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Executive
Moves, Book Deals and More Industry News
FROM PUBLISHING TRENDS (FEBRUARY 2001)
People
Much news in the beginning
of this year: Long anticipated, and widely reported
(in some places, more than once), Sarah Crichton
is out and Michael Pietsch is in at Little,
Brown. In other TWP news, Time Life
Books is closing and Neil Levin is heading the
new group (down to a dozen or so staffers, including
publishing vet Olga Vezeriz), which now reports
to Larry Kirshbaum and Maureen Egen.
Meanwhile, Therese Burke has left HarperCollins,
where she was President of Sales, to “pursue new challenges
and opportunities.” No replacement has been announced.
On the other hand, Larry Ashmead, who announced
his retirement in September, is not leaving, though
he will work a shorter week. And Brian Murray,
SVP and MD of the General Books Group, has been named
as successor to CEO of HarperCollins ANZ, Barrie
Hitchon, who retires in March. . . Carolyn Reidy
has been promoted to President of the newly formed S&S
Adult Publishing Group, responsible for the editorial,
marketing, and business functions for S&S, Scribner,
The Free Press, Kaplan, along with Pocket
Books’ adult lines. Pocket’s President and Publisher,
Judith Curr, now reports to Reidy.
Many changes in children’s publishing: Jeanne Finestone,
most recently at McClanahan Publishing, which
was recently sold to American Greetings, has
been named VP, Marketing for the McGraw-Hill
Children’s Publishing division, working with trade,
educational, international, and licensing. Deborah
Brodie was named Executive Editor of Roaring Brook
Press, a new imprint at Millbrook that is headed
by Simon Boughton. She was previously at Viking
Children’s Books. Meanwhile Judy Korman has left
the company. . . David Fickling has taken his
imprint from Scholastic UK and headed for Random
Childrens, US and UK. Wendy Lamb had been named
VP Publishing Director of an eponymous imprint at Random
Children’s earlier in the year. She moved from Delacorte.
. . Beth Eller was brought in as VP, Marketing
at North South to replace Kay Lee Davis,
who had been hired to oversee the relaunch of North
South and launch of the new imprint, Sea Star. Davis
may be reached at KNDavis@aol.com.
. . And Katherine Tegen returns to HarperCollins
as Editor-at-Large, reporting to Kate Jackson.
She had been at Hyperion Children’s previously.
On the distribution side, PGI (parent of Publishers
Group West) has announced that Chris McKenney
has been named COO. He succeeds Mike Winton,
who announced his retirement last spring. McKenney was
CEO of Digital Pond. By the way, congrats to
Susan Reich, who was recently promoted
to President and COO of Avalon, PGI’s publishing
arm. Ingram, meanwhile, has named Chris Anderson,
President of PRI and Ingram Fulfillment Partners,
succeeding YS Chi, who went to Random House late
last year. Gary Rautenstrauch was named President
of Baker & Taylor, succeeding Craig Richards.
He’ll retain his COO title. Finally, CDS (Client
Distribution Services) announced they will distribute
New Millennium Worldwide, a new multimedia publisher
founded by Paul McLaughlin, Michael Viner,
and Deborah Raffin, the latter two of Dove
Audio fame. CDS is run by Steve Black and Gilbert
Perlman. In December the company announced that
Peter Dubuisson had joined the company as SVP,
Director of Operations. He had been at Borders.
Other news: Candy Lee has been named Vice Chair
of Troll Communications. She is succeeded as
President by Richard Willis formerly of Bell
Sports and Peterson Magazines. . . Susan
Massey, Publisher of Rodale Trade Books,
has left the company. She may be reached at 908 713
9821. . . Last seen at Broadway Books, where
he was Marketing Manager, Hilary Herscher has
resurfaced as Director, Business Development for Bertelsmann.
In between he went to the INSEAD MBA program in France.
. . David Lappin has left S&S where
he was Director National Accounts, after nine months.
. . Tom Haworth, most recently at Baker &
Taylor, has become General Operations Manager for the
USA with Two-Can Publishing LLC of England, based
in Princeton. . . Rebecca Strong has resigned
from Crown, where she was Director of Subsidiary
Rights, and has transferred to Harmony Books,
where she will be a Senior Editor reporting to Shaye
Areheart, Editorial Director, and newly named publisher
of Shaye Areheart Books that will concentrate on literary
fiction. In another intracorporate move, Katie Hall
left Bantam and is now senior editor at Random.
. . Simonne Waud, Director of Sales & Marketing
for Octopus Groups’ Mitchell Beazley,
is leaving the company. And finally welcome home, Jon
Karp!
Virtual
People
Tom Turvey has
left Barnes & Noble, where he was director
of eBooks, for ebrary, as VP, Content & Business
Development. . . Former agent Laura Nolan will
be senior editor of Barnes & Noble Digital,
and manage author and agent relationships.
Duly
Noted
An unlikely place to read about books is a trade
magazine called Catalog Success, but in the January
issue the well-known direct mail expert Denny Hatch
writes about the difficulties of direct marketing books,
and admires two catalogs in the area. Both A Common
Reader (www.commonreader.com)
and Daedalus (daedalusbooks.com)
are cited for the personal style in which they are written,
and for the obvious fact that the books chosen have
actually been read.
•
More publishing conferences
coming our way in the next few months. On Feb. 28 Jupiter
is sponsoring “The Business of Books: Publishing in
the New Economy” at the Sheraton, with a cast that echoes
the eBookWorld event in early December, and deals with
the same issues. And Inside.com and PW
are sponsoring “Opportunity and Challenge: Getting a
Grip on the Future of Publishing,” though there is no
agenda for the conference as yet (sponsorship opportunities
are, however, still available). If you sign up for both,
you get a 25% discount, which brings them in at $1,005.
On the other hand, if you want something a little drier,
there’s BookTech East on Feb. 12–14 at the Hilton, for
a mere $550.
Miscellany
A pedigreed email virus went around a week or so
ago, via Louis Baum, until recently editor of
The Bookseller, and Kit van Tulleken,
the mergers and acquisitions diva. Apparently the email,
which was titled “A great Shockwave flash movie,” was
traced back to Michael Ovitz and a failed publicity
stunt. Still, it caused no damage, and in fact was responsible
for many people getting back in contact with each other,
according to van Tulleken.
Deals
The current uproar over
Clinton’s pardon of billionaire financier Marc
Rich has led to a curious blackmarket in the only
book ever published on the subject: Metal Men: Marc
Rich and the 10-Billion-Dollar Scam, by Wall
Street Journal Paris correspondent Craig Copetas.
In order to get to the heart of the matter — which started
as a cover story in Harper’s — Copetas posed
as a trader in the commodities market and was able to
infiltrate Rich’s inner circle.
Prior to the pardon, the book could sometimes be found
listed at $400–$500. Someone claiming to be a Rich (sic!)
relative reportedly just offered up to $1400 for a copy,
if it could be found. Now HarperCollins is reissuing
the book, with a new introduction by the author. Constance
Sayre of Market Partners International (yes,
the same) sold the book to Tim Duggan for a nice
five figure deal. The book is expected to be out ASAP.
•
Dan Green has sold
historian Carol Berkin’s next book (First
Generations, Hill & Wang) for “high five
figures,” to Harcourt’s Jane Isay, who
snapped it up based on a 3-page letter describing her
take on the Electoral College issue as “how the framers
at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia were
really planning a coup d’etat.” Berkin recently achieved
fame as a talking head on “Founding Fathers,” “Liberty,”
and “New York,” as well as through appearances on NBC,
CNN, MSNBC, etc. during the Florida election fiasco,
commenting on what the founding fathers would have thought!
Mazeltov
Congrats to Tom Dunne, who has clocked thirty
years at St. Martin’s, publishing such big name authors
as Rosamund Pilcher.
©2001
Publishing Trends
