Canadian literary agent and chief operating officer of Macmillan Canada from 1982 through 1989 Arnold Gosewich, 85, died on October 20 in Toronto. He was 85. A book presenting excerpts from the late Patricia Highsmith‘s extensive diaries will be published by Liveright in 2021, providing “a glimpse into the life of a literary figure” who “was a secretive, often prickly woman who remained a cipher even to her friends and lovers, and a trailblazer who wrote one of the first mainstream novels depicting two women in love.” The pages are drawn from 56 spiral-bound notebooks, comprising 8,000 pages, found by […]
People: Court to Leave Penguin, Tart to Run Penguin and Viking
President and publisher of Penguin Books Kathryn Court “has decided to retire” at the end of December after 42 years of leading the line. Penguin Publishing Group president Allison Dobson calls it “one of the most accomplished and admired careers in book publishing. Throughout her decades of leadership, Kathryn has been a Penguin standard bearer ensuring literary excellence, commitment to supporting new voices, and passion for delighting readers around the world.” Brian Tart will expand his role in January to serve as president and publisher of both Viking and Penguin. At Penguin, Patrick Nolan is promoted to vp, deputy publisher […]
People: Zettersten to Retire, Grady to PAP, Ross to Leave Regnery
SVP and publisher of Hachette Nashville Rolf Zettersten has decided to retire this fall and will depart after successor is “named shortly.” He joined HBG in 2000 to start a Christian publishing program, launching what became FaithWords. CEO Michael Pietsch writes, “I want to thank Rolf for leading the Nashville division to reach remarkable heights with their publishing programs – selling more than 100 million copies since the division’s inception.” Zettersten notes, “It’s been a remarkable career and I am cheering for the continued growth and development of this program which means so much to me.” Separately, former deputy publisher at […]
AAP Trade Stats Decline In August, with Big Drop In Higher Ed
As often happens, following positive statistics for July, the AAP’s monthly StatShot report shows declines in August, particularly for adult trade books. Yet again, the final adult trade comparison data from 2018 was revised, so comparisons are difficult. Adult trade sales were $407 million — down from $440 million a year ago (itself a revision downward from the $459 million originally reported for August 2018). Children’s sales filled some of the gap, at $197 million, up from $183 million a year ago. The total of $604 million was more in line with figures from August 2017 ($608 million) and August […]
Houghton Tells Investors It’s Doing Better, Will Fire Another 8 Percent of Employees
As part of an investor day presentation on Thursday, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced that it “will make changes connected with the company’s ongoing strategic transformation to simplify its business model and accelerate growth.” With a “streamlining of operations company-wide for greater efficiency,” that corporate-speak translates into another big wave of layoffs: Over 8 percent of employees will be fired as part of the exciting new strategy (and that’s with “taking into account new strategy-aligned positions that are expected to be added”). They didn’t provide a number of people to be fired, which is their style. But this is almost as […]
The Deal on Pre-Frankfurt Deals: Flat Volume, with Continued Investment in Nonfiction
Following last week’s preview, we’re back with the final stats and trends on the selling season leading into the Frankfurt Book Fair (measured as five weeks plus a day through Tuesday, for consistency across the years). In line with the early view, total domestic US deal volume was flat for the fifth year in a row. As we reported last week, the FBF selling season is about 7.5 percent busier than the springtime selling season ahead of the London Book Fair. That means the FBF stretch averages 140 deals a week and the London season averages 130 deals a week […]