Sheila Keenan joins Abrams tomorrow as senior editor, working on the Abrams ComicArts list, reporting to executive editor Charles Kochman. Most recently she was at Scholastic, where she helped launch their Graphix comics imprint. At the Penguin Group, Allison McLean has been promoted to associate director of publicity for Portfolio and Sentinel. She joined Portfolio in 2002, before the line formally launched. At Little, Brown Children’s, Lauren Hodge has been promoted to assistant editor. Bertelsmann has put Christa Gomez on the company’s supervisory board as employee representative. Aside from two women from the controlling Mohn family, Gomez is the only […]
The Google Book Search Conundrum: You Can't Make Everyone Happy
With the extended deadline for filing objections to the proposed settlement of lawsuits over Google Book Search, you can expect a long line of dissent in days to come. The most recent filing is “comments” from the American Library Association and the Association of College and Research Libraries. The larger problem here is that no solution–legal (via approval, rejection, or suggested modification of the settlement), legislative, or even business-driven–will make all parties happy. The original project, audacious as it was (and remains), appalled some and left others disappointed, and that will remain irreconcilable. As the libraries make clear in their […]
People and More
Publishing veterans Gretchen Koss and Meghan Walker recently formed themarketing and publicity firm Tandem Literary. They had been colleaguesat Random House until last December at Spiegel & Grau, where Koss wasdirector of publicity and Walker was director of marketing. The newcompany “will work collaboratively to tailor a campaign that complementsthe publisher’s plans and enhances a book’s visibility across a wide variety of platforms.” Author of THE WOMEN’S ROOM Marilyn French, 79, died Saturday of heart failure.NYT obit Cambridge University Press has reduced their plan to cut approximately165 jobs in the UK down to 58 layoffs. Another 25 people have left […]
More eReader Madness
Amazon will hold a press conference on Wednesday morning at a PaceUniversity building (on the site of old NYT offices), presumably todebut a version of Kindle with a larger screen. At one point the mediahad decided the rumored bigger Kindle would be aimed at theeducational/textbook market, but now they’ve decided it’s focused ondisplaying magazines and newspapers, trying to beat Plastic Logic andother devices in development to market. “People briefed on the plans”tell the NYT that the New York Times is “expected to be involved in theintroduction of the device,” but a spokesperson for the New York Timesdeclines to comment. Meanwhile, […]
Corporate News: Pearson Still Expects "Tough Market Conditions"; Informa Adjusts; Waterstone's Cuts Deeper than Expected
Pearson offered a first quarter interim statement, reaffirming their expectations from early March when they reported full-year results. “For 2009 as a whole, we expect tough market conditions for US School publishing, financial advertising and the consumer books industry…. At Penguin, we continue to see challenging trading conditions for book publishers and booksellers. Demand for new fiction and non-fiction is generally good and growth in digital formats is very strong, but illustrated reference and travel categories are weak.” Release Informa is selling extra shares to raise 242 million pounds in order to cut its debt. The stock rose sharply, interpreted […]
People and Awards
At Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s trade and reference division, Josh Harwood has been promoted to national accounts director, based in New York, and Beth Ineson moves up to director of field sales & distribution clients (still based in Boston.) As has been expected, Carol Ann Duffy was named the UK’s poet laureate, the first woman to hold the position in 341 years. Along with a small stiped, the honor comes with a “butt of sack” — 600 bottles of sherry to stoke the muse — which the Guardian says she asked for upfront after hearing the previous laureate Andrew Motion never […]