At Sourcebooks, Cristina Arreola has been promoted to marketing manager for Sourcebooks Landmark; Stefani Sloma to associate marketing manager for Sourcebooks Casablanca; and Tiffany Schultz has been promoted to assistant marketing manager, retail marketing & creative services.
Pearson board chair Sidney Taurel intends to step down from his positions, no later than the 2022 annual meeting. Separately, former Macmillan executive and current ceo of Guardian Media Group Annette Thomas will join the board October 1.
Former longtime book publishing publicity executive Susan Richman died at home in New York City on April 19. Richman worked at houses including Scribner, Warner Books and Grand Central before retiring in 2009.
Controversies
Penguin Australia still plans to release their modest edition of Blake Bailey‘s Philip Roth biography in June, once the boat from the UK arrives, apparently waiting for criminal charges. The publisher acknowledges the allegations are “extremely serious and concerning. At this stage they are allegations, and we continue to publish Philip Roth: The Biography. We are assessing the situation closely.”
Bookselling
Former president Barack Obama will make virtual visits to these six bookstores around the country on Saturday to help celebrate Independent Bookstore Day: Square Books of Oxford, MS; Eso Won Books of Los Angeles, CA; Politics & Prose Bookstore of Washington, DC; Parnassus Books of Nashville, TN; The Lit.Bar of Bronx,
NY; and Literati of Ann Arbor.
Awards
Nominees were announced for the International Booker Prize, with the winner to be named June 2:
At Night All Blood is Black, David Diop (Anna Moschovakis)
The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, by Mariana Enríquez (Megan McDowell)
When We Cease to Understand the World, by Benjamín Labatut (Adrian Nathan West)
The Employees, Olga Ravn (Martin Aitken)
In Memory of Memory, by Maria Stepanova (Sasha Dugdale)
The War of the Poor, by Éric Vuillard (Mark Polizzotti)
Acquisitions
Bloomsbury will acquire certain assets of academic imprint Red Globe Press, formerly the textbook division of Palgrave Macmillan, from Macmillan Education (part of the Springer Nature Group), for total consideration of £3.7 million. Approximately 30 people will move to Bloomsbury as part of the sale.
In turn, the Macmillan International Higher Education sales team is being transferred from Springer Nature to Macmillan Learning (the separate company fully owned by Holtzbrinck outside of the Springer Nature joint venture). The team comprises 17 sales and marketing employees to the company, who will now focus specifically on Macmillan Learning products and technologies.
The Office
Bloomsbury UK will initiate a “partial return” to physical offices on June 21, have staff work the office two days a week. They plan a full return by September 7. CEO Nigel Newton said, “It is envisaged that people will work initially and in future too on a hybrid model of two days a week in the office and three days at home. Accommodation will be made for those who wish to work five days in the office and for those whose roles dictate it.”