American Booksellers Association president Gayle Shanks wrote to association members to share the news that ceo Avin Domnitz will leave the organization after the expiration of his contract this July after what will have been 12 years on the job. She writes, “I want to assure you that the ABA Board is working diligently to make this transition smooth and transparent. We will, with the help of our CEO Search Committee, find and hire a successor who will continue the programs we as an association depend on.”Shanks letter
Personnel
Now, Random Group's Reorg
This morning the Random House Publishing Group joined the other adult publishing groups at the company in announcing a revised management structure, following the integration of the imprints of Bantam Dell, as well as Spiegel & Grau. In her letter to employees, president and publisher Gina Centrello notes that “regrettably, with this restructuring we have had to eliminate some positions across the division. As a result, a number of our colleagues are leaving the company. We are grateful to them for their many significant contributions to our publishing efforts, and we wish them well.” The company is not specifying the […]
SFWA to Honor Victoria Strauss
Co-founder of the Writer Beware website (along with Ann Crispin) Victoria Strauss will be honored by Science Fiction Writers Association at their Nebula Awards with a special Service Award. Organization president Russell Davis comments, “Her work with Writer Beware has been invaluable to our members and the writing community at large, so I’m very pleased to offer her this recognition of her outstanding service.” Strauss says, “Ten years ago, when WB was just getting started, I could never have imagined how much we would accomplish and how far we’d come. Beginning as a two-person committee and a modest subsection of […]
Briefs
At the Jeff Herman Agency, Tom Willkens has been promoted to literary agent. At the Free Press, Andrew Dodds has been promoted to publicist. Book Soup is holding a “celebration of the life of Glenn Goldman” this Friday evening. In other store news, Toronto’s Pages bookstore has had their lease renewed after fearing that they would need to close or move at the end of February. And a SF Chronicle article reminds readers that even with recently closures, independent bookstores comprise a significant and vital part of the market in the Bay Area, highlighting smaller neighborhood stores like Booksmith and […]
Crown Announces Staff Adjustments as Palgon Rises
In a separate memo from Crown Group president and publisher Jenny Frost, she promises that “the new imprints joining our group each have their own distinct publishing identities and will continue to function with their own editorial, marketing, and publicity staffs.” Michael Palgon takes the new position of evp, deputy publisher of the Crown Publishing Group, reporting to Frost, overseeing what was Doubleday Business and is now called Broadway Business, still run by executive editor Roger Scholl, along with retaining oversight of Doubleday Religion and Waterbrook Multnomah. (Doubleday Religion editor-in-chief and associate publisher Trace Murphy and Waterbrook Multnomah president and […]
Knopf Group Completes Reorg; Announces New Titles and Reports
In two memos this morning, Knopf’s leaders outline a series of management realignments for the expanded Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Group spokesperson Paul Bogaards tells us “we are not making public the specifics of personnel issues, other than to say that there have been staff reductions as a result of our recent realignment, and that integration of our publishing group, which began late last year, is now complete.” Despite those reductions, Bogaards says that the planned annual “title count will remain the same at all of the imprints within our group.” On the editorial side of Doubleday, svp, publisher and […]