Hoping to emulate the Booker of Booker’s campaign, the National Books Foundation is initiating a program to select the best novel from the past 59 years. There have been 77 National Book Award-winning works of fiction from 68 authors during that period (the contest incorporates long-retired fiction sub-categories such as best science fiction, best western, and best paperback fiction). The books will be featured, one a day, on a dedicated NBA blog, while the organization polls former winners, finalists and judges to cull a six-book shortlist. (NBF executive director Harold Augenbraum has read all 77 books, and offers comments on […]
Personnel
Penguin UK to Cut "About 100" People
One of the few big trade publishers to not cut jobs since the recession hit last fall, Penguin UK is now taking some of the steepest cuts of any UK publisher (both Random UK and HarperCollins UK had significant layoffs earlier this year.) The company said today it “anticipated…the loss of around 100 jobs in the UK” after the the mandated consultation period with employees. Penguin positions the realignments as “a series of changes to its UK business which are designed to strengthen the appeal and relevance of its publishing, reduce costs in all areas of the business, and prepare […]
People: Bleak House Publishers Start New Company, and More
Bleak House founder Benjamin Leroy and his colleague there Alison Janssen are leaving the crime and literary fiction publisher to start a new house, Tyrus Books. Leroy is the publisher, and Janssen is senior editor (and Donna Bagdasarian’s recent new literary management agency Publication Riot Group is handling rights.) Their launch list for this fall features three titles originally planned for publication at Bleak House: Peter Gadol’s SILVER LAKE, Michael Lister’s DOUBLE EXPOSURE and an anthology of crime short stories edited by Ed Gorman & Martin H. Greenberg. (Bleak House was acquired by Big Earth Publishing in 2005.) Leroy and […]
People
James Gurbutt has joined Constable and Robinson to head a still-untitled new fiction imprint. He was most recently associate publisher at Harvill Secker. Literary agents Serafina Clarke and Brie Burkeman have combined their two companies to establish Brie Burkeman & Serafina Clarke Ltd., specializing in high quality commercial writing across all mediums.
People
David Falk will join Touchstone Fireside as associate publisher on July 15, reporting to Stacy Creamer. Falk has over twenty years of publishing experience, most recently as associate publisher, director of sales and marketing at the Overlook Press. Margaret Halton is returning to the agency side of the business after work on an interim basis as adult rights director for Pan Macmillan. She is joining Rogers, Coleridge and White part-time, providing maternity cover for Laurence Laluyaux, the Bookseller reports. Previously Halton was foreign rights director at ICM’s UK office. Stephen Pawley has retired from Evans Publishing after 25 years as […]
People
Riccardo Cavellero is leaving Random House’s Spanish-language joint venture Random House Mondadori after eights years as ceo at the end of this year. Next January he will become general manager of Mondadori’s trade-book business worldwide, based in Milan. Markus Dohle and Mondadori ceo Maurizio Costa write that “we are committed to appointing a new ceo who will build upon our strengths as print-book publishers and also will lead us to become the No. 1 Spanish-language digital-book publisher. Kate Travers has joined powerHouse Books as marketing director. Most recently she was strategic marketing director at the Literary Ventures Fund and marketing […]