Publisher of the Golden Books Young Readers Group Kate Klimo is stepping down as of March 31, Random House Children’s president and publisher Chip Gibson announced internally on Friday. Klimo has worked at Random House since 1984, and spearheaded the acquisition of Golden in 2001. She will be director of creative development at Media Assets Management Associates, where she “will continue turning our books into great TV shows.” (Klimo helped develop The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That! into a PBS Kids show and “has six other shows based on our books in development.”) Gibson notes, “she […]
Free
People, Etc.
Publishing veteran Marie Coolman joins Bloomsbury as senior director of publicity and communications on March 19, reporting to Cristina Gilbert. Coolman comes to Bloomsbury from Hyperion, where she has overseen publicity and communications since November 2008. Sarah Freese at WordServe Literary has been promoted to associate agent. Lucy Abrahams has been appointed as literary scout for Metaichmio in Greece and Natur & Kultur in Sweden. BEA has announced its full slate of author breakfast appearances. Tuesday’s author breakfast, hosted by Stephen Colbert will feature Junot Diaz, Barbara Kingsolver and Jo Nesbo; John Green, Lois Lowry and Kadir Nelson will speak at […]
Sterling Gets Smaller As Leaver Heads to Quarto
The compression of Sterling Publishing that we indicated was likely when reporting that Barnes & Noble had been unable to find a buyer for the division has begun. Sterling president Marcus Leaver is leaving to return to England and join Quarto in the new position of chief operating officer, in line to succeed chief executive Lawrence Orbach when he retires, starting in April. Quarto had indicated in late February “the candidate has been identified, and will be announced shortly.” Leaver says in the announcement, “This is a fascinating time in publishing with abundant opportunity and Quarto’s global perspective is unique. […]
People, Etc.
At Goldberg McDuffie Communications, Kathleen Zrelak has been promoted to vp, director of publicity. Author of PLEASE LOOK AFTER MOM Kyung-Sook Shin has won the Man Asian Literary Prize, receiving $30,000. Translator Chi-Young Kim also received US$5,000. The Bancroft Prize for history is being shared this year by Anne Hyde’s Empires, Nations and Families: A History of the North American West, 1800-1860; Daniel Rodgers’ Age of Fracture; and Tomiko Brown-Nagin’s Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement. As part of the relocation of Bonnier’s Weldon Owen from Australia to London, Martina Challis has been […]
Hunger Games Sales Drive Big Sales Gain At Scholastic
Led by strong sales of The Hunger Games trilogy, Scholastic reported sharply higher sales for the third quarter of $467 million, up 22 percent from a year ago, and a much smaller seasonal loss of $3.2 million, or 10 cents per share, compared to 81 cents a share (or $25.1 million) a year ago. The publisher’s stock jumped over 20 percent (or more than $7 a share) in early trading on Thursday on the improved results and increased full-year guidance. If sustained, it will be the highest Scholastic’s shares have traded since 2002. Besides Hunger Games, for which “sales of […]
People, Etc.
At today’s annual meeting of the Association of American Publishers (AAP), Macmillan ceo John Sargent relinquished the position of organization treasurer after 10 years of service. Sargent will remain on the board, and Norton president Drake McFeely becomes treasurer. Association officers will now rotate annually. Outoing AAP chair David Young thanked Sargent for his years of service, including his “great leadership” in the Google book search efforts (along with “the altruistic efforts of Richard Sarnoff, who has continued to work on our behalf since leaving the industry.”) Young said “we continue to make progress in resolving the differences between publishers and Google.” […]