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Executive Moves, Book
Deals, and More Industry News
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (DECEMBER 2003)
People
November brought some
big moves in the industry, with Bill Barry going
to DK as President, after a hiatus of two years
(he had been at Hungry Minds when it was sold
to Wiley) and Jim Jordan, Director of
the Johns Hopkins University Press moving to
Columbia University Press as President and Director
(as of January, 2004). There were some departures, too:
Shelley Pierce left Children’s Book-of-the-Month
Club where she has been Editor-in-Chief for the past
year. And Jeanine Laddomada, Editor of the Venus
Book Club, as well as DBC, has also left for
B&N.
Other news of the month: Leigh Haber, who was
most recently Executive Editor at Hyperion, is
going to Rodale as Editor-at-Large, acquiring
and editing “ten or so” nonfiction titles per year.
In addition to her work at Rodale, she will continue
representing and editing projects on an independent
basis. She and Heather Jackson, who joined Rodale
as Executive Editor in Women’s Health Books, will report
to Tami Booth, VP, Editor-in-Chief of Women’s
Health Books. And Pete Fornatale is working on
a freelance basis in acquisitions and editing, for the
Men’s Health and Sports areas, reporting to Jeremy
Katz. Miriam Backes has joined Rodale as
Senior Editor, Cookbooks, working primarily on the direct
mail side. She and Jackson report to Margot Schupf,
Executive Editor, Lifestyle Books.
Olga
Vezeris has become Executive Editor, HarperAudio.
She was previously at Time Warner Publishing.
. . Leah Nathan Spero has gone to HarperBusiness
as Senior Editor. She was a journalist at Business
Week covering Wall Street and a writer for Talk
Magazine. Pamela Spengler-Jaffee has joined
Morrow Avon as Assistant Director of Publicity,
reporting to Debbie Stier. She was previously
at the PR firm of Trahan, Burden & Charles,
Inc. where she worked on the introduction of Red
Dress Ink for Harlequin Enterprises.
Lisa
Considine has gone to Holt as Senior
Editor, reporting to Jennifer Barth. She was
most recently at Wiley and before that, at S&S.
. . Ann Forstenzer has gone to Learning Resources,
an educational toy/game manufacturer and publisher of
teacher-related materials located in Vernon Hills, IL.
She is VP, Special Markets, working from home. She was
most recently at Millbrook.
Wendy Nicholson, VP, Executive Director of Public
Relations for S&S Adult Trade, announced her retirement
after 30 years. As of January she may be reached at
nicholsonw@nyc.rr.com.
And Simon Tasker is leaving Scholastic trade
to go to S&S, reporting to B.J. Gabriel in
Sales, taking Mara Anastas’ place as National
Accounts Director, Children’s. . . John Ziccardi
has been named President of Sales for Kidsbooks,
a promotional children’s book publisher. He spent most
of his career at Bantam.
Peterson’s, the test-prep and reference publishing
division of Thomson, has hired Del Franz
as Editor-in-Chief. Franz previously served as Executive
Editor at Kaplan. He replaces Laurie Barnett,
SparkNotes’ Editorial Director. . . Karen
Holt, most recently at Publishers Weekly’s
PW Newsline, and previously Editor of Book Publishing
Report, has joined the editorial staff at
ForeWord as ForeSight Features Editor
. . . Martha Reddington, former Director of Special
Sales at HarperCollins and S&S, announces the formation
of Reddington Resources, where she will be a certified
consultant for ACT!™, the world’s number one
contact database management program. The Penguin
Publishing Group is her first confirmed client. Go to
www.reddingtonresources.com.
Rebecca
Strong has formed the Rebecca Strong International
Literary Agency. She was most recently at Crown,
in subrights and editorial. She may be reached via email
at rstrongtho@aol.com
or (718) 499-6697.
More restructuring at Fodor’s, with President
and Publisher Alison Gross and Associate Publisher
Ensley Eikenburg being the first casualties.
David Naggar, the Random Information Group President,
will name a new team shortly.
Where are they now? Thomas Middelhoff, now a
Managing Director at Investcorp, and who was
elected to the NYT Board of Directors
in September, attended his first meeting in New York
in November. And Dick Snyder, most recently head
of the ill-fated Golden (the assets of which
were sold 2 ˝ years ago) turned up on the front page
of the NYT recently in an article about Edgar
Bronfman, whom Snyder is advising on his purchase
of Warner Music.
Duly
Noted
On the 20th anniversary
of The Thurber House, and after a three-year
hiatus, the Thurber Prize will be given to the author
and publisher of the outstanding book of humor writing
published in the United States in the last year. Go
to www.thurberhouse.org
for submission guidelines. (Thurber House is now run
by NY publishing veteran Susanne Jaffe.)
• The BBC reports that the British
Library has reached an agreement with Amazon.co.uk
by which the BL’s catalogue, which has records of approximately
2.5m books, has been integrated on the Amazon website.
The service is geared towards people in the antiquarian
and second-hand book trade to assist those customers
who have requests for older book titles.
•
This week Bookreporter.com
launched FaithfulReader.com, “the 7th website in The
Book Report Network.” The website is edited for Christian
readers, and offers reviews, author interviews, a monthly
poll, question and even Word of Mouth. The Book Report
Network claims “more than 515,000 unique visitors” read
the websites in the Network during 1,218,246 visitor
sessions each month.
•
Tina Jordan, Special Events & Public Relations
Director for BookExpo America, has invited anyone
interested in submitting conference or author panel
suggestions for the BEA Latin American and Latino Author
Forum, as well as the Latin American & Latino Buzz
Workshop featuring editors from US and Latin American
based publishing houses, to contact her by Dec. 19.
She may be reached at tjordan@reedexpo.com.
•
And speaking of things multicultural, Adweek
is offering a Multicultural Marketing in America
directory, claiming it’s the first directory to cover
advertising, media, and marketing. It lists US multicultural
agencies, PR firms, brand marketers, and the media (radio,
TV, cable, magazines and newspapers) targeting Hispanic/Latino,
African-American, and Asian-American consumers. The
directory will detail “over 2,200 companies and more
than 13,000 key personnel leading the drive to reach
these expanding markets and provide trends, analysis
and projections.”
December
Events
City Lights
celebrates its 50th anniversary on December 3 at 8 pm
at the NYC Poetry Project at 131 East 10th Street. General
Admission is $8 and CL’s Elaine Katzenburger
and Ira Silverberg are hosts. Contact stacy@citylights.com
for more details.
•
Oscar Dystel, the former President and CEO of Bantam
Books (and whose employees now run many of the publishers
in New York), will be interviewed by Christopher
Lehmann-Haupt on December 9, 6-7:30 pm, at the Small
Press Center, 20 W. 44th St., New York City. Tickets
are $10 for non-members; $5 for members. For more info
go to smallpress.org or
call (212) 764-7021.
Parties
Beacon Press celebrated
its 150th anniversary on November 13 (though the actual
anniversary is in early 2004). It claims to be the country’s
oldest nonprofit press, with a list of authors that
includes Pablo Neruda, James Baldwin,
and Edwidge Dandicat. Authors, staff members,
and friends of the press attended a party in Boston
to commemorate the independent press’ sesquicentennial.
Mazel
Tov
Congratulations to HarperCollins/
ReganBooks’ Carie Freimuth and Perseus’s
John Hughes on their forthcoming marriage.
©2003
Publishing Trends
