At Simon & Schuster Children’s, Christian Trimmer has been promoted to executive editor; Kristin Ostby moves up to senior editor; and Catherine Laudone has been promoted to assistant editor. In addition, Christine Dong has been promoted to senior demand planner. At Macmillan Audio, Robert Allen has been promoted to associate publisher, while Samantha Edelson moves up to marketing director. At Candlewick, Zoe Luderitz has been promoted to senior marketing manager. In addition, Andie Krawczyk has been promoted to manager of library marketing and outreach. At Chronicle Books, Ariel Richardson has been promoted to associate editor, children’s. Announcements Barnes & Noble […]
International News
Bookselling: Sales Fall Another 4 Percent at WHSmith; Looking Glass Books For Sale; and More
WHSmith reported interim half-year results (ending February 28) with sales at their High Street stores were down 5 percent, with same store sales also down 4 percent. Profits for that segment increased 2 percent (or £1m) to £50m, as “strong gross margin performance and costs were tightly controlled” saving costs of £6m over the six-month period with another £5m set to be cut in the second half. The numbers remain consistent with their fiscal 2014 results, in which High Street store sales fell 6 percent and same-store sales fell 5 percent, with book sales declining 8 percent. Release Looking Glass […]
In London, Everything Old Is New Again
In a year of transitions for three of the world’s major book fairs, the London Book Fair opened Tuesday in a return to its historical home at the Olympia Exhibition Center. You can go home again, but usually by the time you do, someone has redecorated, and today LBF veterans went through multiple stages of soothing the cognitive dissonance of the return to Olympia. While there is a vague familiarity to the scene, everything is very different as well, and many fairgoers spent much of the opening morning getting situated. First there was the transportation, since the special above-ground train […]
People, Etc.
Morgan Parker joins Little A as editor, acquiring fiction and poetry. She was previously education director at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA) and poetry editor of Coconut Magazine and The Offing. At Abrams, Chris Blank has been promoted to director of online marketing operations, and Monica Shah moves up to director of special markets. In addition, Jody Mosley is moving over to the children’s department in the newly created position of associate publisher as of May 1. She is currently director of special markets. At Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Liz Anderson has been promoted to social media manager […]
Slaughter Moves to Harper In Global Deal, As Harper Adds Four More International Lines
HarperCollins officially announced from London on Tuesday morning a multi-territory four-book deal with bestselling author Karin Slaughter. The relationship begins with PRETTY GIRLS, now set for US publication in September, which Harper will publish in all countries in which it operates on their newly-expanded international platform — except for the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Holland. “Subsequent books” in the deal “will include additional territories,” the announcement notes, meaning Harper will publish in the UK as well later in the multi-book deal. (The Bookseller says Harper will start with book three in the UK.) Until very recently PRETTY GIRLS was listed for July publication […]
People: Obits for Grass, Galeano
Nobel Prize-winning author Günter Grass, 87, died in hospital in Lübeck, Germany. He was the author of THE TIN DRUM (1959) and other novels, in addition to being a poet, dramatist, sculptor, and the speechwriter for German chancellor Willy Brandt. Grass received his Nobel Prize in 1999. Uruguayan writer and journalist Eduardo Galeano, 74, died Monday morning in Montevideo. His published books included OPEN VEINS OF LATIN AMERICA (1971), MEMORY OF FIRE (1986) and most recently, CHILDREN OF THE DAYS (2012). President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle reported more than $477,000 in income according to their annual tax return, […]