Sheila O’Shea will join Farrar, Straus as svp and director of marketing and publicity, starting November 18. Most recently, she was senior executive director, marketing communications at Hearst, which she joined in 2014 after 17 years at Penguin Random House. Director of publicity Sarita Varma will report to O’Shea. Publisher Mitzi Angel says in the announcement, “Sheila’s love of books, her enthusiasm, and her wide-ranging experience in both publicity and marketing will be invaluable. She will make a vital contribution to FSG as it looks to the future.” Joanna Pinsker joined Atria Publishing Group this week as deputy director of […]
Audio
Awards: Whitehead, Jones, Craft Win Kirkus Prizes; PW’s Best of 2019, and More
The winners of the $50,000 Kirkus Prizes were announced on Thursday evening. The fiction prize went to Colson Whitehead‘s The Nickel Boys (Doubleday), with judges noting that it “evokes race in America not as a concept but as a condition of being.” Saeed Jones‘ memoir How We Fight for Our Lives (Simon & Schuster) won the nonfiction prize. Judges said, “His tenacious honesty compels us to be honest with ourselves. His experiences—negotiating grief, family dynamics, and a forthright identity—require our reckoning.” New Kid (HarperCollins), written & illustrated by Jerry Craft, was awarded the prize for children’s literature, for being a “laugh-out-loud […]
People, Etc.
Christopher Richards and Will Heyward have both been promoted to senior editor at Penguin Press. Leslie Cohen has been promoted to senior production manager, production services, at Chronicle Books. Elizabeth Breeden has been promoted to senior marketing manager at Simon & Schuster. At Simon & Schuster, Henna Cho has been promoted to sales associate on the digital & online sales team. Kyla Pigoni has been promoted to senior marketing manager at Amazon Publishing. Trevor Ketner has joined Ladderbird Literary Agency. Ketner is the publisher and founder of Skull + Wind Press. In the UK, Kris Doyle and Sophie Jonathan have […]
People, Etc.
Becca Putman has joined Harper as senior marketing manager. She was previously with Random House Publishing Group. Jane Kinney-Denning has joined Mango Publishing as acquisitions editor. She was previously executive director of internships and corporate outreach for the master’s in publishing program at Pace University. At Hachette Book Group, Louise Robertson has been promoted to senior director, enterprise transformation. Elizabeth Blue Guess becomes sales director, author brands. Harvard University Press will be sold and distributed in the Indian subcontinent by Harper India. Audio Sourcebooks, one of the larger independent publishers without its own audiobooks line, has paired with Dreamscape Media […]
People, Etc.
Jesseca Salky has resigned as managing partner and agent at HSG Agency, which she co-founded, to start Salky Literary Management. Launching October 1, the company “will not only sell books into domestic, foreign, audio and dramatic markets in the role of a traditional literary agent but will also act as business manager in the manner of a Hollywood agent.” A memorial to celebrate the life of Grove Atlantic art director Charles Rue Woods will be held on Sunday, October 6 from 4pm-6pm at the Center for Fiction, 15 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn. It is open to the public. Please rsvp to […]
Why Audible’s Legal Arguments Fail
Ahead of the formal response from the seven publishers suing Audible for copyright infringement due to their Caption feature, assistant director at the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property and assistant professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University Devlin Hartline provides a preview of the likely arguments. It’s plainly a copyright case and not a contract dispute, as Audible had argued, because “the publishers only claim infringement of the underlying works, that is, the literary works from which the sound recordings of the audiobooks are derived.” It’s the same as if Audible had produced a […]