Ron Hogan has left Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s trade and reference division, where he was director of e-marketing strategy. Adrienne Schultz, most recently an editor at Portfolio, has left Penguin to begin freelance editing. At Dutton, Carrie Swetonic has been promoted to associate marketing director. Del Commune Enterprises is now scouting for Rowohlt Verlag in Germany. Alison Brook is joining Harper New Zealand in the new position of head of publishing, reporting to managing director Tony Fisk. She was publisher, nonfiction at Penguin New Zealand. In the UK, Nick Davies has been promoted to publishing director for nonfiction at Canongate. And […]
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Swedish author Henning Mankell was among those on boats headed to the Gaza strip, and according to Agence France Press he is also one of nine Swedes now in Israeli custody following their attack on the flotilla. The wire service, which has been in touch with Sweden’s foreign ministry, says that the prisoners “have reportedly been given the choice” between deportation and a trial in Israeli court. Mankell had indicated in a statement before setting sail that he “was taking part in the flotilla to show his solidarity towards the Palestinian people.”AFP Rick Warren‘s big fall book THE HOPE YOU […]
iPad Takes the World
Apple’s iPad released today in major book markets included UK, Canada, Australia, Japan, and Germany–plus France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. Though the UK iBookstore launch was preceded by worried speculation that UK publishers were concerned aspects of Apple’s contract might run afoul of local pricing laws, lo and behold, Ye Agency Foure (Hachette UK, Penguin, Pan Macmillan and Harper UK) are all participating. (The smallest of the group, Simon & Schuster UK, is not currently participating and has yet to comment.) But no other UK publishers are known to have a direct relationship with Apple yet, and again Random UK […]
Back to the Future: BEA Adds Back Third Day
You have to love the book business in all its idiosyncrasy. For years exhibitors complained about the third day of the show, and we have archived pictures of last year’s vast, empty aisles on Sunday. But nothing makes you miss something like taking it away. Writing that “while people like the two-day format, a lot of people genuinely need three days to meet their objectives at BEA,” show director Steve Rosato said they will add back a third day of exhibits next year. They will retain the mid-week schedule, and are likely to still have the conference day precede the […]
Borders' Core Skill: Shrinking
Reporting results for their first quarter ending May 1, in a still grim atmosphere for physical stores of all kinds, Borders sales fell 15.4 percent overall at $542 million. The loss from continuing operations of $64.5 million was better than a year ago, but the operating loss of $33.5 million was worse. Sales at the US stores fell further, down 16.1 percnent to $520–but same-store sales were down by only 11.4 percent company to a year ago. The company says that factoring out multimedia, which they theoretically pulled down dramatically years ago, comp store sales declined 6.8 percent, indicating less […]
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Peternelle van Arsdale has left her position as executive editor at Putnam to become a ghostwriter and freelance editor. She can be reached at pva@pvabooks.com. Publishing executive John Wicker has joined Tata Consultancy Services as publishing sector head for North America in their media and information services group. A division of the giant Indian conglomerate, Wicker will focus on helping publishers manage the costs and complexities of conversion to a digital publishing world, leveraging Tata’s natural strengths to advise on quality outsourcing. At Random House Children’s, Shana Corey has been promoted to executive editor. She was previously editor-at-large. At Harper […]