Sally Kim has been promoted to senior vice president, publisher, Putnam. Christine Ball becomes senior vice president, publisher, Berkley and Dutton. Ashley McClay and Alexis Welby at Putnam will now report to Kim.
At Simon & Schuster, Greg Andonian has been promoted to director, customer financial services reporting to Deepak Daswani, vice president and controller. Karyn Basso has been promoted to director, order management and customer service, reporting to Chris Wagner, vice president, operations and distribution services.
Joy Harjo was appointed to a second term as poet laureate, announced by the Library of Congress.
In the UK, Jocasta Hamilton will become publisher at John Murray, succeeding Mark Richards who is stepping down in May. Hamilton was previously publishing director at Hutchinson for nine years.
Forthcoming
Tana French‘s THE SEARCHER, a new standalone novel, will be published by Viking on October 6.
Relief
Literary Arts in Oregon has created the Booth Emergency Fund for Writers, to provide financial relief to Oregon writers, including cartoonists, spoken word poets and playwrights who are established artists in their genre. They will issue awards of $1,000 each will to 100 eligible writers in the first application period, and are “prioritizing funding for writers identifying as Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Color.”
Layoffs
As we previously reported in early April, though Macmillan never announced how many people they laid off, with “layoffs across the organization” it appears that approximately 25 to 35 jobs were eliminated. At least some of the people affected have indicated their last day at work is this Friday, May 1, so the full extent of the cuts may be clearer soon. On top of the 13 reductions at St. Martin’s, Holt and Farrar, Straus we accounted for earlier, Tor executive editor Diana Gill and editor Diana Pho announced 4 job cuts there, including those two along with YA editor Melissa Frain and Alison Bunis in marketing.
Distribution
Longleaf Services will provide fulfillment and publishing services for Purdue University Press starting July 1.
Sales News
NPD Bookscan reported print book sales for the week ending April 26, with total sales of 11.026 million units up 10.1 percent from the sluggish post-Easter week of 10.017 million units. (Total sales are about 433,000 units lower than the same sales week a year ago, which recorded 11.46 million units, a 3.8 percent decline.)
Adult sales gained meaningfully, at 6.258 million units, up from 5.294 million units a week ago and and the highest adult sales recorded in weeks. Even with the increase, that’s still well below “normal,” however; in the same week a year ago, adult sales registered 7.543 million units. There were meaningful gains in general fiction, romance, and suspense thrillers, as nonfiction saw good increases in biography/memoir, general nonfiction, health & fitness, reference, religion and self-help.
Juvenile book sales remained strong, at 4.387 million units, up only slightly compared to the previous week.