Sean Murray has been promoted to executive director of sales for Sourcebooks, where has worked for 17 years.
Chin-Yee Lai will join Basic Books as creative director starting January 2. She has worked as a freelance art director at Norton for eleven years, and designed jackets for publishers including Penguin Random House, Grove Atlantic, FSG, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Jess Brallier will leave his position as vp and publisher of Abrams Plus business group at the end of the year.
Bloomsbury Publishing group finance director Wendy Pallot will leave the company after a 12-month notice period to join Euromoney Institutional Investor. A search is being conducted for her replacement.
Harassment Files
After an internal inquiry into allegations against reporter Glenn Thrush, the NYT decided that when he returns to work in late January, he will “be removed from the team covering the White House after he faced allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior.”
A book deal was announced in September for Thrush and NYT correspondent Maggie Haberman to look at the first years of the Trump administration for Random House. The publisher said in an emailed statement it “is planning to move forward with the book, but it will not be with Glenn Thrush attached.”
Authors
Farrar, Straus is looking to rally support for Patrice Nganang, Cameroonian author of the novel Mount Pleasant (2016), who teaches at SUNY Stony Brook. He was detained two weeks ago trying to board a flight and has been imprisoned, charged with having issued a death threat in a Facebook post and other minor charges. FSG president and publisher Jonathan Galassi said in part in a statement: “We at FSG are extremely concerned about Patrice Nganang’s situation, and join PEN America, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and others in calling for his immediate release and safe return to his family.”
Also Noted
On Wednesday, Wiley celebrated the company’s 210th anniversary with new ceo Brian Napack and seventh-generation family member Jesse C. Wiley ringing the closing bell of the New York Stock Exchange. Wiley’s share price has risen over 16 percent in the last month, close to an all-time high, perhaps fueled by the new tax law.
Apparently Lexis-Nexis’s Law 360 has a list of the Top 10 Copyright Rulings of 2017, with the case brought by Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster and various author estates against Fredrik Colting and his KinderGuides coming in at No. 6. As District Judge Jed Rakoff memorably wrote in his opinion, “Fair use … is not a jacket to be worn over an otherwise infringing outfit. One cannot add a bit of commentary to convert an unauthorized derivative work into a protectable publication.”
Bookselling
Co-Lab Books, a new bookstore with a focus on architecture and design, opened in the Old Goucher neighborhood of Baltimore. Owners plan a grand opening for January.