HarperCollins chief operating officer Glenn D’Agnes has “decided to leave the company to pursue other opportunities” after 10 years in that post and 18 years with the company overall. As CEO Brian Murray notes to employees: “During his time here, Glenn has played a critical role in the acquisition and successful integration of several companies into HarperCollins. He has been an integral part of securing and managing our distribution clients, which have become an important part of our business. He has overseen major technology and systems changes, including our ERP project. And, he has helped the company to achieve its […]
Personnel
Baker & Taylor CFO Departs
Baker & Taylor’s CFO James Melton has decided to leave the company. Baker & Taylor will “immediately begin a search for a successor. Melton has agreed to remain with the company during a transition period.”Release
Weisbach: Agenting, but Not an Agent
Answering a summer Friday’s top item of mystery, former Weinstein Books ceo Rob Weisbach explains that his agenting role for Norman Ollestad’s just-announced CRAZY FOR THE STORM was “an opportunity I couldn’t resist to help a fine writer and very decent person” rather than the beginning of a literary agency. “That’s not my next step,” Weisbach said, underscoring, “I’m not choosing a different career path.” Introduced to the author by a mutual friend (former Storyopolis owner Fonda Snyder), Weisbach found the story “superlative, on several levels”–and met with similar reactions from editors and executives at multiple houses. But he’s otherwise […]
Last Lecture Author Randy Pausch, 47, Dies
The Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor made famous by his bestselling video lecture and book adaptation died today from complications from pancreatic cancer. The book has been translated into 30 languages. Pausch’s rich career is celebrated in a long statement release today by CMU.Obituary
Eleanor Friede, 87, Book Editor
The former editor and agent died earlier this month at home in Charlottesville, VA. Working at Macmillan in 1969, she offered a $2,000 advance for the “much-rejected” Jonathan Livingston Seagull. “In 1974 Ms. Friede was offered her own imprint at Delacorte Press, where she continued to publish flying books as well as works by writers like Françoise Sagan, Jorge Amado and Hugh Downs. In the early 1980s, after Doubleday acquired Delacorte, she started Eleanor Friede Books, a literary agency.”NYT
Personnel News
Geoffrey Stone has joined Running Press as an editor, focusing on the cookbook program. He was editor-in-chief at Rutledge Hill/Thomas Nelson. Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing has hired Renee Huff as associate marketing manager, mass market. Outgoing Hartford Courant books editor Carole Goldberg posts at the BBCC blog: “It was a privilege to be books editor here…. But perhaps the best part of the job was reading and reviewing authors who were not so well-known, but have tremendous talent…. I will spend some time on Cape Cod and then hope to recast myself as a freelance reviewer, primarily for the […]