Editors at Scholastic’s book fairs and clubs along with their trade editors have released a forecast of 10 top trends in children’s books for 2013. They say bullying is “the timely topic,” and also look for biographies, Civil War anniversary books and survival stories in nonfiction. In fiction they say to keep a watch out for more strong girl protagonists; novels in cartoon form; and sci-fi. The year’s big movie tie-ins include film releases of Scott Orson Card’s Ender’s Game, Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl’s Beautiful Creatures, Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments, and the latest Percy Jackson adaptation, Sea of Monsters. […]
Free
People, Etc.
At Penguin Group’s Portfolio, Sentinel, and Current imprints, Kristen Gastler has been hired as a senior publicist (she was at Doubleday). Margot Stamas has moved over to the group as a publicist from Putnam and Riverhead; Christy D’Agostini has been promoted to senior publicist; and Jacquelynn Burke has been promoted to publicist. Last Friday Gawker “published here for the first time” Lena Dunham‘s highly-designed and illustrated 66-page book proposal, which you think would be protected by copyright. (They also dragged Scribd.com into the potential infringement by using the service to host and post the PDF.) When we contacted Random House […]
People, Etc.
The NYT now has a full obituary for literary agent Robert Lescher. As widely publicized elsewhere, Random House ceo Markus Dohle happily surprised staff at the company’s annual holiday party Wednesday night in announcing that all US employees who have been with the company for a year or more will receive a special $5,000 bonus. (Roughly “a few thousand” people qualify; people who have worked there for less than a year will receive a pro-rated bonus.) Dohle invoked the memory of recently deceased cfo Anne Davis and said the “thank you payment” was one of the last initiatives he and […]
People, Etc.
Benjamin Lee will join the Atria Publishing Group as associate publisher on January 2. He moves over from Simon & Schuster, where he was most recently director, sales, retail and marketing, overseeing Target, Readerlink, Baker & Taylor, Ingram, Kobo, Google, various other digital aggregators and the Christian retail market including Family Christian, Lifeway and Mardel. Elizabeth Psaltis will join the Gallery Books Group in the newly created role of marketing director, reporting to Louise Burke. Psaltis, who was previously advertising and promotion director for Berkley, NAL, Riverhead Trade, Perigee, and Penguin Press, will be responsible for marketing efforts for Gallery, Threshold, […]
People: Oprah Chooses Ayana Mathis Debut For Book Club 2.0
Oprah Winfrey’s revamped, Occasional Book Club 2.0 has selected Ayana Mathis‘ debut novel THE TWELVE TRIBES OF HATTIE (Knopf) as its second choice. The book was originally set for publication in mid-January but has been moved up to release today instead. As part of the announcement Oprah said: “The opening pages of Ayana’s debut took my breath away. I can’t remember when I read anything that moved me in quite this way, besides the work of Toni Morrison.” Oprah had picked Cheryl Strayed’s WILD in June, following the book’s publication in March. At the time, she said the OBC2.0 would feature “several […]
People
Mark Bloomfield has joined Regnery as director of sales. Previously he was associate publisher at Harvard Business School Press. Deputy publisher of Gallery, Threshold and Pocket Anthony Ziccardi has left the company after seven years. His last day was December 3. Going forward, Ziccardi’s responsibilities will be handled by an associate publisher and a marketing director, both of which will be newly created positions within the group. Colin McGee is no longer with Sellers Publishing. He can be reached at colinmcgee@maine.rr.com. Longtime literary agent Robert Lescher, 83, died November 28. Christopher Davis, 71, who worked at Dorling Kindersley since its […]