined New Leaf Literary & Media as literary agent. She was previously in publicity at William Morrow and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and also worked in […]
NBCC Members Recommend Governance and Diversity Changes
Thirty members of the National Book Critics Circle wrote an open letter to the NBCC board and general membership on Wednesday expressing solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and making recommendations for changes moving forward. The letter, which invites other members to sign on, is a response to a June controversy over the drafting of an anti-racist statement by the board, which resulted in mass resignations. In light of all of the work to be done, the authors also “urge the cancelation of the 2020 NBCC awards and ceremony.” “We are committed to dismantling anti-Black, patriarchal power structures, unlearning […]
Briefs
Audio Spotify has indicated plans for an “audiobook strategy” through a job listing for a Head of Audio Books position that is attracting wide notice. The job includes “manag[ing] a book editorial team and strategy” and combines the development of original content as well as licensing and packaging third-party content. The company is working to “develop long-term strategy for audio books” and has “R&D teams building the books experience in the Spotify app.” They are looking for someone from the book world, with audiobook experience. The position is part of Spotify Studios, reportedly a new production company entity, suggesting the […]
Dufry to Take Hudson Group Private Again; Arnault Approves Investment In Lagardere’s Holding Company
Travel retail and bookstore chain Hudson announced a definitive agreement on Wednesday morning with controlling shareholder Dufry to buy out public shareholders and take the company private again, just two years after its 2018 IPO. Dufry AG Group, which already owns 57.4 percent of the company, will buy the remaining equity for $7.70 a share. That’s a 50 percent premium to Hudson’s August 18 closing price — but less than half the 2018 IPO share price of $19 on 39.4 million shares, which raised $749 million in proceeds. The travel retail business has suffered considerably during the pandemic, and so […]