Andrew Smith will join Abrams as svp, publisher, children’s books on March 31. Previously he was svp, deputy publisher at Little, Brown Children’s. He succeeds Susan Van Metre, who after six years as publisher will transition to vp, editor in chief, children’s books and editorial director, Amulet to focus on acquisitions and guiding its editorial team. Van Metre and associate publisher Jody Mosley will report to Smith. Abrams president & ceo Michael Jacobs said in the announcement: “I am pleased that Andrew Smith will be joining Abrams. In him, we have found an experienced and extremely dedicated book publishing executive […]
People, Etc.
Andrew Savikas has left Safari Books Online, where he was ceo for the past 5 years, as the role itself was eliminated “as O’Reilly works to fully integrate Safari with the rest of their operations.” (O’Reilly Media bought out their joint-venture partner Pearson in summer 2014.) Savikas writes, “Tim O’Reilly and I agreed this was the right time for me to step away…. Acquisitions mean that roles change — and in this case, as the Safari CEO role went away, the right choice was for me to go along with it.” Safari Online chief technical officer Liza Daly left the company in early February. […]
People, Etc.
At PGW, Abbey Phalen has been promoted to marketing and business development manager. Katie Gallagher will join Perseus as gift sales manager on March 15, working out of the company’s Berkeley offices. Previously she sold giftware and home décor products for Midwest CBK and was an account executive at Napoleon Appliance. At Chronicle Books, Mirabelle Korn has been promoted to assistant editor. Kathy Huck has recently left North Star Way to pursue other opportunities. She is also available freelance writing and editing. She may be reached at khuck@nyc.rr.com At the Los Angeles Times, arts and entertainment editor Laurie Ochoa is adding […]
DBW Highlights: Women & Publishing, Finance, Tech
Digital Book World’s second day of main stage presentations concluded with a panel discussion on women at the intersection of publishing, finance, and technology. Moderator Charlotte Abbott led off by reciting a number of alarming facts about the paucity of women in executive positions, the gender and diversity gap, and other matters (“On the bright side, there aren’t many instances of harrassment in publishing, at least that I know of”) before turning the conversation over to Sourcebooks ceo Dominique Raccah, NetGalley president Susan Ruszala, Penguin Random House senior director of apps channel Katherine McCahill, and DeSilva+Phillips managing director Joanna Herman. […]
Sittenfeld’s ELIGIBLE Tops April Library Reads List
Curtis Sittenfeld‘s new novel Eligible, a retelling of Pride & Prejudice, is the No. 1 pick for the April Library Reads list. The rest of the list features: Nora Roberts, The Obsession (Berkley) Laurie R. King, The Murder of Mary Russell (Bantam) Amanda Quick, Till Death Do Us Part (Berkley) Martha Kelly, Lilac Girls (Ballantine) Joshua Hammer, The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu (S&S) Seanan McGuire, Every Heart a Doorway (Tor.com) Susan Mallery, Best of My Love (HQN) Julie McElwain, A Murder in Time (Pegasus) Molly Prentiss, Tuesday Nights in 1980 (Scout Press)
DBW: Galloway Says Expect Thousands of Amazon Stores; Data Guy Fills In Sales Gaps From Indie Publishing World
NYU Stern School of Business professor and entrepreneur Scott Galloway presented an updated version of his popular talk on the second day of Digital Book World on how the Four Horseman of the digital age — Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google — are each on unstoppable trajectories towards becoming trillion dollar market-cap companies (led by Facebook). Of particular note in our community, Galloway noted “ecommerce is a great business as long as you work for Amazon; for everyone else it’s a s—– business.” By his count “51 percent of all growth online goes to Amazon.” Look forward, he said with confidence, […]