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Executive
Moves, Book Deals and More Industry News
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (SEPTEMBER 2001)
People
There’s been major movement
in publishing these last few weeks of summer, which
PT will recap for those who have been literally
or figuratively out of it:
Kara Welsh has been named VP, Publisher of New
American Library, reporting to Leslie Gelbman.
She was VP, Deputy Publisher at Pocket Books.
And Therese Burke, formerly President of Sales
for HarperCollins, has moved to DK (now
also part of Penguin Putnam — see article here)
as VP Sales and Marketing. Finally, PP-wise, Brant
Janeway has been promoted to the position of Director
of Marketing and Publicity for Plume Books. He
was previously Publicity Manager.
Kris Puopolo is leaving S&S and moving
to Broadway as Senior editor, according to Gerry
Howard, and will “be acquiring books in both hardcover
and trade paperback in the key areas for Broadway of
spirituality, self-help and inspiration as well as in
general nonfiction.”
Paul Dinas, formerly Editor-in-Chief at Kensington,
has become Executive Editor of Select Editions at Reader’s
Digest. Meanwhile, Reader’s Digest magazine
named Jacqueline Leo VP and US Editor-in-Chief.
She was most recently at Meredith Interactive.
Nader F. Darehshori, Chairman, President, and CEO
of Houghton Mifflin, announced on August 15 that,
with its purchase by Vivendi Universal, “approximately
60 corporate positions have been identified as duplicative
and will be eliminated,” though some might be offered
other jobs in the new corporate empire. Meanwhile,
Gail Deegan, EVP, CFO; Elizabeth Hacking,
SVP, Strategic Development; and Gary Smith, SVP,
Administration, will be leaving Houghton Mifflin, effective
October 1, 2001.
Rich Freese has been named President and CEO of
MBI Publishing, aka Motorbooks, in St.
Paul, MN. He was formerly SVP of National Book Network
. . . Jim Nichols has been named Sales and
Marketing Director for Consortium Book Distributors.
He was formerly at Kodansha. . . Anna Johnson
has moved from Scholastic to Bloomsbury
USA as Marketing Director for their Children’s Book
division, launching Spring 2002. She joins Editorial
Director Victoria Wells.
Some doings in the art world: Max Anderson, Director
of the Whitney, announced that Garrett White
has been named Director of Publications and New
Media. He had been Director of Publications at the LA
County Museum of Art. (Meanwhile, David Ross,
the previous director of the Whitney, who went on to
SFMoMA three years ago, resigned from that directorship
in mid-August.) Richard Dobbs, formerly the Book
Manager at MoMA, has landed at the Metropolitan
as the new Coeditions and Reprints Manager for Special
Publications. And the Museum of Modern Art, MoMA Retail
has announced the appointment of Norman Laurila
to the position vacated by Dobbs last year. Laurila
was the owner of A Different Light Bookstores
(New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco), which he founded
in 1979 and sold last year.
Cameron Brown is leaving Cameron Brown/Chrysalis
on August 31. “Having helped to get us through a very
difficult period and deliver a solution which protected
most people’s jobs and ensured that all suppliers were
paid, I feel it is now time to move on,” he says. “I
have no specific plans for the moment but am looking
at a number of different options.”
Deals
Big deal to report: three books by Clark Howard,
who is a consumer advocate and the #3 daytime radio
talk show host in the country, went to Hyperion for
$1.5 million. Laurie Liss agented the deal, which
consists of a book previously published by Longstreet
Press, plus two new projects.
Broadway’s
Charlie Conrad bought world English rights to
An Italian in America by Beppe Severignini.
It is “an Italian journalist’s memoir of his year living
in Georgetown and of the odd ways of Americans (at least
as far as an Italian is concerned).” Published by Rizzoli
in 1995, it sold more than 300,000 copies in Italy.
Duly
Noted
The Common Review,
a quarterly magazine that The Great Books
Foundation launched this month, is “intended to
provoke serious thought and discussion among a general
audience.” Subsequent issues will be available by subscription
or single copy sale. The Great Books Foundation claims
to reach more than a million students. For information
call (800) 222-5870 or log on to www.greatbooks.org.
•
Sales of The Wind Done Gone — whose net sales
were originally projected at 15,000 — is “closing in
on 200,000 copies,” Houghton Mifflin Publisher
Wendy Strothman tells PT. She remarks,
“Because of this case, The Wind Done Gone has
entered the lexicon and is likely to be read and taught
for decades.”
•
Wendy Diamond, publisher of the celebrities-and-pets
magazine Animal Fair, has loosed her latest pro
bono book into the marketplace: Pets And Their Celebrities,
with photos by Christopher Ameruoso and a foreword
by John Travolta. The book includes pics of pets
with Pamela Anderson, Janeane Garofalo,
and Paula Abdul, and has a first printing of
80,000 copies. Every purchase also contributes to Last
Chance for Animals. Get ’em while they last.
•
Walker (ne Walter) Meade, publisher of Avon
Books in the 1980s, has his debut murder mystery novel,
Unspeakable Acts, coming from Upstart
on September 20th, his 70th birthday!
September
Dates
Summer’s over — let the parties begin! On September
11 Book Industry Study Group celebrates 25 years
at NY Public Library’s Trustees Room. Tickets: $100.
Call Lisa Anzalone at (732) 583-0066.
•
On September 19 Book magazine celebrates
the “1 million subscriber milestone” at its 3rd anniversary
party at the Puck Building. Invitation only. Call (212)
849-8258 for details.
•
Also on the 19th, Kiepenheuer & Witsch
mark their 50th year at a celebration at the Goethe
Institute.
•
On September 21, the Association of Authors’
Representatives celebrates its 10th anniversary
at a gala event at the W Hotel in Union Square. Tickets:
$50. Write AAR at PO Box 237201, Ansonia Station, NYC
10023 for tickets.
•
Also in September. . . . The Ecco Press turns
30, and Goldberg McDuffie Communications celebrates
its 20th year. Congrats to all.
•
Senior & Shopmaker is hosting a reception for
its latest exhibition, “A Private Reading: The Book
as Image and Object,” a group show that “examines the
book as metaphor in modern and contemporary art.” Thursday,
September 13 from 6-8 at 21 E. 26th Street. Email gallery@seniorandshopmaker.com
or call Betsy Senior (who is, coincidentally, married
to Charlie Hayward (see August issue of PT)
at 213-6767.
•
EPM Communications is presenting a series of workshops
on When To Target, When To Mainstream, September
10-12, 2001, at The Bottom Line Cabaret in New York.
The three back-to-back conferences discuss marketing
to women (Sept. 10), marketing to black, Hispanic, and
Asian American markets (Sept. 11), and marketing to
teens and tweens (Sept. 12). Contact EPM at (212) 941-0099.
•
Will Lippincott, Publisher of Strategy
+ Business, tells us that the fourth quarter issue
of the magazine will be devoted to business books and
will include fourteen essays, written by various management
gurus, each highlighting five or six titles. In addition,
the magazine’s website is being relaunched Nov. 1 and
will feature a list of the top 25 business books of
the millennium, chosen by magazine editors, including
Randall Rothenberg.
Mazeltov
Congratulations to
Peter Mayer and Inez Bon, proprietor of Dutch restaurant
NL, who tied the knot on August 12th.
•
Congrats to Golden’s Stephen Weitzen
and wife Michelle, on the birth of Isabella Fredie Weitzen
on Thursday, August 9th.
In
Memoriam
HarperCollins’
beloved Editor-in-Chief, Robert Jones, died on
Aug. 13 after a long battle with cancer. His memorial
will be at the University Club (1 West 54) at 3 pm on
September 10. (Jacket and tie required.)
Albert
Vitale, Chairman of International eBook Award
Foundation (IEBAF), alerted us to the death from
breast cancer of IeBAF’s President and Executive Director
Roxanna Frost, who was 43.
©2001
Publishing Trends
