Daniel Houghton has left his position as ceo of Lonely Planet, “in order to take on a new CEO role with another digital company.” Travel site Skift reports that it “has also learned that parent company NC2 is said to be pursuing a sale of Lonely Planet.” The publisher said, “The rest of Lonely Planet’s leadership team remains in place and will be continuing with business as usual.” Real estate billionaire Brad Kelley’s NC2 media bought the publisher from the BBC in early 2013 for £51.5 million ($77.3 million), and implemented significant layoffs shortly thereafter.
Brant Rumble will join Hachette Books as executive editor, starting May 14, focusing on commercial nonfiction. He had been at Blue Rider Press until it was closed, after a number of years at Scribner.
Jess d’Arbonne has joined as acquisitions editor at Falcon Guides. Evan Helmlinger has been promoted to associate editor.
At Chronicle Books, Kathleen Miller has been promoted to sales coordinator on the national specialty team. Julie Williams has been promoted to senior sales manager.
Kerri Kennedy Calistri is joining full-service publicity and marketing consultancy Audere Media. Based in the Boston area, she has worked as a freelance publicist and was recently the events coordinator at Wellesley Books.
Awards
Richard Lloyd Parry won the Folio Prize (now sponsored by Rathbones) for Ghosts of The Tsunami.