Jane Harris will join Quercus as executive director, sales and marketing, on January 3, 2013. Previously she was sales and trade marketing director at Walker Books. The FT reaffirms previous reports that Bertelsmann is considering buying back into Springer Science as the current private equity owners evaluate options for reducing their stake or selling entirely. Bertelsmann is said to have “said to have signaled firm intent earlier this year.” THE BURGESS BOYS, Elizabeth Strout‘s first novel since winning the Pulitzer Prize for OLIVE KITTERIDGE, has quietly sat on bookselling sites since at least August, and now it has been “announced” […]
Personnel
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Shire Publications’ recently-hired US sales and marketing director Robert Kempe died on Tuesday from complications arising from cancer (just diagnosed in August). The publisher says, “Though Robert joined the company only months ago, his contribution to and impact upon it were incalculable. Swiftly assuming control of Shire in the North American market, he made it immediately and abundantly clear that we had found someone who would not only fulfil our expectations and requirements for the role but exceed them in every regard.” At Harlequin, Miranda Indrigo has taken on the new role of author liaison, concierge services. She was most recently […]
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Hodder & Stoughton announced a reorganization that creates two divisions within the group, “designed to strengthen the appeal and focus of its publishing and to take advantage of structural changes in the publishing industry.” The new division, called John Murray Press, will comprise John Murray, Hodder Faith, Consumer Learning, Two Roads and Saltyard Books–to be run by former Hodder & Stoughton publisher Nick Davies, who is rejoining the company in January as managing director from his current post as Canongate publisher. The Hodder & Stoughton division, comprising Hodder & Stoughton general fiction and non-fiction, Coronet and Sceptre, will have Carolyn Mays […]
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At Dutton, Jamie McDonald has been promoted to publicity manager. Gryphon House, which publishes resource books for parents and teachers of young children, will be distributed by IPG as of January 1, 2013. The last surviving Price Stern Sloan co-founder Larry Sloan, 89, died on Sunday after a brief illness. After PSS was sold to Penguin in 1993, Sloan and Leonard Stern started Tallfellow Press, a business publisher now run by his daughter, Claudia. Before becoming a publisher “he played chess with Humphrey Bogart and wrangled PR for Mae West. He helped handle one of Elizabeth Taylor’s weddings, and his own was announced […]
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Zondervan and Thomas Nelson will merge its fiction divisions into a single unit overseen by vp, publisher Daisy Hutton. Though fiction acquisitions will be “managed centrally,” with editors working across both Thomas Nelson and Zondervan, the publishers will keep separate offices in Grand Rapids, MI and Nashville, TN respectively. Hutton said in a statement: “This is an era of unprecedented challenge and opportunity for Fiction publishing. The Thomas Nelson and Zondervan brands each have a rich heritage. We intend to build on that heritage by developing more distinctive, stronger identities for each brand. We will use the assets that both […]
Briefs: FBF Trade Attendance Declines Slightly; Retailers Send Mail On eBook Settlement Credits
The Frankfurt Book Fair said that trade attendance decline 1.6 percent–while total visitors including the German public rose slightly, by 0.6 percent. FBF said in their release that “the fact that the number of visitors declined only marginally during the trade visitors’ days reflects the fact that the industry remains optimistic and is well equipped to face its challenges.” As previously announced, major ebook retailers started notifying qualifying customers by email that they will be entitled to unspecified store credits as part of the settlement of the suit by state attorneys general and the three Settlers. Amazon’s mail landed first, […]