Content platform Hello Sunshine, home of Reese Witherspoon’s wildly successful book club, is considering a subscription box offering. Tech Crunch was the first to notice that a survey sent to Hello Sunshine’s email list April 16 included several box-focused questions. The 43-question survey, appropriately incentivized with a contest to win a book box, asks readers what subscriptions they already receive; what matters most in a subscription, with 12 options that include personalization, saving money, and “a box full of surprises”; and how they prefer to pay for subscriptions. It also asks how social impact affects readers’ buying decisions, one of […]
Bookstores
People, Etc.
Kathleen Doherty, vp and publisher, Tor Teen & Starscape will retire on June 14, after 34 years with Tor/Forge. Doherty joined the company in 1985 to start the special sales department, eventually launching Tor Classics, Tor Kids, and more. After she leaves, senior editors Susan Chang and Melissa Frain and editor Ali Fisher will report to Fritz Foy until a successor is named. At Arcadia Publishing, Christen Thompson rejoins the company on April 29 in the new position of director of special projects. (She is also the co-owner of the North Charleston bookstore, Itinerate Literate, which opened last year.) And […]
People, Etc.
Alessandra Preziosi and Bethany Vinhateiro have both been promoted to senior editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s. Julius C. Jefferson Jr., section head of the Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, has been elected president of the American Library Association. He will serve as president-elect for one year before becoming president at the 2020 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago. Awards In Australia, Vicki Laveau-Harvie‘s The Erratics won the Stella Prize, which celebrates women’s writing. Bookselling A new location of NYC’s McNally-Jackson has opened in The Shed, a new art and performance space at Hudson Yards. The […]
People, Etc.
Michael Gentile has been promoted to vice president, education sales and marketing, Penguin Random House, expanding his role to include oversight of education sales across all children’s and adult divisions. On the children’s side, he will report to to Felicia Frazier, senior vice president, children’s and education sales, and on the adult side to Kim Shannon, senior vice president, adult retail and education sales. Whitney Aaronson joins Random House Children’s as senior product manager for the digital marketing team. She previously worked for Simmons Research as UX product manager. Rob Roglev joins as senior developer for the digital marketing team. He […]
People, Etc.: Naples to Lead Hachette Books, and More
Mary Ann Naples will join Hachette Books as vice president and publisher and “will oversee its growth as a major commercial nonfiction imprint,” along with overseeing the “ongoing integration” of the Hachette Books imprint with Da Capo Press and Lifelong. She was vice president and publisher at the Disney Book Group. (Naples’ second job in publishing in the early 90s was editor at Hyperion; that list was acquired by HBG in 2013 and became the foundation of Hachette Books when it was created in 2014.) CEO of Hachette Book Group Michael Pietsch says in the announcement, “Mary Ann Naples is […]
Briefs
New Ventures Arthur A. Levine announced details about his new venture at the Bologna Book Fair. Levine Querido is a partnership with Holland’s Querido (an imprint of Singel). Levine says: “I’m starting this company with enormous optimism about the importance and potential for making outstanding books in an independent environment. We can give something of enormous value to children. And to have an ally in Querido for whom I have such profound admiration, is a great blessing.” He adds, adds: “Great stories come from everywhere. I want my new company to seek them in the beautiful diversity of America, and […]