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Executive
Moves, Book Deals and More Industry News
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (NOVEMBER 2001)
People
Layoffs are the order of
the day, though mergers, not the economy, seem
to be the main reason. DK has laid off about
25 people, with more to come. Meanwhile, the move down
to Hudson Street has been postponed, apparently as a
cost-savings measure. No word yet on Phyllis Grann’s
plans, though Random House continues to figure
in the speculation. Word is that by the end of the year
Golden will have laid off half of its employees.
Its offices will also remain separate from the mother
ship, but they are almost adjacent to the new Random
digs. And, of course, Rodale laid off 148 people,
mostly in its direct response book publishing area.
One of those was Roz Siegel, formerly Senior
Editor at S&S. She may be reached at roz.siegel@mindspring.com.
Speaking of S&S, Colin Harrison, noted author
and previously an editor at Harper’s (and husband
of author Kathryn, onetime editorial assistant to Nan
Graham), is rumored to be going to Scribner,
as an editor. There’s a spot open, since Crown’s
Shaye Areheart hired away Jake Morissey
as Executive Editor for Harmony, and Jane
Rosenman left for St. Martin’s (PT
9/01).
In other news, Miranda De Kay has left Bookspan.
. . . Kathleen Carson, Executive Editor of Budget
Book Service is going to Random House Value
Publishing as Editorial Director, replacing Susanne
Jaffe, who left to join Thurman House.
Harper thawed out from its hiring freeze long enough
to bring in two Executive Editors in October,
Dan Menaker and Dawn Davis. Menaker will
report to Susan Weinberg, SVP and Editorial
Director. Davis, who was at Vintage for five
years, will also serve as editorial director of Amistad.
Michaela
Hamilton has been named Editor-in-Chief at Kensington
Publishing. She succeeds Paul Dinas, who joined
Reader’s Digest last month (see PT 9/01),
and will report to Laurie Parkin, VP and Publisher
of Kensington. . . . Leona Nevler, who arrived
at Penguin Putnam on Sept. 10, says she bought
two books in her first three weeks. She was most recently
a SVP and Editorial Director of Ballantine, where
she had been since 1982, when Fawcett was acquired
by Random House. She reports to Leslie Gelbman,
President of the Berkley Publishing Group and
NAL. . . . Peter Clifton has moved (literally)
to Tennessee as President and CEO of Ingram Periodicals.
He had been CEO of Vista’s PubEasy, and
subsequently interim CEO of Previewport. He will
commute between La Vergne and his home in Westchester
for the time being.
Among promotions, André Bernard has been named
VP, Publisher of Harcourt’s Trade division. Michael
Stearns has been promoted to Director of Paperback
Publishing at Harcourt Children’s. He was formerly a
Senior Editor and will continue to acquire and edit.
. . . Rick Pascocello has been promoted to VP,
Advertising and Promotion for Berkley and NAL. He was
previously Director. . . . Michelle Yeauger
has been promoted to Senior Marketing Manager, Direct
at McGraw-Hill Children’s Publishing. She was
previously Marketing Manager.
Deals
Susan Schulman,
who handles translation rights for Millbrook,
huddled over her computer instead of the TV in the days
following the 9/11 attack — she had recently received
the ms for Osama Bin Laden: A War Against the West,
in Millbrook’s recently launched YA division, the Twenty
First Century Books line. The book had been signed
up by Publisher Jean Reynolds in 1999, after
the US embassy bombings in Africa. Over that first weekend
after downloading mss around the world, she had sold
the rights in Spain and Japan, and by the end of that
week had concluded deals (all via her 15 subagents)
in Poland, Estonia, Korea, Portugal, Croatia, and French
Canada, with offers pending from Turkey and the Scandinavians
starting to line up. The book was published in Spain
(Planeta, with a separate licensed Mexican edition)
on October 19th, and in Canada on October 30th. The
book will still be published in a library edition (short
discount) shipping in December. Trade rights (hard or
softcover) are available.
Duly
Noted
Ipsos NPD has
issued its Adult BookTrends Update, an ongoing survey
of the book buying habits of more than 12,000 households,
and the news for fiction was good, at least pre-9/11.
Fiction sales rose 2.7%, the highest jump of any category.
Meanwhile, book club sales have increased by almost
2% — and 3.5% compared with all of 2000 (mostly through
an increase in online sales) — while chain sales have
decreased slightly.
•
Elle is launching a readers choice award,
for the best fiction and nonfiction of the year. French
Elle has been doing it for years, with apparent success.
The voting seems unduly complicated, but the result
will be a Grand Prix winner in fiction and nonfiction,
to be announced in the December 2002 issue. Readers’
comments on the books that are read throughout the year
are available at www.elle.com.
•
PublishersMarketplace launches as a subscription
site in November. Michael Cader, of publisherslunch.com
fame, is behind this latest effort, which will cost
$15 a month, billed monthly. He tells PT that
“I’ve been surprised and delighted by how quickly people
have started using the whole array of features and making
them work; writers are finding agents and publishers;
agents are selling proposals here (which I never expected)
and foreign rights through their postings; the deal
resources are helping to further increase the flow of
deal information; and we will have generated over 175,000
page views in the first month (with the site continuing
to get busier).” Score one for the impresarios.
• Morty Mint, former chief of Guinness Publishing
in the US, will publish and distribute the US edition
of a new paperback series, ParentSmart Books.
It is published by ParentSmart Books of Canada. Maryann
Palumbo Marketing Concepts will handle US marketing
for the series (launch is in January 2002). In other
Canadian news, Raincoast closed down its fiction
imprint, and HarperCollins Canada’s Marketing
Director, Judy Brunsek, has left the company.
•
The magazine strategy+business has published
its “Best Business Books of the Millennium” issue. Jim
Collins tops the list with Good to Great.
Go to www.strategy-business.com.
November
Dates
NYU’s Center
for Publishing, along with the French Publishers’
Agency and the German Book Office, have organized
a seminar, “How to Effectively Acquire, Translate and
Publish Foreign Titles.” The all-day seminar takes place
on Friday, Nov. 2nd at the Center for Publishing. Tickets
are $50. Call 212 790-3232 or go to www.scps.nyu.edu/pubcenter.
• Small Press Center hosts two November panels.
On Monday, November 12th from 5:30 to 8:00 pm is “Publishing
Predictions: Past and Present Visions of the Future,”
in partnership with PW, at The New York Times
Auditorium. On Tuesday, November 20th, from 5:30 to
7:30 pm, is “What’s Happening to Book Reviewing?” Email
info@smallpress.org
for details.
•
The 52nd National Book Awards evening is
on Wednesday, November 14th at the Marriott. Tickets
for the dinner and awards ceremony (again, with Steve
Martin as host) are $1000. But for $100 you can
attend the reception.
•
The Miami Book Fair is scheduled for November 11-18
at the Miami-Dade Community College. An eclectic mix
of some 250 authors, including Vernon Jordan,
Stephen Ambrose, Naomi Wolf, and Rabbi
Harold Kushner will be present, and almost 500,000
visitors are expected to attend. For details, go to
www.mdcc.edu/bookfair.
• Author and former Houghton Mifflin publisher
Joe Kanon will be reading from his new bestseller,
The Good German, on Thursday, November 8th, at
the 82nd and Broadway Barnes & Noble at 7:30
pm.
Mazeltov
Congrats to publishing
couple Chitra (McGraw-Hill) Bopardikar and
Josh (HarperCollins) Marwell, whose wedding
is on November 3rd in New York.
And
to Book-of-the-Month Club, on its 75th birthday
this month.
Also, Joseph Xavier Held was born October 15, 2001 to
Random’s Ivan Held and his wife, Patricia
Falvo, until recently a Senior Writer at Allure.
Finally, congrats to Pam and Joel Fishman (former
editor, agent, and founder of subrights.com),
on the birth of a baby girl, Macklin, on Sept. 25.
©2001
Publishing Trends
