It was only a week ago that Larry Kirshbaum’s coming departure from Amazon Publishing was widely misreported as a “scaling back” of the company’s sprawling publishing initiatives. Now, capping off a week of announcement, Amazon is inviting Prime members to buy one of their own books (from Amazon Publishing) “in advance of the official release date” for just $1.99. It’s all artifice, since Amazon is setting that official release date as the publisher, and setting all the prices and discounts (the inaugural titles have listed pre-order prices of $4.99), but it’s another way of pulling some levers on their own […]
New Imprints
People, Etc.
Samantha Edelson has been promoted to marketing manager for Macmillan Audio. Mobifusion has hired Michelle Lewy as director of publisher accounts, based in New York. Most recently, she was director of digital media services at Baker and Taylor. At Simon & Schuster Children’s, Siena Koncsol has been promoted to publicist. Longtime Reed Exhibitions executive with oversight for BEA, svp Courtney Muller has resigned from her position. BEA show director Steve Rosato notes that Reed had realigned show responsibilities in August and put BEA under the supervision of Greg Topalian, a former BEA show director. Rosato now reports to Topalian. He writes: “On […]
People, Etc.
Webb Younce has joined Thomas Nelson imprint Nelson Books as associate publisher/executive editor, filling the role previously held by Bryan Norman. He and is wife are relocating to Nashville. Most recently he was at Free Press, until it was disbanded as a separate Simon & Schuster unit in 2012. At Fodor’s Travel, Arabella Bowen has been promoted to the newly created position of vp, editor in chief. Skyhorse will launch a new library-focused imprint, Carrel Books, in fall 2014, with an initial list of 20-30 titles annually in categories such as medicine/health, history, biography/memoir, and business/careers. The imprint will be overseen […]
People, Etc.
Bloomsbury will launch a new popular science imprint, Sigma, in October 2014 that will publish up to 15 titles per year globally and will be overseen by Jim Martin, previously an editor on the adult trade division’s natural science list. The first Sigma list include Sex on Earth by Jules Howard, The World’s Smallest Mammoth by Victoria Herridge, and additional titles by Amy Teitel, David Hone and Kat Arney. Martin said in a statement: “It’s very exciting to be able to bring new and dynamic authors to a broad audience with Sigma. The books will combine the very best writing […]
People, Etc.
Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is the latest pick for the Today Book Club. Hachette Book Group filed suit against Stephen Baldwin in New York Supreme Court, seeking to recover a $110,000 advance against a nonfiction originally due in 2009 that they say he never delivered. Harper UK is setting up a new fiction imprint, within their Harper Fiction division, called The Borough Press. Launching in 2014 — and publishing their already-announced Austen Project that has well-known authors retelling Jane Austen’s classics — it is led by Katie Espiner. As part of a reorganization that consolidates all […]
People, Etc.
Whitney Frick will join Flatiron Books as senior editor on October 21. Previously she was an editor at Scribner. Also at Macmillan, Anne Marie Tallberg has been promoted to vp, associate publisher of St. Martin’s Paperbacks and Griffin, as well as publishing director of eBook Originals. In the UK, Jo Unwin is leaving her position as deputy publishing director at Doubleday UK after a brief stretch to return to agenting. Her new Jo Unwin Literary Agency will work in association with Rogers, Coleridge and White, and she will be based in their offices. Bloomsbury Spark, the company’s digital YA and […]