Kobo has hired Phil Wood for the new position of country manager, UK. Wood was at TomKat Consulting, serving the consumer technology, electronics and IT sectors, prior to which he director of Interead, which attracted attention for its inexpensive COOL-ER ereaders (before going out of business). Kobo general manager Matt Welch says in the announcement, “Having someone with Wood’s technology, commercial and eReading expertise positions us well for our planned growth in the UK. We have seen tremendous first six months here and with Phil as country manager I am confident we’ll see Kobo continuing to drive forward the ereading revolution.” […]
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Indies Choice Nominees Named
The ABA has announced the finalists for their annual Indies Choice awards, with the winners to be named April 5. Fiction The Cat’s Table, by Michael Ondaatje (Knopf) Everything Beautiful Began After, by Simon Van Booy (Harper Perennial) 1Q84, by Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel (Trans.) (Knopf) The Marriage Plot, by Jeffrey Eugenides (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) Salvage the Bones, by Jesmyn Ward (Bloomsbury USA) Wingshooters, by Nina Revoyr (Akashic Books) Nonfiction Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, by Gabrielle Hamilton (Random House) Blue Nights, by Joan Didion (Knopf) Catherine the Great: Portrait […]
People, Etc.
Senior editor of the New York Times Book Review (and husband of novelist Amy Waldman) Alexander Star will join Farrar, Straus and Giroux as a senior editor on April 2. Before moving to the book review, Star was deputy editor of the NYT Magazine. Earlier in his career he was founding editor of the Boston Globe’s Ideas section and editor of Lingua Franca: The Review of Academic Life. At Canada’s Douglas & McIntyre, co-founder Scott McIntyre will give up his role as CEO on July 1, though he will remain actively involed and continue as chairman. Current director, operations and […]
Random House Raises eBook Wholesale Prices Significantly
Random House announced their library ebook pricing, effective as of March 1, which will dampen some of the enthusiasm for the house’s commitment to the “unrestricted and perpetual availability of our complete frontlist and backlist of Random House, Inc.” in ebook form. The new prices, which librarians tell The Digital Shift represent up to a tripling, are calibrated to “bring our titles in price-point symmetry with our Books on Tape audio book downloads for library lending. These long have carried a considerably higher purchase price point than our digital audio books purchased for individual consumption.” The new price structure for […]
People, Etc.
Jack Scovil, a literary agent for more than 40 years and founding partner of Scovil Galen Ghosh Literary Agency, died last week after a brief illness. He was 74. Scovil began his career and spent 20 years at the Scott Meredith Agency, leaving in 1992 to start the agency with Russell Galen and then-partner Ted Chicack. Among the authors Scovil worked with during his career included Norman Mailer, Carl Sagan, Arthur C. Clarke, Walter Anderson, Edward Klein, Larry Smith, Margaret Truman, and James Brady. Scovil was active in the firm’s affairs and the representation of his own clients until the […]
People, Etc.
Deputy CEO of DK John Duhigg will step up to global CEO of the publisher at the beginning of April, and will join the Penguin Group Board as well. Current ceo Peter Field is preparing to retire from Penguin at the end of the year after a 35-year career at the company. Between April and the year-end, Field “will retain his current responsibilities for Penguin in Australia and New Zealand and take on a range of international projects across the company.” F+W Media will launch Prologue Books, a new imprint devoted to reissuing out-of-print hardboiled and pulp novels originally published between […]