Samhain Publishing owner Christina Brashear has returned to the operational role of publisher and “her first order of business was to restructure the editorial team.” Publisher Lindsey Faber is leaving and will serve a consulting role, and editorial director Heather Osborn will become a freelance editor. Brashear says, “Samhain will be returning to its roots of finding and publishing bestselling romance writers” such as Maya Banks and Lorelei James.
She pledges a “renewed dedication to monetize subsidiary rights” for the list of over 2,500 novels. The Samhain Horror line under editor Don D’Auria will double its publishing volume in the next year, and the company will sponsor the Horror Writers of America/Bram Stoker Awards in 2015.
Amy Stolls has been named Director of Literature at the National Endowment of the Arts, after serving as acting director since May 2013. Of Stolls’ appointment, NEA Acting Chairman Joan Shigekawa said: “I am delighted Amy will continue to lead the NEA’s efforts in the literature field. She brings deep knowledge, understanding, creativity, and humor to her work and I know we will all benefit immensely from her energy and spirit.”
At Rodale Books, Jess Fromm has been promoted to assistant editor, reporting to Ursula Cary and Marisa Vigilante.
In the daily Hillary Clinton Hard Choices numbers game, Simon & Schuster put the total first week’s sales at an unspecified number above 100,000 and publisher Jonathan Karp told the AP they are “elated” at the opening as “this book is on a trajectory to be the best-selling nonfiction book of the year.” Other accounts have S&S sources putting the actual number at around 120,00 units. The book will be No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list, but is No. 3 on the USA Today list and No. 4 on Nielsen Bookscan’s list — behind two editions of John Green’s The Fault Is In Our Stars was well as the first week sale of Diana Gabaldon’s Written In My Own Heart’s Blood.
Penguin Press announced that former senior advisor to President Obama David Axelrod‘s forthcoming memoir, BELIEVER: My Forty Years in Politics, will be published on February 10, 2015.
The WSJ covers the Literacy Partners fundraising gala on Tuesday night, which honored Markus Dohle and raised over $1 million. “If there was one elephant in the room, it was the electronic tablets on each table that allowed guests to bid on silent auction items. Even though David Eun of Samsung is a member of the Literacy Partners board, these tablets were made by Amazon, which due to its recent practices with Hachette, hasn’t been making that many friends in the publishing industry.”
Earlier in the week, Page Six noted for the record that authors Nicole Krauss and Jonathan Safran Foer have legally separated, after a representative confirmed the two “split amicably about a year ago.”