Direct Brands has hired David Gitow as chief marketing officer and Alan Katz as evp, business development, the first major appointments under new ceo Deborah Fine. Gitow was cmo at both BN.com and Barnes & Noble, and in a long time stretch at Time, Inc. founded and ran Time, Inc. Home Entertainment. Katz has had a long career in magazine publishing, including executive positions at Vanity Fair and New York. BookEnds Literary Agency co-founder Jacky Sach will retire from publishing after 10 years as an agent for “new opportunities.” Sach began her publishing career in 1985 at Berkley. BookEnds will […]
Agency News
Founder Buys Back Stone Bridge; Quirk Announces 'Android Karenina'; Jacky Sach to Retire, and More
Founder of Stone Bridge Press Peter Goodman has reacquired 100 percent of the company’s shares from its Japanese owner, IBC Publishing of Tokyo. Goodman sold Stone Bridge to Japanese book distributor Yohan in 2005 and passed to its one-time subsidiary IBC in 2007 right before Yohan declared bankruptcy. Goodman, who has been an executive at Stone Bridge since its founding in 1989, will continue to lead the company as publisher and editor-in-chief from their current offices near North Berkeley, CA. He notes, “The Japanese owners at IBC have always been generous in spirit, and they did the best they could […]
Pfeffer Joins East/West Agency, and More People News
Former svp, group publisher of Simon & Schuster Children’s Trade imprints Rubin Pfeffer has joined the East/West Literary Agency, heading up the East Coast office in Boston as a partner, digital strategist, and content agent, a new position “focused on developing and creating content for the 21st -century incarnations of publishing, both electronic and traditional print.” Pfeffer says, “The value that I hope to offer East/West and the clients that I represent is being nimble and opportunistic about how their intellectual property can be leveraged effectively in this dawn of electronic publishing. There are many more options for writers and […]
Bookseller Correct Aitken Alexander Results
The Bookseller has amended their article on UK agencies having trouble making profits. The 850,000-pound loss they reported for Aitken Alexander was incorrect; the agency made a post-tax profit of 62,000 pounds.Note at the end of article
Top UK Agencies Struggle to Show Profit
The Bookseller analyzed filings from six of the UK’s biggest literary agencies and found that they all lost money in the most recently-reported fiscal year except for AP Watt, which made a little under 250,000 pounds. (NB many of these figures apply to fiscal 2008.) Start-up United Agents lost 2 million pounds on revenues of 6 million pounds in their first year, while the PFD they left behind “appears to have made a loss close to £1 million.” A brief filing from Sheil Land “showed it made a loss close to £75,000.” The more current numbers come from Curtis Brown […]
People
The Library of America has hired Trish Hoard as production editor. Hoard was previously managing editor at Counterpoint Press and associate publisher at Shoemaker & Hoard. She replaces retiring managing editor Sharon Graham, who had overseen the publication of all 200 volumes in the Library of America series, dating back to 1982, along with numerous special publications. HarperOne associate publisher Claudia Boutote is being promoted to senior vice president, and executive editor Gideon Weil has been made a vice president. Ronit Feldman has been promoted to associate editor at Nan A. Talese books. Jennifer Abbots will join Victoria Sanders & […]