Curtis Riskey has been appointed Executive Director for CBA, effective immediately, after serving in an interim position since November 2009. Previously he was the Association’s strategic solutions executive. ReleaseSimon Juden has left his post as Chief Executive of the Publishers Association for Pearson, where he will be Head of Public Affairs. The Bookseller Chronicle Books announced a slew of promotions across the company. Sarah Billingsley has been named Assistant Editor, Food & Drink, while on the Children’s side, Melissa Manlove has been promoted to Editor, Mary Colgan to Assistant Editor, Eloise Leigh to Designer, and Amy Achaibou to Senior Designer. […]
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Melissa Possick will become associate publisher for Random House Trade Paperbacks on April 5, reporting to Jane von Mehren, as Kim Hovey focuses full-time on her role as associate publisher for Ballantine. Possick, who began her career at Random House, is currently director of marketing at Workman. Katy Hershberger has been promoted to senior publicist at St. Martin’s.
People, Awards, Distribution and More Announcements
Matt Martz has been promoted to associate editor at St. Martin’s, continuing to report to Kelley Ragland, editorial director of Minotaur. Brigid Pasulka won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for her debut novel A LONG LONG TIME AGO & ESSENTIALLY TRUE. Columbia University awarded the Bancroft history prize to three books: Linda Gordon’s Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits; Woody Holton’s Abigail Adams; and Margaret Jacobs’s White Mother to a Dark Race: Settler Colonialism, Maternalism, and the Removal of Indigenous Children in the American West and Australia, 1880-1940. Penguin Children’s announced a one-million-copy first printing for the May release of John […]
New BEA Program will Connect Authors to Readers Across NYC
BEA officially announced their plans for the “New York Book Week” concept that has been under formulation for some time, designed “to expand on the presence of BEA in New York by making even more authors available to the community” at “a wide range of author events at various literary venues.” The idea is to help connect many of the authors who come to New York for the convention to readers and fans as well as to members of the trade. Participating authors already include Lee Child, Jonathan Franzen, Ira Glass, Sara Gruen, David Means, Edmund Morris and Scott Turow. […]
People, Etc.
Sally van Haitsma has formed her own agency, van Haitsma Literary, after six years at the Castiglia Literary Agency and, before that, the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency. She represents commercial and literary fiction, narrative non-fiction, current affairs, pop culture and business. The PEN American Center reelected its officers to new one-year terms, including the reappointment of president Kwame Anthony Appiah. Bookforum editor Chris Lehmann has joined the new Yahoo News team, the Observer reports. Further to yesterday’s story on Grove/Atlantic’s upcoming release of the anticipated novel MATTERHORN, the publisher says that El Leon Arts never published their edition last April. […]
Bookselling and More: Charging the Self-Published; A New Subscription Plan; Hosting Book Clubs
We noted short items in the past regarding how the Boulder Bookstore charges all the self-published authors who want to connect with the store rather than sending them away empty-handed, and now a Nieman Journalism Lab piece offers more details. The fee structure ranges from $25 to stock five copies and $75 to feature a book in the Recommended section, up to $255 for an in-store reading and book-signing (plus website and newsletter mention). Our first instinct was that they are charging too little for the more elaborate plans, knowing what third-parties are charging for marketing plans–and indeed, head buyer […]