Asanté Simons has been promoted to associate editor for William Morrow/Avon Books. Angela Messina has joined Basic Books as assistant publicity director. Most recently, she was publicity manager at Oxford University Press. In the UK, as part of the Queen’s birthday honors list, Allison & Busby co-founder Margaret Busby was named a CBE and Faber…
Obituaries
Lucinda Riley, 56, the bestselling author of the Seven Sisters series, died on June 11 of cancer. Jeremy Trevathan, managing director of Pan Macmillan’s adult publishing division, said, “It’s been an immense and very rare privilege to work with Lucinda. Popular fiction is often looked down on but when authors like Lucinda break through and…
Imprints
Astra Publishing House is launching an imprint dedicated to publishing illustrated books for children, to be led by Jill Davis. She was most recently executive editor at Harper Children’s. She will report to coo Ben Schrank and president Leying Jiang. Davis says, “My focus at Astra will be developing authors and illustrators from all over…
Legal
A lawsuit in the UK has revealed that Neil Blair at The Blair Partnership paid his former employer Christopher Little £10 million as a settlement fee in January 2012. The payment came after Blair set up his own agency in 2011 and took over representation of JK Rowling. The filing also indicates that Blair borrowed the…
Distribution
The SPCK Group, including Lion Hudson, IVP UK and SPCK, will be sold and distributed by Baker & Taylor Publisher Services in the US and Canada starting July 1.
Frankfurt Touts Plans, But…
Last week the traditional trade press ran credulous accounts of a persuasion campaign from the Frankfurt Book Fair, touting modest — fully cancelable — plans from primarily German and European exhibitors as a sign that, “Everyone is quite positive about the fair taking place in the autumn and we expect a lot of last-minute bookings.”…