New York Magazine shares some short anecdotes from Dan Menaker’s forthcoming book MY MISTAKE, which releases tomorrow. “Financial success in frontlist publishing is very often random, but the media conglomerates that run most publishing houses act as if it were not…. Let’s say you publish a fluky blockbuster one year, the corporation will see a spike in your profits and sort of autistically, or at least automatically, raise the profit goal for your division by some corporately predetermined amount for the following year. This is close to clinically insane institutional behavior.” Also: “I think it’s impossible to do an editor-in-chief’s […]
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At Penguin Random House, Nihar Malaviya has been promoted to evp, deputy chief operating officer, reporting to Madeline McIntosh. He will continue with his existing duties overseeing strategic planning, analytics, and program development, while also adding direct oversight for the company’s combined corporate technology teams and for the Random House operations teams. McIntosh writes in the internal announcement : “Over the past few years, Nihar’s mandate has been to apply his uniquely powerful gifts for strategic planning to the task of expanding our competitive advantages in the evolving marketplace. The direct results of his leadership are seen in the Random […]
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Alison Callahan will join Gallery Books on December 2 as executive editor. Previously she was executive editor at Doubleday. Shara Zaval has joined The Book Report Network as Editorial Manager of Kidsreads.com and Teenreads.com. Prior to moving to New York in September, Shara was a publicist with the Independent Publishers Group in Chicago. At Chronicle Books, Victoria Thomas has been promoted to associate sales manager. In the UK, David Higham Associates is taking over representation of the Anthony Burgess estate around the world. In awards news, the winners of Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Awards included: Fiction: Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries […]
Tim Ferriss Starts Audiobook Publisher, Eyes eBook Rights
Author Tim Ferriss announced on his blog that he has started an audiobook publishing venture, Tim Ferriss Publishing, under the promotional banner of the Tim Ferriss Book Club. Targeting men ages 20 to 40, and inspired in part by Oprah Winfrey, Ferriss writes, “For the last several months, I’ve been quietly buying audiobook and e-book rights to books that have changed my life, and producing audiobooks in professional studios.” Additionally, he says that ever since college he has “fantasized about somehow driving fantastic but under-appreciated books into the limelight.” The first release is a new audiobook of Rolf Potts’ VAGABONDING: An […]
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Flatiron Books has hired Liz Keenan as associate publisher, starting January 6. She is currently executive director of publicity for Hudson Street Press and Plume. She will be responsible for planning and executing all marketing and publicity for new nonfiction line, which plans to begin publishing in January 2015. On the Sunday, the NYT’s public editor revealed that in 2005 the newspaper was compelled to publish the “blockbuster story by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau about a secret Bush administration program to eavesdrop on Americans without warrants” after a 13-month delay in large part because of the pressure of a forthcoming book by […]
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At Harper UK, Susanna Frayn has been promoted to communications director. Sam Missingham will join the department in new role of head of events, and James Lewis has been promoted to communications content officer. At Bloomsbury USA, Laura Gianino has been promoted to publicist in the adult trade group, and Bridget Hartzler has been promoted to publicist in the children’s trade group. Linette Kim has been promoted to marketing manager, school and library in the children’s trade group. Jason Boog is leaving Mediabistro and Galleycat after five years to join True Pictures film company, leading the story investigation department. There […]