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Executive
Moves, Book Deals, and More Industry News
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (AUGUST 2003)
People
Mary Albi has
been named VP Sales & Marketing in the New York
office of the Continuum International Publishing
Group. She was most recently VP Sales & Marketing
at Phaidon Press . . . Roy Levenson has
been named VP Finance & Operations at Barnes
& Noble Publishing, reporting to Alan Kahn.
He was previously at Hearst, S&S,
and Time Warner.
Stephen
Morrison, Senior Editor at
Penguin, is leaving for Bloomsbury
USA, where he will be Rights Director/ Executive
Editor of Paperbacks, beginning on October 1. He will
handle domestic and foreign rights (working with Ruth
Logan in the London office) and will run Bloomsbury’s
growing paperback list. . . Ann Godoff, President
and Publisher of The Penguin Press, announced that Tracy
Locke has been appointed Associate Publisher, responsible
for marketing and publicity, but with “involvement in
all aspects of the publishing program.” Her appointment
is effective September 2. Locke was Associate Director
of Publicity at Holt.
Lesley
A. Martin has been named Executive Editor at
Aperture Books. She was most recently at
Umbrage Editions and had previously been Managing
Editor at Aperture. She will report to Aperture Foundation’s
Executive Director, Ellen Harris.
Following on the termination of 75 people (more than
100 positions were eliminated when unfilled positions
are taken into account), S&S has made a hire:
Michael Burkin from Hyperion to be VP,
Director of Field Sales and Distribution Client Services.
He replaces Roger Williams, who may be reached
at rswilliams@flashnote.net.
And former GQ Managing Editor Martin Beiser
has joined the Free Press as a Senior Editor.
Meanwhile, Marie McCullough, one of those terminated,
had been Subsidiary Rights Manager. She may be reached
at (212) 779-7657 or mariemmccullough@yahoo.com.
Also on the termination list was Al Talisse,
VP, Operations (along with “several of my managers”).
He may be reached at (917) 751-7347. And Marcela
Landres, who handled the Libros en Espanol line,
can be contacted through her website: marcelalandres.com.
Amanda Mecke is taking the early retirement package
at Bantam Dell. Sharon Swados is taking
over the department as VP, Director of Sub Rights. Mecke
will be working with Clear Agenda, a company
that does strategic communications and branding projects
for nonprofits. She may be reached at Amecke@earthlink.net.
Little Random’s Deborah Aiges has also
taken the package, effective immediately.
It must be in the air: Wiley announces that Carole
Hall, Editor-in-Chief of African American interest
books, has “retired to pursue independent publishing
ventures.”
Deborah
Baker has left Little, Brown, and is taking
a sojourn in India.
Former NAL Executive Editor Audrey LeFehr
has been named Editorial Director of Kensington.
And Lynn Bond, formerly of RH Value,
has been named Director of Sales and New Business.
Still no word, according to David Naggar, on
a replacement for Christine McNamara, who moved
from Publisher of Random Audio to VP, Director of Sales
for Random House Information Group, Adult Audio, Value
and Large Print divisions.
Promotions
Liz Perl has
been promoted to Associate Publisher of Perigee/HP
Books and Associate Publisher of Riverhead Trade
Paperbacks. She has worked at the company since January
1994. Since then, she has risen from Publicity Director
to Vice President, Executive Publicity Director and
in 2001 she was also named Marketing Director. In other
announcements, Denise Silvestro and Gail Fortune
were each promoted to the title of Executive Editor
of Berkley.
As announced elsewhere, Susan Weinberg has been
named to the newly created position of Publisher of
the HarperCollins imprint and will also serve
as Co-Publisher of trade paperbacks companywide along
with Morrow Avon Publisher Michael Morrison.
David Roth-Ey, recently of Bookspan,
reports to the pair as Editorial Director of Perennial,
Quill, and the new suspense line Dark Alley. Alison
Callahan was promoted to Senior Editor. In other
promotions, Carie Freimuth will be both Publishing
Director of ReganBooks, reporting to Judith
Regan, and Group Publishing Director of the Harper
General Books Group. Carrie Kania moves up to
Associate Publisher of the HarperTrade division. Freimuth
has announced that Ana Maria Allessi has been
promoted to Associate Publisher of HarperAudio and Harper
Large Print, succeeding Kania. Jean Marie Kelly
has been promoted to Group Marketing Director.
Duly
Noted
The Bookseller
reports that the UK Office of Fair Trading has warned
Frankfurt exhibitors to “read the small print” before
signing up to book fair directories, after more than
236 companies found themselves unwittingly committed
to a three-year advertising contract. The company that
hoodwinked them, Construct Data, refers in its
letter to “your existing free line-entry,” in their
Fair Guide, but charges €971 a year and — as the owners
of Publishing Trends have found out — they are
dogged in their efforts to collect. The UK Directories
& Database Publishers Association has urged publishers
not to pay up, even when faced with threats (which include
verbal abuse, according to our well-placed sources).
The official FF website (www.frankfurt-book-fair.com)
contains a warning about directory fraud, as well as
a legal letter that may be copied and sent to the company.
•
On the day of its publication party for Wall Street
financier Eddie Gilbert, Texere, in which
Swiss Re had a majority ownership, announced
its sale to Thomson’s South-Western division.
Myles Thompson, Texere’s founder, has joined
South-Western as Publisher.
•
Steven Sorrentino was the Director of Publicity
for HarperCollins. His first book, Luncheonette,
has been sold by agent Stuart Krichevsky to ReganBooks.
It is the story of four years in Sorrentino’s life when
he was forced by his father’s illness to return to run
the family business. “So much for the high life in Manhattan,”
says Krichevsky’s letter to editors. “Sorrentino would
instead spend the next four years behind the counter
at Clint’s Corner, serving up breakfast and lunch to
the locals at the joint that had been his father’s watering
hole (and the center of small town civic life in West
Long Branch, New Jersey) for as long as Steven could
remember. . . . Clint Sorrentino may have been confined
to a wheelchair, but he would never lose his optimism,
his determination, or the opportunity for a good wisecrack.
Seemingly oblivious to the constant medical setbacks
that would have stopped a lesser man in his tracks,
Clint Sorrentino would manage to further his career
in local politics, becoming the town’s first Democratic
mayor in 56 years, and was eventually elected to four
terms as the beloved ‘Mayor on Wheels.’”
•
The August issue of Fast Company features
an article (with pics) entitled “Books that Matter.”
Some are pretty predictable: Larry Johnston,
the Chairman and CEO of Albertson’s, likes Execution.
Bob Nardelli, President and CEO of Home Depot,
favors The Experience Economy. But then things
get fun: Chuck Williams was on a buying trip
for Williams-Sonoma in 1959 when he came across
Les Recettes de Maple, about simple French cooking,
and the rest is culinary publishing history. Maureen
Egen read GWTW when she was 11, and it “put
me on my career track.” James Billington, the
LC’s Librarian, chose Dostoyevsky: “I
can’t say that I’ve ever been surprised or shocked by
any political developments in the real world, because
I met most of them during my sophomore year of college
in The Possessed.”
•
The San Francisco Chronicle writes that Louis
Borders, co-founder with his brother of the eponymous
retailer (and founder of the now-bankrupt Webvan),
is at it again: he just launched KeepMedia .com,
a site that aims to make money by charging a monthly
subscription for access to the archives of 140 magazines
and newspaper columns, going back 10 years.
©2003
Publishing Trends
