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Executive Moves, Book
Deals and More Industry News
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (MARCH 2002)
People
More Random House movement:
Craig Virden, who has been President of RH Children’s
and before that, BDD Books for Young Readers, is leaving.
Crown’s Chip Gibson will take over, with
Rich Romano as his EVP. Meanwhile Jenny Frost,
now heading up Random Audio (which she will continue
to run), will take over Crown Publishing Group, which
now includes Random Information Group’s imprints. Bonnie
Ammer will report to Frost, along with Pete Muller,
SVP Publishing Operations, Robert Allen, President
of Random House Audio, and Lynn Bond, President
of Random Value. It is unclear at this point what role
Joerg Pfuhl (who had overseen Children’s and
Random Information) will play in the reorganization,
though he will be involved in audio and international.
Neal
Goff has been named President of Scholastic’s
Grolier Reference Division, reporting to Dick
Robinson. He was most recently Senior VP of Marketing
at BMG Music Clubs.
PJ
Mark, formerly at Inside.com, and before
that, a book scout for Mary Anne Thompson, is
moving to IMG as agent. He will be working for
Mark Reiter.
Among the 30 or so let go at S&S were Charles
Roberts, Regional Manager for Texas and the South
West for 42 years, and Karen Weitzman, Foreign
Rights Director and 22-year veteran. Meanwhile, Greg
Anastas, Director of the online sales group, is
now Field Sales Director for Field Key Accounts reporting
to Roger Williams (we had earlier reported he
had left the company -- our apologies). Pocket
Book Senior Editor Tracy Sherrod is leaving to
set up her own literary agency with partner Beverly
Williams. Tony Clark, who had worked at Holt,
is also joining the firm which, according to PW Daily,
will offer authors a variety of services.
Also, Mike Campbell, most recently of Martingale
& Co., is joining Carlton Books as VP
Director of Sales in New York
. . . . Alissa Neil has joined PR agency Ellen
Ryder Communications, as VP. . . . In the wake of
Michael Denneny leaving St. Martin’s,
Diane Reverand is rumored to be in active negotiations
with St. Martin’s, possibly for an imprint.
AAP
Highlights
AAP’s annual
meeting took place in Washington, DC, February 27-28,
and copyright — Pat Schroeder’s central focus
— played a major role in the discussions. In fact, the
king of copyright manipulation, Michael Eisner
(Disney’s efforts to extend the term of copyright
are being challenged in court), was a key speaker. He
was in DC to testify before the Senate Commerce Committee
in the interests of the content providers who are battling
piracy. Meanwhile, Schroeder pronounced the “publishers’
axis of evil” as “postal rates, piracy, and illiteracy.”
At the board meeting on Thursday Hyperion’s Bob
Miller officially stepped down from his two-year
term as Chair of AAP, and was succeeded by Robert
E. Evanson, President of McGraw-Hill Education.
And Random CEO Peter Olson asked fellow publishers
if they would contribute to the RosettaBooks
suit. The response was, we hear, positive.
Duly
Noted
Pat Conroy’s
new ms is in: My Losing Season, which takes the
reader back to the Citadel, where his earlier novels
were set. Publication is scheduled for October ’02 by
Nan Talese/Doubleday and his new agent,
as mentioned in PT (February) is Marly Rusoff.
•
As mentioned elsewhere, Riverhead Books has
acquired world rights to publish a book derived from
the personal journals of Kurt Cobain, the late
lead singer for Nirvana. PT has learned
that the amount paid for the journals is reputed to
be close to $4 million, with Penguin UK putting
in a hefty chunk of the change.
•
With Tim and Nina Zagat announcing
the expansion of their guides, Fortune’s Tim
Carvell speculates on possible future titles: Zagat’s
Guide to Accounting Firms, Guide to Economic
Forums, and Guide to Petty Grievances in Tim
and Nina Zagat’s Marriage. Meanwhile CEO Amy
McIntosh has left the firm.
•
A contract has been drawn up for the purchase of
Klutz Press, which was sold just over a year
ago to the Canadian company Nelvana, which was
itself recently purchased by a larger Canadian company.
At press time the identity of the new buyer was not
known.
•
Those concerned about Colombian presidential candidate
Ingrid Betancourt, who was kidnapped on
February 23 by revolutionary guerrillas, are urged to
email a note of support to ingridporlapaz@hotmail.com.
Emails will be forwarded to the Colombian government
as a show of American solidarity. The family is also
setting up the site ingridbetancourt.org. According
to Justin Loeber, Director of Publicity at HarperCollins
(and actively involved in galvanizing support for her),
the NYTBR will run a review of Betancourt’s memoir,
Until Death Do Us Part: My Struggle to Reclaim Colombia
(Ecco), on March 17.
March
Dates
Winners of the 2001 Barnes & Noble Writers
For Writers Award, E. Lynn Harris, June Jordan,
and Wally Lamb, will be presented the awards
at Poets & Writers’ annual gala benefit
on March 5 at the Tribeca Rooftop, 2 Desbrosses Street,
New York City.
•
The Tennessee Williams/New Orleans
Literary Festival, March 20-24 (www.tennesseewilliams.net),
is in its 16th year.
•
The Virginia Festival of the Book will take
place March 20-24 in Charlottesville, VA. Marie Arana,
Washington Post Book World’s editor, is
the luncheon speaker. See www.vabook.org.
•
National Book Critics Circle Awards take place on
March 11, at the Tishman Auditorium, NYU, New York.
Contact Linda Wolfe, wolfelinda@aol.com.
• London Book Fair is
March 17-19 at Olympia
Exhibition Centre, London, UK. Contact Joanne Veale,
020 8910 7815; joanne.veale@reedexpo.co.uk.
•
14th Small Press Book Fair is March 23-24,
NYC; call (212) 764-7021 or visit www.smallpress.org.
•
The New York Public Library’s 2nd annual
Young Lions Fiction Award will be presented March 20
at the Celeste Bartos Forum. The finalists for the award,
which comes with a $10,000 prize, are David Czuchlewski,
Allegra Goodman, Peter Orner, Brady
Udal, and Colson Whitehead.
Parties
Going to school with
the right people can pay off as Arthur Klebanoff
demonstrated at the Texere party held at the
Bloomberg headquarters to celebrate his book
The Agent: Personalities, Politics and Publishing.
Hizzoner spoke of his school chum, followed by Chuck
Schumer. And to reinforce them were Ed Koch,
Cindy Adams, and Bill Bradley. A few publishing
folks were also sighted.
•
Terrence Cheng, director of electronic marketing
for Random House, celebrated his first novel,
Sons of Heaven, set during the Tiananmen Square
massacre. The book is coming from Morrow in May
to coincide with the Chinese New Year. The event was
splendidly catered and featured some of the best Chinese
dim sum this correspondent has encountered.
•
Otto Penzler’s reception for Michele Slung
at his Mysterious Bookshop to celebrate the publication
of her latest anthology, Stranger (HarperPerennial),
featured publishers-turned-writers Joe Kanon
and Amanda Vail, Voice fashion columnist
Lynn Yaeger, NY Post drama critic Donald
Lyons, as well as fans that included agents
Nat Sobel, Vicki Bijur, and veteran editor
(responsible for the current hit, The Red Tent) Bob
Wyatt.
•
Barney Rosset displayed another side of his mercurial
and talented self at the opening of his collection of
war photographs taken in China (where he was in the
US Army Signal Corps Photographic Services) at the Janos
Gat Gallery, where there was much whispering about
his autobiography just sold to Gerry Howard at
Broadway.
•
And the tireless Michael Pollan showed just
what it takes (again and again) to sell books (The
Botany of Desire is now up to 110,000 copies since
last May) at The Stegner Circle (“Readings by
Writers of the Land”) benefit lecture on behalf of the
Trust for Public Land held at the New York School
of Interior Design.
Mazel
Tov
Happy Birthday to AMS,
20 years old and now the proud owner of PGW;
to Trafalgar Square, 30, and with a total of
50 clients, eight of them new. Also, best wishes to
Aperture, which celebrates its 50th anniversary
by a group that included Minor White, Ansel
Adams, and Dorothea Lange. And to the Today
Show’s literary editor Andrea Smith, recently
honored by the AAP. And it’s the show’s 50th
anniversary too this year.
©2002
Publishing Trends
