After six years of building the Quercus US list, publisher Nathaniel Marunas will leave at the end of June. He says, “The process of building Quercus from scratch has been hugely rewarding, but also utterly consuming. Having poured myself into launching the business and helping it grow, it is time to take a brief sabbatical, focus on several projects close to my heart, and consider what other publishing adventures the future might hold.” Any inquiries should be directed to Quercus marketing manager Elyse Gregov at Hachette Book Group USA. Lauren Scovel has been promoted to junior agent at Laura Gross […]
Personnel
People, Etc.
John Siciliano has been promoted to executive editor for Penguin Books. He continues as executive editor for Penguin Classics. Remy Cawley has joined Nation Books as an assistant editor. Cawley was formerly at Norton. Michelle Obama‘s Facebook page features a video with remarks from her recent appearance at the ALA’s annual conference in New Orleans, talking about her forthcoming book: “It’s a its rehumanization effort…. It’s the ordinariness of a very extraordinary story. I hope that by telling it that it makes others..to feel the pride in their story in the way I feel about mine… I am not a unicorn. […]
People, Etc.
Mike Zuccato has been promoted to general manager, ecommerce at Sourcebooks. Kelly Snowden has been promoted to senior editor at Ten Speed Press. Initiatives Penguin Random House is helping Metro-North Railroad promote recently-expanded free wifi in and around Grand Central Terminal with a Grand Central Reads website. It provides free e-book excerpts for commuters, “tailored and timed to the length of individual commutes.” In the UK, Profile Books has partnered with Little Brown UK to launch a Profile Audio line, starting with David Runciman’s How Democracy Ends in July. Profile editor Louisa Dunnigan and publicity director Hannah Ross will work with […]
People: Lazarus to Run HBG Sales
Longtime president of sales at Macmillan Alison Lazarus will leave there after over 20 years to join Hachette Book Group as evp, director of sales on August 6. She will report to ceo Michael Pietsch and join the company’s executive management board. As a result, current svp, group sales director Chris Murphy will shift to svp, retail sales. Pietsch writes: “Chris is returning to a job that he did superbly in the past, which is wonderful news for HBG…. I am certain that in this role, Chris will continue to play a major part in HBG’s future.” He says Lazarus’s “breadth […]
Briefs
Michele Obama spoke at the ALA conference in New Orleans on Friday evening, discussing her upcoming memoir BECOMING, to be released on November 13. Obama mostly avoided politics, except to say, “In this country we’ve gotten to a point where we kind of think there are only a handful of legitimate stories that make you a true American.” Otherwise she spoke about her early summer job at a book bindery, anecdotes from her life as first lady, and her love of reading. Also at ALA, the Association for Library Service to Children voted unanimously to remove Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name from a […]
People, Etc.
At Wendy Sherman Associates, Kelli Martin has joined as an agent representing romance, women’s commercial fiction and book club fiction. She was previously a founding editor of Montlake Romance at Amazon Publishing and an executive editor at Lake Union. Nicki Richesin has joined as an agent representing upmarket and literary fiction, young adult fiction, and memoir. She previously worked as a freelance editor and at Bloomsbury in London. In a letter to booksellers about Book Expo, ABA board president Robert Sindelar addressed how indie bookstores can better take advantage of pre-orders. He said, “publishers and authors are positioning their books earlier and earlier […]