Ingram ceo and president Skip Prichard will leave the company on June 8 after more than five years, in a abrupt announcement somehow trying to hide itself on the Friday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend. Current chairman John Ingram will assume the duties of ceo when Prichard departs. In a statement John Ingram said that Prichard “rebranded and refocused our efforts within Ingram Content, and through a well designed strategy, hard work and energetic leadership repositioned our companies to succeed in the fast changing publishing environment.” Prichard indicates, “I now will do some consulting and then look for a new […]
Summer Reading Roundups From the NYT, WSJ, USAT, NPR
We may be focused on the fall season (as our Buzz eBook sampler can attest) but the largest news outlets have all unveiled their summer reading roundups in time for Memorial Day Weekend. Janet Maslin returns in the NYT with her annual survey, gently chiding the selections, including new novels by Hilary Mantel, Gillian Flynn, Colin Cotterill, Karen Thompson Walker, and G. Willow Wilson, for not being as easily categorized as they once were. The WSJ makes more of the “genre-bending” nature of this summer’s selections, highlighting Walker’s “big debut” as well as upcoming books by Megan Abbott, Tana French, […]
Bookselling: RJ Julia Still Searching For New Owner; ABA’s New “Why Indies Matter” Ad Campaign; And More
In the three months since owner Roxane Coady announced that R.J. Julia Booksellers was for sale, no buyer has been found yet, though Coady told the Madison Patch there have been “a few nibbles.” Coady, who repeats that there’s no deadline to sell, said she has received inquiries from people who have money, as well as from those who would be ideal to run a bookstore, “But the people who have money have never run a bookstore. And the people who could run a bookstore have no money.” She is also considering “opening a shared office space operation that could […]
People
Maris Kreizman will join Barnes & Noble as director of editorial content for BN.com on June 4. She was most recently audiobooks editor at eMusic. At S&S Children’s, Bridget Madsen has been promoted to managing editor and Ellen Grafton moves up to assistant managing editor. In addition, Jenica Nasworthy moves up to senior production editor, and Craig Adams has been promoted to production editor. Author, publishing consultant, music producer, and co-founder of the Rock Bottom Remainders Kathi Kamen Goldmark, 63, died Thursday morning of cancer. She founded Goldmark Media Escorts in 1983, which handed more than 500 authors touring the […]
People, Etc.: Loh, Fussell, and More
Sterling Publishing continues to empty out, as editorial director of Sterling Children’s Splinter imprint Cindy Loh moves to serve as publishing director of Bloomsbury Children’s (including the Walker Books line) starting June 4. Emily Easton, promoted to publishing director of Walker Children’s, and Michelle Nagler, editorial director of Bloomsbury Children’s, will report to Loh, as will creative director Donna Mark and senior managing editor Melissa Kavonic. At Simon & Schuster Children’s, Alyson Heller has been promoted to associate editor. Literary critic and cultural historian Paul Fussell, 88, died Wednesday in Medford, OR of natural causes in a long-term care facility, where he’d spent […]
Bookselling: Kepler Aims For $1 Million in Fundraising; Easons Plans Own eReader; and More
Kepler’s 2020, the non-profit organization that is now the de facto owners of the Menlo Park bookstore after longtime owner Clark Kepler retired, has begun a fundraising drive to raise more than $1 million by the end of the summer. (Nearly $400,000 has already been promised by prominent individuals in Silicon Valley.) But first they have to finish negotiating down what had been almost $1 million in debt. The new funds are designed as “start-up capital for the new Kepler’s” rather than cash to pay off the old Kepler’s bills. “The good news is that most of the publishers were willing […]