Bill Harris has joined BookEnds Literary Agency as director of digital content. Formerly a senior managing editor at Penguin, he has most recently been a freelance editorial and web development consultant. In addition, Beth Campbell has been promoted to literary assistant and rights coordinator. Skyhorse and Start Publishing have finalized their joint acquisition of Night Shade Books, an agreement reached “following a spirited and public debate” among authors, agents, fans, and publishers. According to a statement, Night Shade had net sales in 2012 of approximately $1.5 million. In Denmark, Lindhardt and Ringhof has acquired independent Danish literary house Per Kofod […]
Agency News
People, Awards, Etc.
Wiley has hired John Kritzmacher as evp, chief financial officer, starting July 1. Current cfo and chief operations officer Ellis Cousens, who previously announced his retirement at the end of fiscal 2014, will “retain responsibility for certain global operations and oversee the company’s $80 million restructuring program.” Kritzmacher, 52, recently served as svp, business operations and organization planning at WebMD and was previously cfo of Lucent Technologies and Global Crossing. On Friday at BEA, the Publishing Hackathon awarded first prize to Evoke — which maps how characters in fiction are emotionally similar to each other as a way of discovering […]
People, Etc.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg officially has declared Tuesday as “G.P. Putnam’s Sons Day,” in recognition of the publisher’s 175th anniversary. Bloomberg said: “The story of G.P. Putnam’s Sons has it all – entrepreneurship, determination, romance, big dreams. It is a classic New York City story, and on this wonderful occasion, today, we join Putnam’s extended family and many readers across the world in looking ahead to the next exciting chapter.” Michael Foster, who bought control of the UK agency PFD and merged it with his MF Management in 2010 to form The Rights House, has sold his shares back […]
People: Former Twelve Publisher Goldstein Rejoins Karp at S&S
Former publisher at Twelve Cary Goldstein will join Simon & Schuster’s trade imprint as vp, executive director of publicity and senior editor on June 3. In his new role, Goldstein will supervise the S&S publicity department and acquire a select number of fiction and nonfiction titles. “Cary Goldstein brings great intelligence, creativity, and enterprise to every book he works on, as a publicity director and as an editor,” writes publisher Jonathan Karp, who launched Twelve in 2006 with Goldstein as director of publicity and acquiring editor, in the announcement. “I know Cary will thrive at this dual role because I […]
People
Clay Farr will join Basic Books as vp, associate publisher & marketing director later this month. He spent the past nine years at Perseus, most recently as vp, group marketing, and also served on Basic’s editorial board. At Crown, Rachel Meier has been named managing editor for the Crown trade, Broadway Books, and Hogarth imprints. Previously she was marketing manager for Crown Trade. Summer Smith has joined Bloomsbury as associate director of publicity. Previously she was publicity manager at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Emily van Beek has been promoted senior vice president at Folio Jr., the children’s division of Folio Literary […]
People, Awards, Etc.
Longtime Author Solutions ceo Kevin Weiss is leaving the company for a new position (to be announced separately next week). President of Penguin International Andrew Phillips is taking over as ceo of Author Solutions, which Penguin acquired last July. Phillips led the launch of Partridge, the Penguin Author Solutions partnership in India. Penguin chairman and ceo John Makinson said in the announcement: “This is a bitter-sweet announcement because we shall be sorry to lose Kevin, who has provided the stability and clear leadership that Author Solutions needed in the year after our acquisition. But I always recognised that Kevin would seek […]