In advance of the sale of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s trade division, senior executive editor Rick Wolff recently accepted a voluntary buyout package, and he will leave HMH in mid-December. Wolff, “who has no plans to retire, was a minor league baseball player in the Detroit Tigers organization before entering book publishing.” At Harper Christian and Harper Focu, Jerri Helm was promoted to vp of digital marketing and analytics, continuing to lead the marketing operations team while also assuming responsibility for the corporate analytics team. Bookselling Politics and Prose is looking to change the paradigm around author events, from free promotion […]
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Kyle Gipson will join Basic Books on January 4 as associate editor. Most recently, he was an assistant acquisitions editor at Johns Hopkins University Press. At Random House Children’s Joshua Redlich has been promoted to publicity manager. Aaron Reese has joined as a senior marketing manager, digital content. Previously, he was a freelance writer and editor. Vincent Perez has joined as a production associate. He was previously production coordinator at Marvel Entertainment. Angelique Tran Van Sang will join Felicity Bryan Associates as an agent in March. She is currently commissioning editor at Bloomsbury UK. The NYT rounds up some advance numbers […]
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Alison Rich has been promoted to the newly created role of senior vice president, author development, Penguin Random House, reporting to Nina von Moltke. She “will take the lead in helping us push further with the author brand development work.” Rich continues to oversee licensing-business development for the adult divisions, the Out of Print merchandising group, and the Author Portal, which will “look to build functionality and programming.” Newly reporting to her is vp, executive director PRH Speakers Bureau Tiffany Tomlin. Laura Eckes has been promoted to senior designer for Simon & Schuster Children’s and Paula Wiseman Books. At Atheneum, […]
The Second Wave: Book Sales Lockdowns in Europe
As France and the UK impose broad lockdowns again in the wake of rapidly rising Covid-19 infections, the treatment of book sales is receiving more focused attention this time versus the spring shutdowns. In France, Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Sunday night that he would prohibit supermarkets — which are still open — from selling non-essential products including books “as a matter of fairness” to specialty retailers such as bookstores, which are closed. This morning, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the government would consider allowing small stores to reopen as early as November 12, rather than December 1, […]
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Chairman emeritus of Writers House Al Zuckerman is retiring 47 years after founding the agency. “A true legend of the industry,” the agency writes, “At the beginning of his storied career, Al was a one man shop, taking business meetings in a bank lobby; he retires having overseen the growth of the company to the industry-leading agency it is today, with over twenty agents and fifty employees. At the core of his success was Al’s extraordinary understanding of storytelling, begun with his doctoral thesis on Hamlet at Yale’s famed Drama School and continuing on through his own work as a […]
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Kathy Belden has been promoted to editorial director at Scribner, announced by editor-in-chief Colin Harrison and publisher Nan Graham: “Kathy’s books and authors have transformed the Scribner list…. This is a reflection of Kathy’s exceptional contributions to the imprint — her advocacy for the books edited by her colleagues; her mentorship of younger staff and counsel to older; her work to make systems better serve our staff and authors; her commitment and leadership in all matters DEI; her nourishing of the community — even and especially now that we are physically apart; her wisdom and grace, generosity and humor.” Rebecca […]