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Executive
Moves, Book Deals and More Industry News
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (AUGUST 2002)
People
We will skip over the Thomas
Middelhoff debacle, and move on to some moves that
are less well covered, including that by a Middelhoff
chronicler: The NYT’s David Kirkpatrick
is leaving the Book Beat, to cover media, focusing
on AOL Time Warner, along with Vivendi,
Bertelsmann, and News Corp. His replacement
will be named shortly.
Gerry Helferich resigned as VP Publisher of
General Interest Books at Wiley to write Humboldt’s
Cosmos. The proposal had been sold to Brendan
Cahill, who was then at Grove Atlantic, but
went to Bill Shinker’s newly named Gotham
imprint at Penguin. The book stays with Cahill.
Helferich may be reached at dusie54@hotmail.com.
Bob
Morton, formerly of Abrams, has been named
Editor-in-Chief at Aperture starting on August
1. Paul Gottlieb had been named Exec. Dir. of
Aperture shortly before his death. . . Peter De Giglio,
who had been Publisher of Princeton Review at
Random, has moved to Holtzbrinck, reporting
to Peter Garabedian, as VP Finance and Accounting.
. . Andy Carpenter has gone to Rodale as
Art Director. He had previously been Art Director at
(little) Random House.
Frank Daly has resigned as Exec. Dir. of BISG,
but the press release announcing his resignation and
the name of the incoming Exec. Dir. had not materialized
as of press time. . . Linda Biagi has left Little,
Brown, where she was VP Sub. Rights Director. .
. Ronni Stolzenberg has been hired as Marketing
Director for Sterling. She was previously at
the American Museum of Natural History. Robin
Strashun has left the company (and may be reached
at rstrashun@hotmail.com).
. . Suzanne Green has gone to Zagat Survey,
where she is in charge of New Business development.
She handled special sales at NBN. . . Sid
Albert is leaving Random House, after 24 years there,
as is Jack St. Mary, VP Director of Sales for
RH children’s book group, after twenty five years at
the company.
Laura Mathews, who landed at Martha Stewart
Living after leaving Penguin, is now covering books
for Redbook, and says she welcomes manuscripts
and galleys. Her phone number is (212) 787-3523, and
email is delaurence@msn.com.
. . Betty Kelly Sargent is moving into
her new office at the Wallace Agency, where she
will continue her work as a freelance writer and editor,
and will agent for a small group of writers whom she
worked with at Cosmo, Morrow, and HarperCollins.
Her new phone number will be (212) 570-9093. Email bsargent@earthlink.net.
Robin Theunisson has been named Sales Manager for
Modern Publishing. Formerly a book buyer for
Kmart, she will be based in Michigan and will
report to Richard Vreeland, VP Sales. . . Diane
Naughton announced that Anne Stavola is joining
HarperCollins Children’s Books as Executive Director
of Publicity. She had worked on a freelance basis for
New Line and Universal, and before
that was Director of East Coast Publicity for Universal.
. . Overlook has named former Continuum
Publicist Corrie Schoenberg as Publicity Manager,
replacing Bruce Mason, who has gone to Miramax.
The press has also hired Sara Rosenbloom, previously
of Grove, as a publicist. . . Carlisle &
Company has announced that Diane Gedymin
has become an “affiliate of the agency.” She had most
recently been Publishing Dir. of HarperSanFrancisco.
Riky
Stock will become manager of the German Book Office
in New York. She replaces Dr. Andrea Heyde, who is now
moving to Harcourt to take up an editorial position.
Frankfurt Book Fair announced last week that Volker
Neumann, who had been Managing Director of the Random
House publishing group in Germany, has been named the
new Director of the Frankfurt Book Fair.
Promotions
Candy Lee, former
CEO of Troll, has assumed new responsibilities
as President Consumer and Direct, for United Airlines
Loyalty Services, under the iFormation Group.
Lee went to iFormation last fall. . . Elise Howard
announced that Susan Rich has been named Executive
Editor, HarperCollins Children’s Books. Howard credits
Rich with Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate
Events, among other titles. . . Following the retirement
of Frank Kozelek, who had been at the company
for 27 years, Leslie Gelbman has announced the
promotion of Rich Hasselberger to VP, Executive
Art Director, Mass Market Books, overseeing both Berkley
and NAL imprints. He continues to art direct
for Dutton. Meanwhile Carole Baron announced
that Lisa Amaroso will become Exec. Art Dir.
for Putnam, Riverhead, Avery, and
Tarcher. She had been Senior Art Dir. . . And congrats
to everyone’s favorite mouthpiece, Stuart Applebaum,
who’s been promoted to the newly created position of
EVP Communications for Random House. Just in time, given
the recent announcement about Thomas Middelhoff.
Duly
Noted
Doubleday is publishing September 11: An Oral
History next month, and it’s comprised of first-person
accounts of that day. One of those who’s contributed
is Penguin Putnam’s Dick Heffernan, who
tells the moving story of his search for his son Chris,
who worked in the World Trade Center, a few floors below
his friend, Pete O’Neill. Chris finds his father before
he can get down to the burning towers, but Pete — who
worked for his uncle at Sandler O’Neill — is not so
lucky. Like all these stories, this is riveting stuff,
best read in reach of a box of kleenex.
•
Jeffrey Lependorf, Executive Director at CLMP
(Council of Literary Magazines and Presses) reminds
us that CLMP publishes a free, bimonthly Newswire
on independent literary publishing news. To subscribe,
e-mail rcasper@clmp.org
with Newswire Subscribe in the header.
•
Meanwhile in the August Fast Company,
Peter Olson explains how he takes three-week vacations
with no email or phone calls. “When I’m gone, I’m gone.”
•
Rumors abound that Abrams has sold its college
business to Prentice Hall. This includes Janson’s
History of Art. Prentice Hall had been selling
these books into the textbook market.
•
Now that Scholastic owns Grolier,
the push is on to sell Grolier’s and Scholastic’s mailing
lists in one pitch. We were impressed by some of the
numbers their list broker is touting: Scholastic At
Home, the former mailorder portion of Grolier, claims
7 million active members in its clubs, 3 million of
whom have young children (0-7), and 2.7 million of whom
are “older families” (7-18).
Parties
& Events
Little, Brown’s party for Alice Sebold’s
The Lovely Bones was held on July 30 at Flute
on West 54th. Larry Kirshbaum hosted the event,
and thanked everyone involved, including agent Henry
Dunow (“Behind every good author is a good agent”),
Sarah Burnes, and Sarah Crichton, who
were responsible for bringing it into the house, and
both of whom have since left. Kirshbaum announced that
there are now over 1 million copies in print.
Nan
Talese hosted a party in her elegant brownstone
for first time author Adam Haslett (You are
Not A Stranger Here) where other new young authors
such as Benjamin Anastas, Gabe Hudson,
Christopher Sorrentino, Shelley Jackson
and Minna Proctor rubbed shoulders with the likes
of Peter Olson, Jonathan Galassi, Luann
Walther, Jill Krementz, VF’s Wayne
Lawson, Salon’s Laura Miller, WSJ’s
Jeff Trachtenberg and superstar Jonathan Franzen
and his agent Susan Golomb. Haslett’s agent Ira
Silverberg declared that the entire process of putting
out the book restored his faith in publishing!
National Geographic hosted a panel discussion to
celebrate the publication of Power Lines by Jason
Carter, Jimmy Carter’s grandson. Both Carters
spoke, as did the Ambassador to the US from South Africa,
Sheila Makate Sisulu, and Jack Nelson,
retired Washington bureau Chief of the LA Times.
Afterward Nina Hoffman, President of the NGS
book division, reminisced with President Carter about
their long history together: Hoffman was at Bantam when
it published his first book, Keeping Faith, in
1982.
Memorial
A memorial service will
be held for Len Shatzkin on Monday, September
23rd, from 3 to 5 at the Ethical Culture Society on
Central Park West. Confirmed speakers include Tom
McCormack, Philip Turner, Ruth Cavin,
Chris Kerr, Ed Morrow, Bernie Rath,
and George Blagowidow.
©2002
Publishing Trends
