Gail Brussel has been promoted to associate publicity director at Penguin Press.
Distribution
BenBella Books will be distributed by Penguin Random House Publisher Services worldwide starting July 1, moving from Two Rivers.
Challenges
Canada’s Insomniac Press is “in trouble,” the Globe and Mail, with its future now uncertain. Associate publisher Andy Verboom, who was going to over ownership from founding publisher Mike O’Connor has withdrawn from the deal and stepped down. First he cancelled their forthcoming slate of 12 titles scheduled for publication: “I could not see how a ‘new’’ Insomniac would be able (in terms of labour or finances) to fulfill its obligations to both past authors and new authors. I was unwilling to pass on these obligations to the editors or new authors. I did my best to communicate this to the new authors.” The house, he wrote, “would be overburdened with redressing contractual obligations to past authors and would be unable to do right by new authors and books.”
Verboom reports receiving requests for late royalty statements and rights reversions from house authors: “Given how long some of these past authors had published with Insomniac – and for the sake of the new authors – I had to assume this problem was so pervasive that it couldn’t be addressed in a reasonable time.” O’Connor says, “To keep the publishing house running long enough for the handoff to Andy, I had to empty my [retirement] savings. This leaves me in a very precarious position.”