Laura Ferguson will join Open Road Media later this month as vp, special markets. Previously, she was director of premium, corporate and customer driven publishing at Simon & Schuster. Emily Keyes has joined Foreword Literary as an agent. Previously she was an agent at the L. Perkins Agency. French spy novelist Gerard de Villiers, 83, died Thursday in Paris of pancreatic cancer. De Villiers was the author of 200 novels featuring CIA contractor Malko Linge, the first appearing in 1964 and the last published in France last month. Five of his novels will be published by Vintage beginning in 2014, […]
Obits
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.
Christine Munroe recently joined Kobo as US Manager for Kobo Writing Life. Previously she was a scout at Mary Anne Thompson Associates. In addition, Diego Marano has been named UK Manager for Kobo Writing Life. Previously he was a digital content acquisitions manager at Waterstones. Jenny Choy will join Little, Brown Books for Young Readers as senior manager, school & library marketing on September 16. Previously she was Manager, school & library marketing at Candlewick Press. At the Edinburgh Book Festival Ian Rankin announced he will take a year off, the Scotsman reports, after finishing the manuscript of the next […]
People, Etc.: Elmore Leonard Dies, and More
Elmore Leonard, 87, author of more than 40 novels who helped redefine the crime genre over the past four decades, died Tuesday morning at his home outside of Detroit from complications of a stroke he suffered earlier this month. His novels, many of which were the basis of successful film and television adaptations, included GET SHORTY, RUM PUNCH, 3:10 to YUMA, OUT OF SIGHT and, most recently, RAYLAN, and the Library of America had recently announced plans to publish the first of a three-volume collection of his books beginning in fall 2014. As part of S&S Children’s reorganization of its […]
Briefs: More Funding for Open Road; Commonwealth Book Prize Discontinued; And More
Open Road Integrated Media announced it has received $11 million in Series C funding led by private equity group NewSpring Capital (whose technology fund NewSpring Growth Capital III supplied $8 million) with existing investors Kohlberg Ventures, Azure Capital, and Golden Seeds joining NewSpring in the financing, bringing the total amount Open Road has raised to $24 million. On Open Road’s blog ceo Jane Friedman said the new funding will be used for new technology, additional revenue streams, expand their International Publishing Partners Translation Program (which includes 8 partners to date) and further investment in “appropriate content and technology companies.” Andrea […]
People, Etc.
David Inman will return to Quarto in September as managing director of their UK publishing group, Aurum. He is currently sales and marketing director at Templar, prior to which he was sales and marketing director Quarto. Former senior editor at Ballantine and literary agent Pamela Dean Strickler, 53, died July 18 from cancer. Strickler spent sixteen years at Ballantine before leaving to start her own agency, specializing in romance, women’s fiction, and historical fiction. The Dayton Literary Peace Prize’s lifetime achievement award has gone to Wendell Berry. He tells the AP: “As a poet and fiction writer, my goal was to write […]