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Executive
Moves, Book Deals and More Industry News
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (MARCH 2001)
People
A relatively quiet month, personnel-wise:
Peter Bernstein has taken a new position as Editor-in-Chief
of the University Alliance for Life-Long Learning,
an online venture of Oxford, Stanford,
Princeton, and Yale Universities
to develop distance learning courses. He had been working
on an author website, AuthorByAuthor. . . . VP and Managing
Director Scott Lubeck has left Westview (a
division of Perseus) to become CTO of the Harvard
Business School Publishing, reporting to CEO Linda
Doyle. And Holly Hodder has been promoted
to Westview’s Editorial Director
. . . . Kathy Gilligan has left McGraw Hill,
where she had been subsidiary rights director for Professional
Books
. . . . David Lappin, recently Director National
Accounts at S&S, has joined ex-Henson
publisher Jane Leventhal in Jack Hoeft’s
new venture, which he will announce shortly. . . . As
reported elsewhere, Kent Carroll has left Carroll
& Graf, where he was publisher and editor-in-chief.
Virtual
People
John Conti,
most recently at Contentville, has joined a B2B
startup called RealRead, a sampling service which
gives publishers the ability to let online book buyers
see what they need before they buy, as VP of
Sales. The Japanese company is “well-funded,” with the
US as the base of operations. . . . With its announcement
of a new e-book initiative, HarperCollins promoted
Chris North VP and General Manager, Electronic
Publishing, reporting to David Steinberger. Sean
Abbott will be senior editor of E-Books, and Leo
Hollis will be Editorial Director of E-Books for
HarperCollins U.K. . . . Rightscom, a UK consultancy
business specializing in the rights management issues
associated with the delivery of Intellectual Property
in an online environment, announced that it has merged
with Mark Bide & Associates.
Deals
Carlisle Agency’s
Larry Chilnick sold the biography of astronaut Alan
Shephard to Crown’s Emily Luce in
a five figure deal. The author, Neal Thompson,
is the military affairs reporter for the Baltimore
Sun. Chilnick also sold The Sober Gourmet, by Elizabeth
Scott, to Harvard Common Press’ Pam Honig.
The book is a “healthful lifestyle” book that will include
recipes for recovering alcoholics. . . . Jim Hornfischer
of The Literary Group International, who
agented Flags of Our Fathers, played author this month
when his book, The Last Stand of the Tin Cup Soldiers
(also about WWII), was sold in a preempt. His colleague
Frank Weimann, president of the agency, handled
the deal, but the lucky bidder was unknown at press
time.
Scott Manning reports that clients Paul
and Julie Lerner, authors of Lerner’s Consumer
Guide to Health Care (which they published via their
own imprint, Lerner Communications) are doing
a five-part series on the Today Show. Paul used
to be at Morrow, where he was Harvey Ginzburg’s
assistant. Though they are not looking for a trade
publisher for this title, they “wouldn’t rule anything
out.” Check out www.lernerhealth.com.
Duly
Noted
Maria Campbell
celebrates her first year scouting for Warner Bros.
with five projects that the studio has snapped up, including
Bryan Burrough’s “Hunting Hackers” article, Stephen
Carter’s The Emperor of Ocean Park, and Joe Kanon’s
new thriller The Good German, which was also taken by
the scout’s publishing clients Karl Blessing
(Germany) and Little, Brown UK. (Both had published
him previously.) Campbell has just reupped for another
year with the movie company.
•
The Licensing Letter reports in its Annual Business
Survey of retail sales of Licensed Merchandise 1992–2000
that the past year experienced a 1% dropoff from the
previous year, which was unusually high due to the extraordinary
sales of Star Wars properties (pace DK). Publishing
was up 4%, however, and the Music category is the big
winner, with a 23% increase in sales, because of “slick
marketing and squeaky clean personas of a growing number
of teen and tween-targeted bands.” Next is Celebrities/Estates,
though most of that increase is attributable to Martha
Stewart’s program with Kmart, which has surpassed
the jackpot $1 billion mark. In general, though, it
seems retailers are wary of going after hot licenses,
until they start taking off.
•
There’s the aforementioned Martha, and Rosie,
and of course, Oprah, but no longer will there
be Mary Higgins Clark’s Mystery
Magazine, which Family Circle was publishing
increasingly sporadically over the past four years under
Editor Kathryne Sagan’s aegis.
•
We await with bated breath the announcement of the
100 Great Jewish Books of the Modern era, which are
to be announced this spring. In September the National
Yiddish Book Center convened a panel of scholars,
critics, and writers (including the LA Times’
Kenneth Turran, and scholars from England, Jerusalem,
and the US to debate the list. Criteria include literary
merit, Jewish authorship, and treatment of Jewish experience
or sensibility. For further information contact Nancy
Sherman at the National Yiddish Book Center, (800)
535-3595 x 111 or nsherman@bikher.org.
•
Pat Holt confounded regular readers in a recent
newsletter by mentioning that coverage of Amazon
“borders on the hysterical.” She went on to critique
the Washington Post story, saying “The Post
story goes on and on, slicing and dicing Amazon.com
as the Best New Fall Guy of the year. Every time something
positive comes up — for example, nobody says Amazon
ISN’T paying its bills; in fact, the data show that
Amazon is paying its bills FASTER than before — the
Post charges in with something negative.” Meanwhile
The London Sunday Telegraph picked up the Post’s
article, with its own headline, “Is Amazon up a Creek?”
But the March 1 edition of Money has a more evenhanded
approach, citing analysts, researchers, and retail experts,
including Paco (Why We Buy) Underhill, who sees
its “customers rule” philosophy as a continual lure.
•
All good things come to those who wait: The price on
Inside and PW’s March 19 Summit, Opportunity
& Challenge, has dropped to $495, from its previous
$795 price. Speakers include the usual suspects, as
well as some timely additions, including Dave Eggers,
Bob Stein (reincarnated, post-Voyager,
as the founder of Night Kitchen), and Michael
J. Wolf, the Booz, Allen media guru (as opposed
to NY Magazine’s media pundit). Kurt Andersen
and Nora Rawlinson (one of the two women
listed on the roster of speakers) host the event. For
information go to Inside.com,
or call (888) 750-0716.
Parties
PT’s scout tells
us that Bertelsmann’s US Scout Bettina Schrewe
threw a “lovely fete” for Goldmann’s Georg
Reuchlein and BTB Chief Andrea Best.
“Among those spotted,” we’re told, “were smart young
editors: Sarah McGrath (Scribner), Ethan
Nosowsky (FSG), Dan Smetanka (Ballantine)
and Courtney Hodell (Random),” along with
agents Kim Witherspoon, Neil Olson, and
Henry Dunow.
That same evening the Greenburger agency hosted
a dinner for Rowohlt’s Georg Heepe, who
has taken on the title “Editor Emeritus.” In attendance
were agents Irene Skolnick, Wendy Weil,
Cynthia Cannell, and writers Paul Auster,
Sapphire, and Walter Abish.
In late Feb., crowds packed into the Carnegie Club at
the invitation of Will Lippincott and Randall
Rothenberg, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief respectively,
of strategy+business, the (relatively) new Booz,
Allen–backed business publication, and Myles Thompson’s
new business imprint, Texere. S+B is poised to
make a big circulation push, and had run an excerpt
from the just-published Why I Hate Flying by management
guru Henry Mintzberg. (The quote on the jacket
was from “Marketing Maven” Philip Kotler, who
said, “Now you don’t have to read Drucker On Management.”)
©2001
Publishing Trends
