President and publisher of Crown’s WaterBrook Multnomah Steve Cobb “has decided that he is ready to embark on the next chapter of his life and will be retiring in March 2015,” Crown president Maya Mavjee announced. A founding executive of WaterBrook in 1996, when the imprint was launched as an autonomous evangelical Christian division of then Bantam Doubleday Dell, he “has led and managed a business that has realized consistent profitability while building an extraordinary legacy as a nurturer of author talent.” Crown’s svp, publisher of Christian Publishing Tina Constable wrote to staff that with Cobb’s transition “we are at a […]
Awards
November Picks: Amazon, iBooks and Costco
In the new monthly lists, Amazon makes Stephen King’s Revival their spotlight pick for November and Lev Golinkin’s memoir A Backpack, A Bear and Eight Crates of Vodka is their featured debut. The rest of their top books for the month are: Fields of Blood, Karen Armstrong The Laughing Monsters, Denis Johnson Lives in Ruins, Marilyn Johnson Us, David Nicholls Napoleon, Andrew Roberts There Was a Little Girl, Brooke Shields Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible, Peter Pomerantsev Let Me Be Frank With You, Richard Ford The Happiest People in the World, Brock Clarke Apple’s iBooks Store also lists King, Johnson and […]
People
George Bick has joined Regan Arts as sales director. A number of years ago he was svp, sales at HarperCollins, ReganBooks, and William Morrow. Juliana Horbachevsky has joined Abrams as publicist, primarily working on cookbooks and pop-culture titles. Previously she was a publicist at Gallery. Stefanie Hoffman will join Little, Brown Children’s as marketing manager on November 3. She was most recently a marketing associate at Harper Children’s. Knopf svp, director of international rights (groupwide) and senior editor Carol Brown Janeway was presented with the 2014 Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature at the Words without Borders dinner on Tuesday. Presenting the work, […]
People, Etc.
Michelle Aielli has been named executive director of publicity for Hachette Books. She moves over from Little, Brown, where she was most recently publicity director. At Simon & Schuster, Jennifer Grojean has been promoted to director, national accounts for special markets, while Bianca Johnson moves up to manager, adult custom & proprietary sales. In addition, Alex Maurer has joined as manager, children’s custom & proprietary sales. Previously she was senior coordinator, custom & proprietary sales at Penguin. At HarperCollins Children’s, Nellie Kurtzman has joined as director of integrated marketing. Previously she was marketing director at Little, Brown Books for Young […]
People, Awards, Etc.
Margot Schupf has been promoted to publisher of Time Home Entertainment, effective immediately, succeeding Jim Childs, who left earlier this month. Schupf joined the division as associate publisher in June. She reports to svp, consumer marketing + revenue Jeff Blatt. Reporting to Schupf are TIHE editorial director Steve Koepp and Oxmoor House editorial director Leah McLaughlin, well as executive director, business development Suzanne Albert, executive director, marketing Susan Hettleman, and executive director, production & project management Carol Pittard. Linda Scalissi has joined 3 Seas Literary Agency as an agent, looking to represent women’s fiction, thrillers, young adult, mysteries and romance. We Need […]
Kirkus Prize Winners, and More Awards
The winners of the inaugural Kirkus Prize were announced Thursday evening at a private ceremony in Austin, TX. EUPHORIA by Lily King won the fiction prize (we featured it as a spring/summer Publishers Lunch Buzz Book). The nonfiction winner is CAN WE TALK ABOUT SOMETHING MORE PLEASANT? by Roz Chast, already shortlisted for the National Book Award in nonfiction. Finally, the Young Readers’ Prize was awarded to AVIARY WONDERS INC. by Kate Samworth. Each of the winners will receive $50,000. In other awards, the Heartland Prizes honored THE MAID’S VERSION by Daniel Woodrell for fiction, and MEN WE REAPED by Jesmyn […]