Ireland-based Paperblanks will distribute their products in the US and Canada through Chronicle Books, starting July 1. (Paperblanks was purchased by Hachette UK in 2022, and Chronicle uses Hachette Book Group in the US for fulfillment.)
People: Andrew Franklin to Step Back at Profile
In the UK, Profile Books founder and managing director Andrew Franklin will step back from running the company as of July 1, when current nonfiction publisher Rebecca Gray will take over as managing director. Franklin will “return to his first love – acquiring, editing and publishing books.” As part of the “wider plan to ensure the company’s future as a thriving independent,” sales director Claire Beaumont will become commercial director, leading the marketing and publicity teams as well. They join finance director Frances Ford and pre-press and production director Jack Murphy on the executive team, with Franklin remaining on that […]
People: Jack Jensen to Step Down
Jack Jensen, who has been with Chronicle Books for 46 years, will step down from his position as president of the McEvoy Group this month. He will take the role of chair of the McEvoy Group advisory board, and he will continue to serve on the board of Abrams & Chronicle Books in the UK. Jensen joined Chronicle Books in 1977 as Western States sales rep when the company had six employees producing twelve titles per year, rising to president and publisher of Chronicle Books in 1991. In 2017, Tyrrell Mahoney was named president of Chronicle Books and Jensen served […]
All the President’s Legal Deficiencies In Woodward Audio Suit
Attorneys for author Bob Woodward and his publisher Simon & Schuster recently filed a variety of responses to Donald Trump’s suit from January, alleging in a Pensacola, FL Federal Court that the audiobook (and print version) of THE TRUMP TAPES: Bob Woodward’s Twenty Interviews with President Donald Trump was published without Trump’s permission and infringes his rights. For starters, the defendants laugh at the filing of the suit in Pensacola, and ask for dismissal due to improper venue, or at least a transfer to courts in Washington, DC or New York’s Southern District. As they argue, “None of the substantial […]
Australian Publisher Fagan Charges Allen & Unwin With Sexual Harassment
Correcting and updating a story we ran earlier, Allen & Unwin publisher Kelly Fagan has made “allegations of sexual harassment by a former publisher at the company over a two-year period,” according to her attorneys at Maurice Blackburn Lawyers. Those lawyers say her harassment claim alleges “that she was sexually harassed at work.” The charges were referenced in a recent Sydney Morning Herald article that says, “The literary world is in a lather over a sexual harassment lawsuit filed in the Federal Court by one of the industry’s most prominent publishers, Kelly Fagan, against her employer Allen & Unwin.” The […]
Penguin Random House Makes Voluntary Separation Offer
Following voluntary buyout offers from Hachette Book Group (to employees over 50) and HarperCollins (to employees with more than 25 years of service) earlier this year, Penguin Random House announced internally their own voluntary separation offering this week — which was offered as a benefit, to “support our colleagues professional and personal lives” and “responding to the needs and desires of our long-tenured employees.” The offer is available to employees who will be 60 or older as of the end of the year, and have 15 years of service or more. Eligible employees have until June 20 to elect to […]