Barnes & Noble, Inc. founder Leonard Riggio, 75, announced he will retire in September from his position as executive chairman — after the annual shareholder meeting — though he intends to remain on the company’s board of directors. Riggio still controls 17.5 percent of Barnes & Noble’s shares (with Abrams Capital Management as the company’s second-largest holder, now with almost 14 percent of the stock). Paul Guenther, a board member since 2015 and former president of Paine Webber, will serve as BN’s nonexecutive chairman after Riggio’s retirement. “I’m no longer going to be in charge. I’m done with that. I’m done with being top […]
Bookselling: Chester County Book Company Closes for Good; Support for Murder by the Book Post-Flooding; and More
Chester County Book Company in West Chester, PA will close for good on July 31, three years after re-opening in a smaller location. Store owner Kathy Simoneaux Fortney said in an email to publishers and customers, “After crunching the numbers, the best option is for me to retire & close the store.” She called it “a difficult decision” and wrote, “We had a good 34-year run!” Murder By the Book, which suffered damage to its carpeting and other parts of the store after significant flooding in Houston, is asking for support through the sale of gift cards, books, and other […]
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Brian Haley has joined Open Road as senior director of technology. Previously he was engineering manager at Crain Communications. In addition, Philip Rappaport has been promoted to vp, editorial director, and Austin Walker has joined as senior sales manager, working on developing library and special sales opportunities. Previously he was a national account manager at Oxford University Press. At Sourcebooks, Brittany Vibbert has been promoted to associate art director, while Rachel Gilmer and Heather Hall both move up to senior production editors.
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At Sourcebooks, Jenna Quatraro has been promoted to marketing design manager, while Grace Menary-Winefield moves up to associate editor. At Simon & Schuster, Julianna Haubner, Megan Hogan, Sophia Jiminez, and Kaitlin Olson have all been promoted to assistant editor. At Scribner, Jessica Yu has been promoted to publicist. At Touchstone, Courtney Brach has been promoted to associate publicist. Nikki Tetreault has been promoted to chief executive officer of Curiosity Quills Press, succeeding the company founders who will “step back to concentrate on a related launch,” details of which will come shortly, according to the announcement. Trinity McFadden has joined Zondervan […]
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At Sourcebooks, Christy Droege has been appointed manager, data and analysis, where she will lead the company’s newly created data and analysis department. The department will streamline data functions, offer a higher level of analytical support to departments, partners, and customers and also will include Stephanie Lewis as business data specialist, Jennifer Sterkowitz as product data associate, and Molly Wojda as order data associate. In announcements, bargain book wholesaler Book Depot says it is spending $3 million to install robotic technology to sort through over 100,000 books a day — helping to grow their business in processing returns and purchasing […]
Nguyen, Stiles, Finnegan Among Pulitzer Winners
The Pulitzer Prizes offered a mix of surprises and expected results in their book category winners. Viet Thanh Nguyen’s much-heralded debut novel The Sympathizer won for fiction, and in a note on his website the author said: “Of course it’s wonderful for me to get this prize. But within minutes of getting it, I knew that I owed tremendous thanks to everyone who has gone before me in the great, ongoing struggle for social justice, for peace, for genuine equality, for representation for all at every level of every society.” TJ Stiles won in history for the second time (after winning […]