Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has “realigned” its sales team. Ed Spade has been promoted to vp, national accounts, trade sales & strategy, co-leading the sales team with Colleen Murphy, vp, special markets, mass market, and product development. As a result, Maire Gorman, svp trade sales, has left the company. Additionally, Christine Sikule has joined HMH in the new role of director of sales analytics. She was previously metadata manager at Penguin Random House. Connor Guy joins Basic Books as editor on February 4. Most recently, he was associate editor at Metropolitan Books. In the UK, Amanda Ridout is launching Boldwood Books, publishing commercial fiction. The company […]
Distribution
People, Etc.
Jaime Noven has joined Celadon as marketing manager, reporting to associate publisher Rachel Chou. Previously she worked in marketing and publicity at Princeton Architectural Press and The Monacelli Press. Alison Petersen has joined Chronicle as managing editor, entertainment. Previously she was at Stanford University Hoover’s Institute as book production manager and editorial manager. Gwydion Suilebhan has been named the executive director of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, starting January 15. Suilebhan is currently director of brand and marketing for Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, and he is also a playwright, screenwriter, and poet. Meghan O’Rourke will take over as the new editor of The Yale […]
People, Etc.: Obamas, and More
Michelle Obama‘s BECOMING was the second-best-selling book in the UK in its opening week, selling 64,732 hardcovers as tracked by Nielsen Bookscan UK. (That’s a little better than Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury in its best week in the UK, when it sold almost 60,000 hardcovers.) You may recall that it was initially expected that former president Barack Obama‘s book might be published first, though that notion did not last long. Indeed he told the audience at the Obama Foundation Summit on Monday in Chicago, “Go buy her book right now. This is causing some strain in our marriage. The […]
Briefs: Awards, Bookselling, and More
National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Chernow will be the speaker at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on April 27, 2019. He said in the release, “The White House Correspondents’ Association has asked me to make the case for the First Amendment and I am happy to oblige. Freedom of the press is always a timely subject and this seems like the perfect moment to go back to basics. My major worry these days is that we Americans will forget who we are as a people and historians should serve as our chief custodians in preserving that rich storehouse […]
A Leading Agent Takes Center Stage with Hello Sunshine + Together Live
William Morris Endeavor’s head of Worldwide Literary, Lectures, and Conferences, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, has another lesser-known, yet in some respects, higher-profile, role. She is the co-founder, along with client and author Glennon Doyle, of Together Live, an annual big-venue touring storytelling event/would-be movement that recently began its third year. Walsh is also its chief curator, moderator and MC, inaugural podcast host, and force majeure. “When we are brave enough to tell our own stories, and present enough to really listen to others as they share theirs,” Walsh wrote on Instagram on the eve of the first stop, in Boston, “real […]
Briefs
Once again, you can view a live webcast of tonight’s National Book Awards starting at 7:20 PM. The Washington Post started rolling out its best books of the year package, including their lists of 50 notable fiction and nonfiction titles. Which means their top 10 should drop soon, too. Caroline Abbey has been promoted to editorial director at Random House Children’s. Chicago Distribution Center will distribute eight new publishers, all moving over from University Press of New England which is closing at the end of the year. The publishers are: Autumn House Press, Brandeis University Press, Carnegie Mellon University Press, Dartmouth College Press, […]