Mark Oppegard, ceo of bankrupt NBC Acquisition Corp.–the owner of Nebraska Book Co.–will retire after 14 years leading the company and 42 years of service in all. He will stay on as evp “during a transition period that’s expected to last several months.” COO since 1999 Barry Major takes over as ceo. SVP at the college store division’s Neebo brand Steven Clemente moves up to coo. He joined the company in 2010. Report While McGraw-Hill is in “the final stages” of their search for a new head for their education division prior to its spinoff at the end of the […]
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People: The Shack Author’s “Cross Roads” Set for November
Kimberly Snead his been hired for the new position of director, brand strategy at the Crown Publishing Group, reporting to vp, business development Ranjana Wingender. Snead was director, consumer marketing at Nickelodeon/MTV Networks. She will be “responsible for conceiving, creating, and executing brand development plans for a variety of authors” across the group. Daniel Nayeri has been named to the new position of digital editorial director at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s, overseeing the e-book publishing program for all frontlist and backlist HMH children’s books, as well as acquiring e-original content and developing multimedia projects. He was editor at HMH’s Clarion. […]
People: Gilbert Moves from Sterling Children’s to Doubleday, and More
As part of the continuing demise of Sterling, veteran children’s book editor Frances Gilbert will leave her position as vp, publisher of Sterling Children’s to join Random House Children’s Books as editorial director, Doubleday, starting June 18. Gilbert will report to vp, publishing director of the Random House/Golden Books Young Readers Group, Mallory Loehr. She will acquire and publish new books in a variety of formats and categories including board books, picture books, narrative nonfiction, novels and ebooks, and will also oversee the backlist publishing program. Gilbert has been at Sterling for 12 years. Her first list for Doubleday is planned for […]
Tattered Cover One Step Away from Airport Stores; Politics & Prose Travels
A Denver City Council committee unanimously sent to the mayor and full council for approval the proposal to give the Tattered Cover the concession for four bookstores under their own name and one combined store paired with Hudson News at the Denver International Airport. The stores would open in early 2014. Washington, DC’s Politics & Prose bookstore has launched a literary travel tour program, working with DC-based Academic Travel Abroad (which works with the Smithsonian, National Geographic, and various alumni associations, among others). “Part tour, part roving literary symposium, each trip will be led by an expert in the field,” including store […]
People, Etc.
Sara Nelson has been named editorial director, Amazon.com books, responsible for “leading our editorial vision for books in the print and Kindle bookstores” a company spokesperson told PW. She was most recently books editor at O Magazine, and prior to that was editor-in-chief of Publishers Weekly. Nelson, who will work out of New York starting next month, said in a statement: “I am thrilled to have the opportunity to expand the content on Amazon.com and to bring my voice to this Web site visited by millions of passionate readers.” (We’ve noticed many people in publishing mistakenly think she’s working for […]
People: Author Mitchard to Head New YA Imprint for F+W, and More
Author of 24 novels and books of non-fiction for adults, young adults, and children Jacquelyn Mitchard will run a new young adult imprint for F+W Media called Merit Press Books. They plan five titles for 2012 and 12 releases for 2013. Publisher Karen Cooper says: “The mission of the line is to provide an abundance of intensely readable, highly suspenseful and unforgettable fiction for readers aged thirteen and up, with a particular emphasis on strong, savvy, female heroes rising to conquer sometimes stunning challenges thrown at them by a very real contemporary world.” Best known for writing the inaugural Oprah’s […]