Holt is adding two new editors to their team. Aaron Schlechter will join the house on October 4 as a senior editor. He has been at Overlook Press. The same week, Sarah Bowlin will start there as editor, focused on fiction but also acquiring nonfiction. She has been at Riverhead, assisting two senior editors and acquiring literary fiction. Both will report to president and publisher Steve Rubin. Dawn Davis has been promoted to publisher of Amistad and also join’s HarperCollin’s Ecco imprint as an executive editor, reporting to Daniel Halpern. For Ecco she will acquire general interest fiction, memoir, and […]
International News
People, Etc.
Seth Fishman is joining The Gernert Company as a literary agent. He was most recently at Sterling Lord Literistic, where he worked since 2005. At Profile Books in the UK, Daniel Crewe has been promoted to publisher. The Guardian has an interesting interview with Random UK ceo Gail Rebuck who is careful and measured in her responses–rightfully so, since the paper strains to misconstrue the piece with the headline “How Gail Rebuck turned Tony Blair’s book into a bestseller.” (Rebuck deflects one line of questioning by replying, “We’re not going to go there. You can ask away and I’ll wander […]
Briefs: Frankfurt Exhibitor Count Slides; Best Buy to Add Kindles; Canada to Look at iBookstore
* The Frankfurt Book Fair will have 6,930 exhibitors–about five percent fewer than last year–and thus, in the current press mood, like Barnes & Noble and printed books, considered “declining” and barely shy of extinction due to ebooks. The Fair says the drop is mostly due to a smaller group of publishers from this year’s guest Argentina, compared to last year’s big delegation from China. Which is a bit disingenuous, since they also blame the economic slowdown and cite declines from Eastern Europe as well. But if you look at stats from the last decade or so, the exhibitor totals […]
People
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 […]
Carey and Levy Lead Booker Shortlist
The Booker Prize is down to six shortlisted titles, and the winner will be named October 12. In the meantime, US rights to Howard Jacobson’s book have been picked up Bloomsbury USA, which will publish on September 23. Until then, the UK “export edition” ebook is available here from Amazon only.: Peter Carey, Parrot and Olivier in America (Faber and Faber)Emma Donoghue, Room (Picador)Damon Galgut, In a Strange Room (Atlantic Books)Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question (Bloomsbury)Andrea Levy, The Long Song (Headline Review)Tom McCarthy, C (Jonathan Cape) In other awards, China Miéville’s The City & The City and Paolo Bacigalupi’s The […]
Blair’s Opening Sale Sets Record, Sort Of
Tony Blair’s memoir A JOURNEY sold 92,060 copies in the UK in the first four days on sale, in outlets tracked by Nielsen BookScan UK (which covers nearly the entire market over there). That qualifies as the biggest opening for a memoir since Nielsen started recording book sales in 1998, the Bookseller reports, though Margaret Thatcher’s THE DOWNING STREET YEARS was estimated to have sold 120,000 copies when it was first released in 1993.Bookseller In more Blair news, his “secret” book party is going ahead as planned tomorrow night at the Tate Modern, despite threats of protest from the Stop […]