At Viking, Allison Lorentzen has been promoted to senior editor. Alive Communications’ start-up sister company, the epublisher Bondfire Books, has hired Patton Dodd from Patheos.com to become executive editor. Founder Rick Christian says that “burgeoning sales and opportunity” since their soft launch in May drove the hire. World Book Night US updated on the activity “two major new committees for the 2013 campaign” in an announcement. Their steering committee “has been meeting weekly to set strategy and priorities for year two” and a media strategy is focusing on key publicity goals. Additional committees are being formed to focus on author events, […]
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People, Etc.
At Italy’s Garzanti Libri, editorial director Oliviero Ponte di Pino has resigned after more than 20 years there. Paolo Zaninoni, who has been editorial director of Rizzoli and BUR since 2003, will take over at a time to be announced. As part of the reorganization director of Garzanti foreign fiction Elisabetta Migliavada will also serve as director of Italian fiction. Nellie Kurtzman will join Little, Brown Books for Young Readers as vp, marketing. She was most recently director of digital and trade marketing at Disney/Hyperion. At PS Literary Agency, Irene Merritt has been named literary assistant. World Book Night US confirmed that their campaign will return […]
People: Tina Bennett Moves to WME
Director at Janklow & Nesbit Tina Bennett is leaving after more than 17 years with the agency to join William Morris Endeavor’s literary division as a partner, effective immediately. We’re told Bennett’s entire client list is moving with her to WME; it includes Malcolm Gladwell, Laura Hillenbrand, Eric Schlosser, Atul Gawande, Jill Lepore, Amy Chua, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Peter Bergen, Lev Grossman, and Alex Ross. The move reunites Bennett with another former Janklow & Nesbit director, Eric Simonoff, who moved to William Morris in early 2009. WME has been recruiting aggressively, recently luring Simon Trewin of United Agents and Elizabeth […]
People: Peeters to Leave Perseus, McCarthy Rises; Corey to Leave Random; Keating and Brick House Form New Agency
Perseus Books Group executive Clare Peeters, who has been with the company eight years and is currently vp, corporate strategy & business development, is leaving the company on August 1. She is joining investment firm Axel Johnson as vp, managing director. As coo Joe Mangan notes, “Clare has played an integral role in publishing initiatives, joint ventures, strategic business transactions, and many of our most critical operational issues.” With Peeters’ departure, Sabrina McCarthy is being promoted to the new position of president, Perseus Distribution Client Services and is taking on executive leadership of Argo Navis. Greg Anastas is being promoted to […]
Trewin and Sheinkman to Bolster William Morris Endeavor UK
William Morris Endeavor has hired two prominent young UK-based agents to run their UK literary office, more than filling the void left when Eugenie Furniss left the agency earlier this year to start her own firm. Simon Trewin of United Agents has been named head of the UK literary department as well as partner, and Elizabeth Sheinkman of Curtis Brown UK “will help spearhead” the London office. Co-head of the worldwide literary department Jennifer Rudolph Walsh says in the announcement, “We feel like we’ve hit the jackpot with these two, and I’m looking forward to watching our UK book division […]
eNews: State Department May Spend Up to $16.5 Million for Kindles and eBooks
The most talked-about story for much of Monday afternoon was a report from NextGov on a pending no-bid State Department contract for Amazon to fill “an immediate need for approximately 2,500 ereaders and 50 titles of content” with Kindle Touch 3G units to be “used as a classroom tool for English language programs globally.” State’s acquisition managers claimed they had “identified the Amazon Kindle as the only e-Reader on the market that meets the Government’s needs, and Amazon as the only company possessing the essential capabilities required by the Government.” Under scrutiny the story changed several times (as evident by paidContent’s report, rewritten […]