Sara Sargent moves to Random House Children’s as senior executive editor. (She was previously executive editor for Harper Children’s.) Also, Hanna Glidden has been promoted to associate director of pub ops business process and support. At Berkley, Kristine Swartz has been promoted to editor and Sarah Blumenstock has been promoted to associate editor. Julia Ringo has been promoted to associate editor at Farrar, Straus. Roisin Davis has joined Haymarket Books as director of foreign rights. She will also continue as associate agent at Roam Agency. In the UK, Jenny Lord has been promoted to nonfiction publisher for Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Alan Samson expands his role to […]
Best of
More Bests of 2018: Barnes & Noble, People Magazine, and More
Barnes & Noble posted their year end package, which includes an overall best of the year and lists in several categories. Michelle Obama’s Becoming and Tara Westover’s Educated make the overall list, as well as Tommy Orange’s There There, Tayari Jones’ An American Marriage, and Madeline Miller’s Circe. People Magazine also chose the Jones, the Miller, and the Obama for its ten best books of the year, as well as Small Fry by Lisa Brennan-Jobs, and others. The Wall Street Journal announced its picks as well, both in specific categories and overall. Their top 10 list tends to go its own direction, but […]
More 2018 Data: Becoming Is Not Amazon’s No. 1 Book
Amazon has released their annual “Charts” package for 2018 highlighting some bestselling books and other notables. Last year they focused on the “most read” books of the year, but this time they return to a more conventional lens on the most sold books. In another adjustment, this year, the Charts include sales across print, Kindle, Audible and their Amazon Books stores. The data shows that the top titles at Amazon are not in direct line with the top titles across the entire market, and may give a few clues for anyone trying to merchandise against the giant etailer. We compared […]
Trump Books, The Women of Fiction, and Expanded Books Coverage in 2018
NY Magazine looks at “Book Publishing’s No Good, Very Good Year of Trump” for their best of 2018 package. Fortunately, PW debated making Donald Trump their “person of the year,” they report, but realized that would be a mistake: “We were afraid that no matter how we explained it, if we put him on the cover, it would look like Publishers Weekly had endorsed Trump.” (I can tell you now that here at PL we’ll be calling it the Year of the Asterisk, but we won’t explain that for a while.) Holt president and publisher Steve Rubin says he has […]
People, Etc.
Arcadia Publishing coo Paul Raffle has stepped down from his position, succeeded by former Perseus Books Group coo Charles Gallagher. Lezen Acquisition bought the company back in May and Raffle had agreed to stay on through the transition, and he will consult on a part-time basis going forward. Gallagher has been consulting for Arcadia for six months, and has relocated to Charleston, SC. Arcadia ceo (and former Perseus ceo alongside Gallagher) David Steinberger said in a letter to staff, “Paul has been true to his word, and over the past months has worked very hard and very effectively to position Arcadia […]
More Bests (Goodread, NYT Critics, New Yorker) and the First of the Best of the Best Books of 2018
The “best books” lists are arriving in a wave: The New York Times their individual critics’ favorite books of the year — books editor and staff writer John Williams writes, “If we had to use a single word to describe the past year in books, it might be eclectic” — and Janet Maslin is still contributing her own ten favorites. Dwight Garner’s list includes Sheila Heti’s Motherhood and Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation, both excerpted in our Buzz Books 2018 Spring/Summer sampler. Elsewhere, there are Katy Waldman’s picks at the New Yorker and Entertainment Weekly‘s top 10; best of 2018 packages from Apple […]