Penguin Random House announced to independent booksellers who have been getting all of their inventory from Baker & Taylor an Indies Express program, following the news that B&T will exit trade distribution. The initiative promises individualized “live-person support” to “make the upcoming transition as easy as possible for you and your staff,” and is good through October 1. The offer includes a streamlined new-account application and credit-approval process, a lower unit-minimum on the first order, a dedicated PRH sales director “with expertise in helping B&T customers transition to ordering directly” and “dedicated PRH sales reps (community bookstore specialists) to help […]
Bookstores
How Does Indigo From Here, Really?
Last week the NYT ran a cheerful story on Indigo’s “ascendance” as a store that sells general merchandise to readers, and the opening of the first of a number of hoped-for US stores in New Jersey last year. CEO Heather Reisman is “already scouting locations for a second store near New York” and tells the paper, “We’ve been carving out our own approach to attracting readers.” She added, “We are the new guy,” then added, “Or new woman.” The profile is well deserved and any bookstore chain showing resilience is to be celebrated — but the touting of Indigo’s success […]
People, Etc.
The Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel Prize for literature, has named Mats Malm its new permanent secretary. The previous permanent secretary, Sara Danius, resigned last April after a sexual harassment and leaking scandal. Anders Olsson has been filling the role since last June. Malm, a professor of literary theory at the University of Gothenburg, joined the academy four months ago. Katie Hope will join the Princeton University Press as marketing director in June, leading marketing and sales teams in Princeton and Oxford. She was most recently director of marketing and author relations at MIT Press. Jake-Ryan Kent was promoted […]
People, Etc.
Quarto’s interim chief financial officer Michael Mousley has been named a non-executive director. Group finance director Steven Grace will oversee finance for now, and an undisclosed new chief financial officer will join the company in July. Separately, Pearson has added two independent non-executive directors to its board: Graeme Pitkethly, CFO at Unilever, and Sherry Coutu, an entrepreneur and angel investor who founded Interactive Investor International plc and currently chairs Founders4Schools, Raspberry Pi Trading and the Scale-Up Institute. At Chronicle, Aki Neumann has been hired as junior production designer, children’s (she was a project editor for Octane Press). Former Angry Robot […]
People, Etc.
At Farrar, Straus, longtime senior vice president, director of marketing and publicity Jeff Seroy “has decided to relinquish” those responsibilities as of July 1, publisher Mitzi Angel writes, after almost 25 years. He will become svp, director of special projects, still “handling a select group of key publicity campaigns, working closely with some of FSG’s core authors on forthcoming projects,” as well as acquiring and editing books on the performing arts and spiritual health. Jonathan Galassi, president, said, “Jeff and I have collaborated closely for twenty-five years, and so much of the success of FSG’s list has been due to […]
Briefs: Prince Memoir Coming In October, and More
Stephen Brayda will join the Harper One Group on April 24 as art director for Harper Via, Amistad and Harper Espanol, reporting to Judith Curr. He was previously with Riverhead. Director of events at Copperfield’s Books Barbara Lane debuts a column for the San Francisco Chronicle, Chapters and Verse, where she will “discuss what I love about the literary world, often focusing on our rich Northern California scene, personalities, trends, controversies and more.” Forthcoming As agent Esther Newberg had indicated in an interview a year ago, the unfinished memoir by the late Prince Rogers Nelson will be published October 29 […]