Jill Schwartzman is joining Hyperion as a senior editor, acquiring pop culture, humor, memoir, biography, narrative nonfiction, popular history, and up-market commercial fiction. She was senior editor at Random House Trade Paperbacks. Former Barnes & Noble director of digital content Mike Ferrari has joined Borders, as merchandising director, trade books. Reporting to svp, merchandising Larry Norton, he will oversee categories including mystery/thriller, fiction, romance, science fiction, graphic novels, sports, local titles, business, computers, literary fiction, poetry, performing arts as well as Spanish books. (Before he joined B&N many years ago, Ferrari had worked for Walden.) Paris Review co-founder and former […]
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St. Martin’s has announced a new short-story writing contest, to be judged by Jeffrey Archer. The winner will be offered a publishing contract, with the story of 5,000 words or less issued as an ebook.Jeffrey Archer Presents Candlewick Press is partnering on a TOON Books imprint in October. They will takeover TOON’s eleven-title backlist and aim to publish four to five new books a year starting next spring. TOON was launched in 2008 TOON Books by New Yorker art editor and RAW publisher Françoise Mouly. Flat World Knowledge his hired David Littlehale for the new position of vp of institutional […]
Sales and Profits Rise at Wiley, Though “Consumer” Books Are Weak
Wiley announced first quarter sales of $408 million, up 5 percent, including “strong growth” in the professional/trade and higher ed divisions, as operating income rose 13 percent to $63 million. Professional/trade sales of $100 million were up 11 percent overall (and 10 percent in the US), with contribution to profit of $22 million, due to “top line growth, product mix, and higher-margin eBook sales, partially offset by increased employment costs.” As a category, however, “consumer” books were the weakest part of the portfolio, falling 7 percent. Wiley says trade/professional ebooks doubled in the quarter to “nearly $4 million.” They now […]
Posner and Simon & Schuster Sued for Infringement, As Publisher Faces Odd Campaign Finance Allegations As Well
In March Gerald Posner admitted his fall 2009 book MIAMI BABYLON included some passages from Frank Owen’s CLUBLAND. At the time, Posner blamed faulty research methodology, and said “if you use something from another book, a statement from another book, it needs to be in quotations, or if you take something and put it in your own syntax and grammar, you still need to cite it.” He promised to review his book further and revise the material. (This came a month after Posner resigned from the Daily Beast after it was found that he copied material from Miami Herald articles […]
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Senior director of publicity at William Morrow Dee Dee De Bartlo is leaving after 12 years at HarperCollins to join February Partners, co-founded by her former HarperCollins colleague Gretchen Crary. She says in the announcement, “we really feel the future of the industry is dismantling the silos that exist between publicity and marketing in the big publishing houses and coming up with solutions that maximize a book’s exposure.” Additionally, Kimberly Cowser has joined February Partners as online marketing manager. At Harper UK, Jenny Heller has been promoted to publishing director for general nonfiction at Collins, and Lizzy Gray has been […]
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Jeanette Limondjian is leaving Barnes & Noble this week “to start the next chapter in her life.” She has been with the company for over 40 years, starting creating store windows and writing radio ad copy and most recently serving as vp, editor at large and new business development at Sterling Innovation. The London Book Fair announced that China has signed on as the “market focus” partner for the 2012 convention.