SVP and director of Random House adult sales Jacqueline Updike announced this morning a revised sales management structure. Online and digital sales director Amanda Close takes over as group sales director for the Crown Group; former Doubleday Group sales director Janet Cooke becomes group sales director for the Knopf Group; and sales marketing director for the former Bantam Dell Group Cynthia Lasky will serve as group sales director for the Random House Group. Updike says “the chief responsibility of these executives is to develop and implement plans that achieve their group’s overall sales targets. Each will be charged with building […]
Personnel
More Announcements: Perseus Goes Mobile, Awards, Personnel
Perseus Books Group has partnered with mobile technology company Incelligence to launch a handful of book-based reference products for mobile phones: The Wine Enthusiast Pocket Guide to Spirits; Quit: Read This Book And Stop Smoking; and Your Pregnancy Week by Week, in both English and Spanish versions. Incelligence’s distribution network includes such major carriers such as AT&T, Orange, SouthernLINC, T-Mobile, and Kajeet. They have a library of over 100 mobile apps. In awards, the Jerusalem Book Fair prize will be given to Haruki Murakami. French playwright Timothee de Fombelle’s TOBY ALONE won the UK’s Marsh award for children’s literature in […]
People
Anne Brooks is joining Langenscheidt as executive director trade and special sales, leading a restructured group that puts all sales into one division. She reports to chief sales and marketing officer Michele Martin. Most recently, she was director of sales at Overlook Press.
People and More
Donna Shear will become director of the University of Nebraska Press on March 1. She has been director at the Northwestern University Press since 2003. At Riverhead, Laura Perciasepe has been promoted to associate editor. Abby Ranger, previously associate editor at Scholastic Press, has joined Disney-Hyperion Books as editor, reporting to editorial director Stephanie Owens Lurie. Willow Glen Books in San Jose will close at the end of June, owner Cathy Adkins announced. “The downturn of the economy and the steady growth of online book sales has prompted her to shutter the store” ahead of her planned retirement in 2010.Mercury […]
Peter Bowron Dies
Random UK ceo Gail Rebuck announced the sudden death on Saturday of the company’s group managing director Peter Bowron. She said: “Peter’s family, colleagues and many, many friends both in and out of the booktrade have lost an extraordinary person. It is devastating to lose someone you value for their intelligence, warmth, support and friendship. It is doubly so, to lose someone so suddenly and so young.” Bowron joined Random House in 2005.BookTrade
Sterling Cut, Too; Naming Names At RH
The job reductions announced yesterday by Barnes & Noble have extended beyond the executive office and bookselling part of the company into their Sterling Publishing unit. One source at Sterling estimates that approximately 15 people at the publishing unit were laid off, throughout Sterling’s New York office, Lark Books line, and warehouse. At least two Sterling executives were let go. Moby Lives has information on one of them. BN spokesperson Mary Ellen Keating would not confirm or comment on our information, saying that “we have not broken out reductions by department.” Asked about Sterling’s publishing output, she said “there are […]