Laura Essex is promoted to director, audiobook production. Tom Messina is promoted to director, audiobook post-production. Both will report to president, publisher Ana Maria Allessi.
Jen Patten and Elece Green are promoted to senior producer, reporting to Essex.
Allison Lane is promoted to audio editor.
Nikki Finke
Industry newsletter LA Material reports that someone is shopping a Hollywood tell-all by the late Deadline founder Nikke Finke, called HUBRIS. Page Six says the book is reportedly edited by Finke’s one-time colleague and former LA Times staff writer, Diane Haithman. The person shopping the book is said to be a “longtime friend” of Finke’s named Connie Su, but a former lawyer for Finke stated to Page Six that he was “unaware that she had an estate, or who the executors might be.”
Simon & Schuster previously held the rights to a book by Finke, with Jonathan Karp editing. But the book was delayed by disputes with Finke’s boss Jay Penske, who had acquired Deadline, and did not want her to publish a book, and by late 2014 she was said to have withdrawn the manuscript.
