Random House’s ambassador to independent booksellers Ruth Liebmann “will expand her role to provide the same critical support to the Penguin Publishing Group with our independent booksellers as she does currently for the Random House divisions.” She takes on the broader title of vp, account marketing, Penguin Random House (and she maintains her oversight of the Random House Events Department). President of sales Jaci Updike writes, “Every day, Ruth makes an exceptional difference with our independent booksellers. A former New York City bookseller, Ruth began her career at Random House in 1995 as a Manhattan sales rep. Over the past two decades, […]
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Agent Sara Megibow, who recently left the Nelson Literary Agency, is joining KT Literary. At Farrar, Straus, Brian Gittis and Steve Weil have both been promoted to assistant director of publicity. In addition, Sarah Scire has been promoted to publicist, and Lis McAvoy moves up to assistant publicist. At Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Stephanie Kim has been promoted to publicity manager. Rick Pascocello will leave his position as vp, executive marketing director at Penguin Random House at the end of the month after 23 years in publishing, mostly at Penguin. He can be reached at rpascocello@gmail.com. Imprint News: Carole Tonkinson‘s new inspirational lifestyle imprint at […]
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The second book on Mark Zuckerberg’s 2015 reading list is Steven Pinker‘s The Better Angels of Our Nature (Viking/Penguin). “It’s a timely book about how and why violence has steadily decreased throughout our history, and how we can continue this trend,” Zuckerberg writes. At 832 pages, Zuckerberg and Facebook friends will take four weeks to read the book instead of two — but he will “add a third book in two weeks that will be a shorter read to complement this.” At Wiley, Mark Allin is being promoted to executive vice president, chief operating officer, effective May 1, with strategic and operational responsibility for Wiley’s […]
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Obituaries Novelist Kent Haruf, 71, has died, his editor Gary Fisketjon confirmed to the Washington Post on Sunday. The new issue of Granta has an autobiographical essay by Haruf, and his novel OUR SOULS AT NIGHT is due to be published next year. Fisketjon said, “Kent had finished all his revisions and even gone through the copy editing. We had it scheduled for May, though I haven’t yet processed how this tragic news might alter those plans.” PD James, 94, the British crime writer and member of the House of Lords, died Thursday morning at her home in Oxford. She was the author […]
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Shawna Mullen will join Abrams as associate publisher, adult trade on December 15, reporting to Michael Sand. Previously she was executive editor at Taunton Press and before then, editorial director at Clarkson Potter, where she helped launch the Potter Craft imprint. PEN announced a new PEN/Fusion Emerging Writers Prize to support an unpublished manuscript that “addresses a global and/or multicultural issue,” from a writer under the age of 35. As of January 1 eBook Architects will close their Austin, TX office. The core staff, including the unit’s lead Joshua Tallent, will continue their work with Firebrand (and their FlightDeck EPUB testing and validation tool) and […]
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After selling a reported 4.8 million copies of her ebooks worldwide, author Barbara Freethy will use Ingram Publisher Services to distribute her work in print worldwide, published through her company Hyde Street Press. The press launches in spring 2015 with four books, including titles from Freethy’s Callaway Series. She expects to issue 6 to 8 books a year in print (having authored 40 titles in all). Freethy will use Ingram’s publishing and inventory management services as well as their print-on-demand worldwide network. At Harper Perennial, Maya Ziv has been promoted to senior editor. At the Washington Post, Carlos Lozada will […]