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Executive
Moves, Book Deals and More Industry News
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (APRIL 2001)
People
Gene Brissie,
previously Editor in Chief at Prentice Hall Trade
Publishing, has left to become a partner with Bert
Holtje in the James Peter Associates Literary
Agency. . . . Some changes in the S&S group:
BJ Gabriel has been named VP National Accounts,
with responsibility for sales of all S&S products,
including adult hardcover and paperback, children’s,
and audio at major national retail outlets and demand
distributors. She was previously at Henry Holt.
. . . Jane Rosenman has left Scribner.
Jason Kaufman has left Pocket to become Senior
Editor at Doubleday. (Shawn Coyne left
Doubleday earlier.) And Seale Ballenger has joined
Pocket as VP and Publicity Director (Ballenger
was most recently communications director at Outside
magazine, where he helped develop their book line).
Barnes
& Noble Publishing’s Jennifer Grace moved
to Crown to take the Subrights Director position
vacated by Rebecca Strong when she moved to Harmony,
as Senior Editor. . . . Valerie Garfield, most
recently executive editor at HarperCollins’ HarperFestival,
has been named to the newly created position of Publishing
Director for Sesame Workshop, where she will
oversee the Book Publishing Group.
Neal
Goff, mostly recent SVP Marketing at BMG Direct,
has left the company. He may be reached at 212 683 1643
or at nealgoff@aol.com.
Goff previously held positions at Bowker, Prentice
Hall, and Time Inc.
Mariann
Donato, previously Sales Director for Penguin
Putnam Books for Young Readers, has been promoted
to VP Sales and Marketing, following the resignation
of Angus Killick, VP Marketing. . . . Hyperion’s
Jill Sansone, Director of Subsidiary Rights and
Special Markets, will oversee Hyperion AudioBooks, which
launches this Fall, and the ebooks line, coming in July.
Time Warner Trade Publishing, which distributes
Hyperion’s books, will distribute the audio titles,
and its iPublish will distribute Hyperion eBooks. .
. . Rebecca Carroll, in charge of contributing
editors at Contentville, is one of the casualties
of the recent layoff. She may be reached at rebsimone@aol.com.
Duly
Noted
The Council of Literary
Magazines and Presses (CLMP) has hired Beth Harrison
as Development Strategist for Literary Publishing, to
provide information and services about foundation funding
for CLMP publisher members. The organization also announced
the launch of CLMP Newswire, a bi-weekly e-mail
news dispatch covering the world of literary publishing.
Leslie Schwartz has been hired to cover “literary
publisher news including notable achievements, innovative
marketing and fundraising programs, people news, e-publishing
ventures, grant making and fundraising trends, politics
and policy issues affecting small literary publishers,
and awards and grants deadlines.” Go to clmp.org.
•
Pen American Center is also in a launch mode, with
the publication of Pen America, a literary journal
edited by M. Mark, founding editor of VLS.
Go to www.pen.org/journal.
•
Spike Lee is writing a sports column and Elizabeth
Manus, last seen at The New York Observer,
is now responsible for the book pages in new monthly
Gotham. They will regularly carry short
reviews, author interviews, and industry stuff. She
may be contacted at 212 496-1391.
•
Columbia Journalism Review’s “The Shapers”
list of 200 New Yorkers who shape the national media
includes a number of book publishing folk, most of them
the usual suspects like Morgan Entrekin, Jason
Epstein, Alice Mayhew, and Phyllis Grann,
but including the publicity director turned publisher
(of One World Books), Ballantine’s Anita Diggs.
•
Looking for a few good interns? We have received
several impressive resumes from college students looking
for summer jobs. If you have any need/interest, please
contact us at 212 447-0855, or email shanley@publishingtrends.com.
•
Despite impressive sales increases of The Guinness
Book of World Records in the last few years (more than
800,000 were sold last year in the US alone and the
Financial Times estimates its profit at £8.6
million on revenues of £23 million) parent company Diageo
moved the distribution from Mort Mint Publishing
to Time Warner, even as it put the company on
the block. The Guinness World Records business, which
also includes a related website, spinoff TV shows, and
The British Book of Hit Singles, is being shopped by
Goldman Sachs.
Publishing
Annals
Publishing Trends
meandered back to April, 2000, to see what was happening
in the premillennium. The digital scene was, of course,
dominant, with Reed announcing at the LIBF
that it had taken a stake in RightsCenter, Microsoft
launching its new MS Reader, and Random announcing
its stake in Xlibris. Meanwhile, to protect
itself against the incursion of dotcoms into the talent
pool, Random announced it would be raising its starting
salaries to $30,000 a year.
Perhaps more important to the education and feeding
of publishers was the launch of both Publisherslunch.com
and Inside.com. As though that weren’t
enough, PW Daily Online’s Steve Zeitchik
announced he was leaving to go to The Industry Standard
(he’s since left, in the company’s downsizing).
Some traditional publishing deals were still making
headlines: S&S did a 5-book deal with Mary
Higgins Clark, in the 25th year of publishing her,
and at a moment when her novels were ranked #1 in hardcover
and paperback.
Miscellany
Some of you may have
met Amsterdam restaurateuse, Inez Bon, either
at BEA or Frankfurt or maybe while hanging around Peter
Mayer’s. She has just opened her Dutch restaurant,
NL, at 169 Sullivan St. (Bleecker). A first, says the
NYT, for the city that was once New Amsterdam.
In Memoriam
A memorial service for Candida
Donadio will take place on Tuesday, April 17, at
6 p.m. at All Soul’s Church, on Lexington Avenue and
80th Street. Call Donadio & Olson
at 212 691-8077.
April
Dates
(Don’t
forget to check our Calendar on page 8 for major worldwide
events through Fall 2001.)
•
The LA Times’ Festival of Books is
held April 28–29 on the UCLA campus, with the 21st annual
Book Prize awarded on the 28th. More information is
available at www.
latimes.com/festivalofbooks.
•
The James Beard/KitchenAid Book Awards will
be announced at a gala on April 30 at the Marriott Marquis.
Thirty six books in twelve categories have been nominated;
the KitchenAid Cookbook of the Year will be chosen from
among them. More details are available at jamesbeard.org.
•
The Third Annual Koret Jewish Book Awards
will be presented on April 23rd at the Harvard Club.
Art Spiegelman is the featured speaker. Call 212
629-0500 ext. 333 for info.
•
A tribute to US Poet Laureate Stanley Kunitz,
presented by The Academy of American Poets, The
New York Times, Poetry Society of America,
Poets House, and YMCA National Writers
Voice, will be held on Wednesday, April 11, at 8 p.m.
at Town. For ticket information call 212 274-0343 ext.
10.
•
The University of Virginia and the Library
of Congress are hosting Publishing in the 21st Century:
Managing Our Own Evolution, at the Library of Congress
on April 19–21. Speakers include John Kilcullen,
CEO of Hungry Minds, along with the epublishing
trio of John Feldcamp, Chris MacAskill,
and Richard Tam. For information, go to http://uvace.virginia.edu/cup/publishing/media.htm.
©2001
Publishing Trends
