Dog Fight Harper reps are being asked to distribute a letter to accounts from John Grogan’s agent Laurie Abkemeier and Perseus reps will begin distributing a letter of their own today in reply from Vanguard Press publisher Roger Cooper, airing different views on the recently announced BAD DOGS HAVE MORE FUN: Selected Writings by John Grogan About Animals, Family and Life, written for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and shipping in September. The essence: In a brainstorming session with Philadelphia Inquirer executives about potential projects, one topic was the columns written for the paper (and owned by them) when John Grogan worked […]

Personnel News Announced right after Deluxe went out yesterday (and posted on PM.com home page), following Steve Ross’s departure Tina Constable will take over as vp and publisher of Crown and Crown Business and Crown Forum in July 1. She has been executive director of publicity (a successor will be hired for that position.) At the same time, director of marketing Philip Patrick will add responsibilities as vp and publisher of Three Rivers Press and publisher of e-books and digital content for the Crown Publishing Group. At Random House Children’s, Judith Haut has been promoted to svp, communications and marketing, […]

Personnel News HarperCollins has hired Crown svp and publisher Steve Ross as president and publisher of their Collins division, reporting to Brian Murray and starting in July. Collins publishes approximately 350 hardcover and paperback titles per year. Murray says in the announcement, “The combination of Steve’s publishing acumen, business savvy and experience is ideally suited to lead Collins to the next level. I look forward to working closely with Steve to build Collins into a market leader in non-fiction publishing and to identify new areas of growth for the company.” At Sterling, Carlo DeVito has been promoted to vp, editorial […]

Our Colbert Report Check out the PM.com home page for our clip package focusing on Stephen Colbert’s winning performance at Saturday’s BEA breakfast, along with his interactions with the other panelists. Click over to the Publishers Lunch TV page for Christopher Hitchens’ unscripted interview, just added alongside the Ken Lombard/Chris Anderson interview and our PL interviews with Susan Kennedy, Carl Bernstein and others. Later today we will add the interview with Borders CEO George Jones — where only 30 attendees saw most people’s second-biggest customer in person. (Can you imagine Len or Steve speaking at BEA and having an audience […]

Preambles So I’m still exhausted, with too much to do and more stories to catch up on, so please excuse typos and other mistakes. The biggest mistake is that I embedded the wrong link last night for the Publishers Lunch Jr. blog which you don’t want to miss. Already they share in the Spiderwick excitement, discover a new Alex Rider, stumble upon something they think might be “Webkinz for books,” talk about a new book in a series that’s already big with the fourth-graders, dig into the new Lloyd Alexander, and plenty more. They hope to add more updates after […]

Greenspan Plays BEA Alan Greenspan certainly filled the special events hall at the end of the day at Javits yesterday (which fortunately contained one of the few pockets of functioning air-conditioning anywhere in the the facility — acknowledging the insufferable conditions, show manager Lance Fensterman said, “When I promised the show would be a hot event, apparently the Javits facility people took me literally. I’ve been assured that won’t be a problem tomorrow.). The interview/conversation with his wife, NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell revealed only a few hints of what to expect from the book. Greenspan said that, after contemplating a […]