Developer Changes Heart on Dutton’s Gozillionaire Charles Munger has decided he doesn’t need to kill Dutton’s Brentwood and is dropping plans to create 60 luxury condominiums on the bookstore’s site in favor of a scaled-down plan for a two-story shopping complex. The new retail space will take care to keep Dutton’s in a new space, at “a very low rate.” The LAT adds, “the bookstore’s new quarters would be built first, Munger said, with the rest of the project going up ‘in little segments’ around it — a method that he said would cost significantly more money.” Munger now tells […]

Personnel News Garrett P. Kiely has been named director of the University of Chicago Press, the country’s largest academic press with a reported $60 million in annual revenue. He is currently president of Palgrave Macmillan, and will start the new job on September 1. Kiely succeeds the retiring Paula Barker Duffy, who led the press since 2001. Deputy director Chris Heiser is serving as interim director as of July 1. At Little, Brown Children’s, director of publicity Elizabeth Eulberg has been promoted to the new position of director of global publicity for Stephenie Meyer, author of the 2005 vampire novel […]

Cuts at Meredith The Des Moines Register reported that Meredith is going to lay off 15 people from their book division and eliminate various open positions, “citing lower than expected book sales.” A spokesperson said the remaining staff will number about 100. This report says Meredith “will refocus its book publishing efforts in areas where it has always been successful — building, cooking, crafting, gardening and remodeling,” pulling back from children’s and single-author books. DM Register Personnel News Helen Atsma will join Holt on July 19 as editor, adult trade.  She has been an associate editor at Little, Brown. Battle […]

Deal Reports Just e-mail to deals@PublishersMarketplace if you aren’t using the online form linked below. Report a deal using the online form The Key As usual, the handy key to our Lunch deal categories. While all reports are always welcome, those that include a category will generally receive a higher listing when it comes time to put them all together. “nice deal” $1 – $49,000 “very nice deal” $50,000 – $99,000 “good deal” $100,000 – $250,000 “significant deal” $251,000 – $499,000 “major deal” $500,000 and up FICTION Debut Cocktails columnist for the NYT Jonathan Miles’ DEAR AMERICAN AIRLINES, a comic […]

Personnel News Agent Randi Murray is joining DeFiore and Company, still based in California and focusing on literary and commercial fiction, and narrative nonfiction. She has run an eponymous agency by herself in the San Francisco Bay area, with clients including Ira Glass, Joyce Maynard, Clare Langley-Hawthorne, Richard Muller, and Justin Catanoso. At HarperOne, Gideon Weil has been promoted to executive editor and Cynthia DiTiberio has been promoted to associate editor. Mary Funchion joins Oxford University Press’s reference division as development editor. She was at Facts on File. Bloomsbury has hired Kevin Cieslicki as business manager, reporting to cfo Peter […]

Waterstone’s Hopes They’re Improving from Terrible to Poor They try to sugar-coat it, but UK-based retailer HMV and their bookselling unit Waterstone’s continue to struggle with their turnaround plan. Overall full-year results at HMV were a little worse than analysts were expecting, with sales of 1.894 billion pounds, and pre-tax profit of just 48 million pounds. At Waterstone’s full year sales of 537.5 million pounds were up 28 percent overall with the integration of Ottakar’s, but down 4.1 percent on a same-store sales basis. Operating profit continues to be slim, at 16 million pounds down considerably from 21 million pounds […]