Ibrahim Ahmad will join Viking as executive editor starting January 11, reporting to Andrea Schulz. He was previously editorial director at Akashic Books, where he worked for two decades.
Selena James has joined Amazon Publishing as senior editor for Little A and Amazon Original Stories. She was previously at Kensington.
Stephanie Purcell will join Bloomsbury UK as group rights director, reporting to Kathleen Farrar. She has been rights director at Simon & Schuster UK.
Clark Christian has been hired as marketing director for the Thomas Nelson Bible group. Most recently he worked in product marketing for healthcare education company, PESI.
Layoffs
Following their purchase of Laurence King Publishing in September, Hachette UK is taking steps to let go “close to 35 roles” from LKP’s full-time staff of 65 people, the Bookseller reports. Sources told them positions are being eliminated from across the entire business.
Imprints
University of New Mexico Press is launching High Road Books, a new imprint “dedicated to thoughtful, stylish, provocative fiction and nonfiction with western roots and national appeal.” High Road Books release its first three titles in March 2021.
Distribution
Manga publisher Seven Seas Entertainment will move sales and distribution across all sales channels worldwide to Penguin Random House Publisher Services as of July 1, 2021.
Corporate
Further to our report from earlier in the month, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt filed documents with the SEC earlier this week connected to the formal secondary offering of 19.5 million shares of their stock. Their leading shareholder Anchorage Funds is exiting their position. (All of the proceeds will go to Anchorage; HMH does not get anything out of the resale.)
The company notes that Anchorage’s Daniel Allen was put on the HMH board as part of an agreement with the investor: “While Mr. Allen has remained a member of our board of directors since his initial election, we are no longer required to nominate him to our board.”