The first big personnel change following Markus Dohle’s appointment as ceo of Random House is not a new hire (though bookish folks still express a desire/expectation for a publishing veteran directly under Dohle) but a departure. Deputy chairman and chief operating officer Ed Volini is leaving the company at the end of September. His positions will be eliminated and his reports will report directly to Dohle as of October 1. Volini has had a senior management role at the company since 2001. Dohle praises him as “a valued decisionmaker, strategist, analyst, mentor and leader for our financial, sales, human resources, […]
Dollar Rally Intensifies
We’ve spent the last few weeks reporting on publishers’ individual quarterly earnings releases without noting the most significant development for the bottom line of foreign owners: the recent dollar rally. The currency has reversed a long decline and gained ground against both the euro and the pound for nearly all of August as both the EU and the UK face the beginnings of recession. Gains against the British pound have been greater, as the UK is encountering some of the same credit market problems that the US has been dealing with for over a year. In yesterday’s markets, traders were […]
Sargent Shortlist
The Mercantile Library Center announced the shortlist for the 2008 John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize. The winner will be named December 1: Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)Dervishes by Beth Helms (Picador) The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti (The Dial Press)Personal Days by Ed Park (Random House)Songs for the Butcher’s Daughter by Peter Manseau (Free Press)The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski (Ecco/HarperCollins)The Story of Forgetting by Stefan Merrill Block (Random House) Separately, former US poet laureate Louise Glueck was given the $100,000 Wallace Stevens Award for “outstanding and proven mastery in the art of […]
More on Sundance Sale, and Releases from Harlequin, Authonomy and DailyLit
* Rowman & Littlefield was a little slow with their press release yesterday, but ceo Jed Lyons hails their acquisition of Sundance/Newbridge as “a terrific entry for us into the K-8 educational marketplace. In addition, through our book distribution business, National Book Network, we believe there are many attractive NBN juvenile trade books that can be used to enhance the existing selection of trade books that Sundance distributes through its Sundance Picks core classroom library collections.” President and CEO Paul Konowitch will remain in place, running the business from its current Northborough, Massachusetts location. * In other press releases, Harlequin […]
Personnel News: Crowley Switches Agencies; McDermid Picks RCW
Sheila Crowley has left AP Watt to join Curtis Brown UK, and expects most of her authors to move with her. She says “the time was right to move to a bigger agency and one that would embrace the more commercial angle of the authors I represent.”Bookseller Canada’s Anne McDermid & Associates will use British agency Rogers, Coleridge & White to represent rights on behalf of their authors in the British and translation markets.
Didgeridon't
Harper Collins Australia apologized “unreservedly” yesterday to aboriginal Australians for part of their forthcoming Australian edition of the bestselling DARING BOOK FOR GIRLS which shows girls how to the play the didgeridoo. The publisher “will replace this item when the book is reprinted as clearly we had no intention to offend.” As the AP reports, “traditionally, women do not play the didgeridoo, a long, hollow wooden tube played by buzzing the lips into one end. [Head of the Victorian Aboriginal Education Association Mark] Rose said that women who break that taboo could face infertility or worse.” Rose told the Australian Broadcasting Company […]