Of Jobs and
Jump-Cuts
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (AUGUST 2001)
Every
publishing career follows a narrative arc. For some,
it’s the Proustian ebb of Swann’s Way. For others,
it’s Finnegans Wake. And the most gripping career
stories tend to be those that jump out of the genre
altogether. As conversations with a dozen book-world
veterans show, life after publishing does exist, and
what’s more, there’s a world out there that — mirabile
dictu — values the skills honed in editing and marketing
authors. So as a companion to our look at the incoming
publishing Class of ’01 (see p. 7), this month we survey
the outgoing crowd and their often impressive career
jump-cuts.
Going boldly beyond galleys and blads — from the top
levels, no less — has been Charlie Hayward, once
President and CEO of Simon & Schuster and
Little, Brown, who left publishing five years ago
to the month. “Sometimes it seems like yesterday,” he
says, “and sometimes it seems like a lifetime ago.”
After launching his own management consulting firm,
Hayward helped Steve Crist and Alpine Capital
go after the Daily Racing Form (the track being
his passion) in 1997 and again — this time successfully
— in 1998. He’s now President and COO of the company.
Does he miss his old job? “The main thing I miss about
publishing is the people,” he claims. But it’s a relief
to find that turning an avocation into a job works:
“I still love the track.”
Then there’s Michael Lynton, who left Hollywood
in 1996 to become Chairman and CEO of Penguin,
overseeing the purchase of Putnam by Pearson
before leaving in early 2000 to become President of
AOL International. Asked about his sortie, he
emails PT that he misses publishing, but not
“pub lunches.” Another top manager who has moved into
a new direction is Willa Perlman, most recently
President of Hasbro Property Group, and before
that, President of Golden Books. She is now with
the small consulting and recruiting firm The Cheyenne
Group. The shift from S&S to Golden was,
she says, the beginning of a move into different distribution
channels, and an “emphasis on brands rather than the
individual story.” Then Hasbro allowed her to “exploit
properties in a more diverse set of circumstances,”
while the latest hop (in May) to Cheyenne yields “a
different vantage point to see if the balance would
be better.” It’s looking good so far.
Others ride the osmotic tides between the book and magazine
worlds. Bob Wallace, once of ABC News,
and later Editor in Chief at St. Martin’s, moved
to Talk Magazine in 1999 as Editorial Director.
Laura Matthews, who spent most of her career
in magazines until moving to Putnam as Senior Editor,
has just returned to ’zine-land at Martha Stewart
Living (see People). And Andrea Chambers,
who moved from People to Putnam, where
she worked until 1995 as Executive Editor, is back in
magazines as Editorial Director of international editions
for Seventeen and corporate owner Primedia,
as well as editor of the book division and editorial
projects director. Perhaps trumping them all is Michael
Naumann. He’s been shuttling around Holtzbrinck,
from Rowohlt to Henry Holt, where he was
Publisher, back to Germany as Minister of Culture, and
then Co-Publisher of Die Zeit, where he was a
correspondent in Washington in the ’80s — turning a
career arc into a neat circle.
Some opt for a loftier calling. Greg Tobin, SVP,
Editor in Chief of Ballantine Books, left a year
and a half ago to complete two novels under contract
to Tom Doherty’s Forge Books imprint at
St. Martin’s. His first novel, Conclave, the
story of the “next” papal election, was published last
month. Tobin also tells PT that since January
2000 he’s been a graduate theology student at Seton
Hall, where he’s working toward a Master of Theology
degree with a focus on Church history. In May 2000,
he received the Jubilee Medal Pro Meritis from Archbishop
Theodore E. McCarrick, then-Archbishop of Newark
(before he was transferred to Washington, D.C. and elevated
to cardinal). Asked whether he misses the industry,
Tobin says, “I do miss the daily roller-coaster of book
publishing, but I’m enjoying the life of an author-scholar
even more than I thought I would.” Also taking a more
spiritual turn is Audrey Cusson, proprietor with
her husband Jeff Cuiule of Mirabai, a
bookstore in Woodstock, NY branded as “A Resource for
Conscious Living.” Cusson has been EVP Marketing of
Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers, until
she and her husband decided to leave NYC last year for
“a simpler, more meaningful way of life in the tranquil
countryside,” and buy the bookshop. Cusson says that
the transition has been “remarkably smooth,” and believes
that there was karma at work in their finding this particular
store and town. Their advertising and marketing backgrounds
have made it easier to find ways to increase attendance
and sales, and books now make up about 50% of the total
inventory. Also returning to more grounded bookselling
roots is Tom Simon, most recently VP, bn.com.
This month he is opening a small bookstore, Seventh
Avenue Books, in Park Slope, featuring both
used and new titles, plus remainders. Strand
watch out.
Pat
Mulcahy has one foot in two worlds. She is co-owner
of Tillie’s, a Brooklyn-based coffee bar that
offers readings by local authors, like neighbor Myla
Goldberg. But Mulcahy also keeps up her writing,
editing and literary consulting, working with James
Lee Burke and helping Quincy Jones on his
forthcoming autobio. Another voyager into the semi-public
domain is Ronni Stolzenberg, who was once VP
Creative Marketing Director at Dell. When she
saw an ad (in the New York Times) for an Associate
Marketing Director for the Museum of Natural History,
she decided to send in her résumé. Now she works for
the museum’s Marketing and Communications Department,
where her job is “getting people to come to the museum.”
She’s tackling database development, as well as the
launch of the museum’s new ice-cream parlor (“The Big
Dipper,” natch). The job is “wildly fascinating,” she
says, but she’s amazed to be using the same skills she
honed in publishing.
The biggest geographical leap has been taken by ex-Ingramite
Director of Marketing Sue Flaster, who just married
Harald Henrysson, Curator of the Jussi Bjöörling
Museum in Borläänge, Sweden. The couple “will probably
be buying into a gym” while she’s “trying to learn Swedish”
says Flaster, who also consults for RealRead.
But the Most Fun Beyond Publishing Award may go to 44-year-old
Steven Schragis, the new chief of the Learning
Annex, that adult education emporium with courses
such as “Telepathic Communication with Animals.” The
former Carol Publishing chief sold the company
for $2.5 million last year and now wrangles teaching
gigs from the likes of Jerry Lewis. Those seeking
radical career moves may be interested in the Annex’s
upcoming course, “How to Open Your Own Laundromat &
Turn Coins into Ca$h!” Then again, there’s always the
ever-popular “How to Get a Job in Publishing.”
©2001
Publishing Trends
