Gaurav Shrinagesh will take over as managing director of Random House India, “responsible for the strategic development of the business and all publishing, operational, sales and marketing functions.” Shrinagesh has held a number of senior positions across Bertelsmann since joining the company in 1999. (Most recently he was the Hong Kong-based managing director for DSHK, part of the Direct Group.) Replacing Michael Moynahan, who is running HarperCollins ANZ, Shrinagesh will report to Brian Davies, md for overseas companies at Random UK.
People: Agency Moves
Jenny Rappaport has parted ways “amicably” with Lori Perkins after two-and-a-half years and has started her own literary agency, The Rappaport Agency. She will specialize in science fiction and fantasy, as well as YA, and romance. At the L. Perkins Agency, which will continue to focus on erotica and chick lit, horror and pop culture, Marsha Philitas has been promoted to senior literary agent. Separately, at LJK Literary Management, Meg Thompson has been promoted to literary agent. She joined the company in 2006 to do editorial work after working as a research assistant for President Clinton on his autobiography, and […]
Sharing the Stories of Struggling Bookstores
Owners of Washington, DC-area Vertigo Books are struggling to stay in business and last month they told customers the store was “at risk.” Co-owner Bridget Warren says, “It was a combination of the economy and Internet sales.” Husband Todd Stewart adds, “It’s been a bad year all year, but come September….” The Washington Post looks at their efforts against the backdrop of the many Washington, DC indies that have gone out of business in recent years. It’s also framed against a recent screening at Vertigo of producer-director Alex Beckstead’s movie Paperback Dreams, which follows the fate of Kepler’s and Cody’s […]
What a Black President Will Mean for Fiction
“Thanks to the election of Barack Obama, a black president in Washington fiction will be no more exceptional than one in real life,” Hillel Italie of the AP writes. Washington thriller write David Baldacci notes, “Before Obama, you wouldn’t have gotten away with simply having a black president and having that on the periphery.” But Richard North Patterson adds: “He’s charismatic, with a young family, and he’s multiracial, and I think for all of those reasons it would be very hard to accept the sort of traditional, white Donald Rumsfeldian authority figure you see in a lot of presidential fiction.” […]
Redstone Has to Keep Reassuring Investors
Shares of CBS and Viacom have continued to fall recently as investors remained concerned that Sumner Redstone will be forced to sell some of his shares in order to refinance his $1.6 billion in debt. In a self-fulfilling spiral, the market worries that “further weakness would undermine Mr. Redstone’s talks with lenders and force him to sell stock in the two companies he controls.” The WSJ adds: “Redstone is expected to have to sell some assets to get bankers to agree to a restructuring. Advisers are combing through the family’s holdings to assess their value and ease of sale, according […]
Quercus Raising More Capital; Cheetham Steps Down
Shut out of traditional credit markets, Quercus is planning to raise 1.75 million pounds “in additional working capital and to strengthen its balance sheet,” nearly all of which will come from Pentland Group, which currently holds almost 20 percent of the company’s stock. Shareholders must approve a waiver from the takeover code, however, to allow Pentland to increase their stake to more than 30 percent. The thinly-traded company currently has a market cap of 3.1 million pounds, with the stock having fallen over 71 percent in a year. The immediate need is to refinance 775,000 pounds in loans that have […]