Sydny Miner is moving to Crown Publishers as executive editor, starting December 14 and reporting to publisher Tina Constable. She will acquire practical advice, how-to, health, and fitness books, as well as memoirs. Miner was a senior editor at Simon & Schuster, where she worked for 26 years. Brandon Proia joins Mary Anne Thompson Associates as a scout on November 30. He has been an associate editor at Basic. Separately, the company has been appointed US book scout for Ediouro/Agir/Nova Fronteria effective immediately. In the UK, Kate Shaw is leaving Aitken Alexander Associates after nine years to join The Viney […]
International News
More Financial News: Bigger than Expected Loss at Hastings; Santillana Deal May Fall Through
In other financial news, sales at Hastings fell 1.7 percent in the third quarter, at $112.3 million, with the company showing a net loss of $3.4 million–at -36 cents a share that was well below what the company’s single analyst was forecasting, and $0.7 million worse than Hasting’s own internal forecast. As a result, they formally reduced their guidance on full-year earnings by five cents a share. According to the company’s category breakouts, book sales comps were just above flat at 0.2 percent for the quarter (also up 1 percent for the year), but publishers probably don’t benefit from the […]
Swede Offers "A Mountain of Dirty Laundry" In Rare Tell-All About Ikea
Former Ikea executive Johan Stenebo (who also spent time as personal assistant to company founder Ingvar Kamprad) is among the first to challenge the furniture-retailer’s glossy public image from the inside. Spiegel Online says the tell-all book “has attracted much attention in Sweden. It is the first time in the more than 60-year history of Ikea that negative comments have been made by a senior staff member in public. It’s clear that the book is some sort of payback: a mountain of dirty laundry divided into 14 chapters.” They add “the book claims that common preconceptions about Ikea and Kamprad […]
People
Harper UK publishing director Wayne Brookes is moving to Pan Macmillan as publishing director for fiction, reporting to publisher Jeremy Trevathan.
In Turnabout, Australia to Keep Import Rules In Place
The Australian government has overturned the efforts by the previous Labor government to throw out the country’s parallel importation restrictions on books that protect local publishers. They write: “In the circumstances of intense competition from online books and e-books, the Government judged that changing the regulations governing book imports is unlikely to have any material effect on the availability of books in Australia. If books cannot be made available in a timely fashion and at a competitive price, customers will opt for online sales and e-books.” In concert with the policy change, the government also made it clear it will […]
Awards
Journalist Linden MacIntyre was the surprise winner of Canada’s Giller Prize last night for his novel THE BISHOP’S MAN–the second in a planned trilogy–about corruption in the Catholic Church. Random House Canada controls world rights, and as best we could determine this morning US rights have not been sold yet (though that will likely change soon). Ron Eckel is still handling rights through Random House Canada (in advance of their announced rights sales outsourcing deal). MacIntyre’s primary agents are Don Sedgwick and Shaun Bradley at Transatlantic Literary Agency. The Asian American Literary Award in fiction has gone to Jhumpa Lahiri […]