Book View
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (SEPTEMBER 2004)
People
Maureen O’Neal has left
Ballantine and can be reached by email at mrnoneal@aol.com.
Elizabeth Dyssegaard is also leaving at the end
of the summer.
Katherine
Beitner to HarperCollins as Associate Publishing
Director. She was Director of Publicity for Harmony
and Shaye Areheart Books.
In children’s books there is more movement: Last month
Diana Blough left Random House Children’s, where
she was Director of Marketing, for the same position
at Bloomsbury. She has hired Debra Shapiro
as Senior Publicity Manager. Shapiro was Publicity Manager
at Holt children’s. Marketing Director Sharon
Hancock has also left Holt’s children’s division
to be Executive Marketing Director at Candlewick.
... Kenn Goin has gone to the Korean-based children’s
publisher Bearport — a translation of Woongjin
into English — as President and Publisher. He was Editorial
Director at Learning Horizons, part of American
Greetings. Finally, Jackie Carter has been
named VP, Publisher — Children’s Press &
Franklin Watts. She was previously at Disney
and will join Scholastic as of September 7.
Joyce Stein is joining Hylas Publishing as
Director of Marketing and Public Relations. She was
most recently with Kingfisher. ... PW reports
that Gene Brissie, most recently President of
the James Peter Associates Agency, has been named
Editor-in-Chief of Kensington’s Citadel Press.
Speaking of agencies, two new literary agencies are
joining the fray: Mary Hall Mayer has formed
The Hall Agency, which represents literary and
licensing projects. The address: 69 Fifth Avenue, 11th
floor, NY 10003. Tel: (212) 675-6259 or email maryhallmayer@aol.com.
Larry Weissman recently launched the eponymous
agency and may be reached at larryweissman@earthlink.net.
... Manie Baron is leaving William Morris
and may be reached at manie@nyc.rr.com.
Jake
Morrissey returns to book publishing from the licensing
world (he worked for United Media, after stints
at Harmony and Scribner), as Executive
Editor of Riverhead. ... Andrew Mandel
will join FSG as EVP and Deputy Publisher on
September 20. He was General Manager at Workman
and before that, was at HarperCollins. Workman does
not plan to fill the position at this time.
Adrian
Sington, previously with E-Substance and Macmillan/Boxtree,
has acquired a minority shareholding in Virgin Books
and is joining as Executive Chairman of the board. Ray
Brash has also joined the company as COO from The
Economist Intelligence Unit, where he was Finance
Director. KT Forster remains as Managing Director.
Randy
Charles, SVP of Customer Relationship Marketing
since February 2003 is leaving the company. His
position will not be filled, but Bill Ostroff, who
comes from EMI and to whom he reported, will
oversee this area. He is President, Rodale Interactive,
and Chief Marketing Officer.
Ron
Longe has been appointed Director of Publicity at
Stewart, Tabori & Chang. He was previously
Director of Marketing and Publicity for Routledge,
and has worked in publicity at Viking Penguin,
HarperCollins, and St. Martin’s.
Brenda Segel has two new people in the Rights Department.
Margaret Pai joins HarperCollins from Bulfinch,
and was previously at Little, Brown, Macmillan
and Knopf. Sandy Bontemps Hodgman joins
HarperCollins from the Kathy Robbins Agency.
Last month all the publicity jobs changed hands. This
month, it’s the sales departments’ turn:
Jack
Perry has left SourceBooks and Sean Murray
has been promoted to National Sales Manager Trade Group.
. . . At Little Brown the sales department hired
Celeste Risko, formerly a buyer at Borders,
as National Accounts Manager to replace Jennifer
O’Donohue, who went to Penguin. ... Pamela
Smith has been named VP, Sales for Ingram
Library Services. She was previously Chief Marketing
Officer at Baker & Taylor. ... Sharon
Huerta joins Abrams as Trade Sales Manager.
She was most recently a Special Sales Representative
at Penguin Putnam. ... PGW’s Kim Wylie
announces the hiring of Sue Ostfield as National
Accounts Director in NY, replacing Kevin Votel
as he leaves to becoming VP, Marketing for PGW in California.
Ostfield comes from Holt where she was Associate Director
of National Accounts. ... Pat Rozell has left
Motorbooks where she was Trade Sales Manager,
to go to Readers Digest.
At Quarto, Richard Green has been hired
as Publisher of Marshall Editions. He was head
of publishing for Children’s Learning at BBC
Worldwide.
Phaidon
Press announced that Chris North has become
MD, working out of its London headquarters. North was
most recently at HarperCollins, first in New
York and later in Toronto as COO of HarperCollins Canada.
Magali
Veillon has gone to Abrams as Group Publishing
Manager. She was in charge of international rights and
sales for Black Dog and Leventhal.
Todd
Doughty has moved from Random House to Warner Books,
as Assistant Director of Publicity.
Promotions
Marisa Bulzone has been promoted to Executive Editor
at Stewart, Tabori & Chang. Last month Debbie
Yost joined the company as Senior Editor, Lifestyle
Books. PublicAffairs Publicity Director Gene
Taft is getting the additional title of Assistant
Publisher and Lisa Kaufman, Director of Marketing
adds the title of Senior Editor. Roger Freet
has been named a Senior Editor for Harper San Francisco.
Kate Travers has been promoted to Editor of Harper
Perennial.
At S&S, Jen Bergstrom has been promoted to
Publisher of the Simon Spotlight Entertainment and Simon
Spotlight imprints.
Book
Now For These Events
AAP’s Committee for Smaller and Independent Publishers
hosts “2005 And Beyond,” on September 10 at American
Conference Center, 780 Third Avenue. Topics include
“New Internet Opportunities,” “Mining the Library Market,”
and “Getting Media Coverage.” Presenters and panelists
include AAP CEO Pat Schroeder, John
Crutcher, Publisher of Bloomberg Press, Erick
Goss, Senior Manager of Book Buying at Amazon,
USA Today’s Deirdre Donahue, NPR
Producer Melissa Eagan, MPI’s Constance
Sayre and NYTBR’s Sam Tanenhaus.
For information contact Kathryn Blough, at
212 255-0200 or kblough@publishers.org.
• American Book Producers Association presents “Making
Books Happen: Book Producing Today” on October 26
at The Players Club, 16 Gramercy Park South. Panelists
include Walker Books’ George Gibson, publishing
veteran Jason Epstein, B&N’s Alan
Kahn, and the apparently ubiquitous Sam Tanenhaus.
Email office@apbaonline.org
for
more info.
Duly
Noted
Legendary
publisher Oscar Dystel will be inducted
into the 2005 Life Hall of Fame at the Books
for a Better Life gala on February 28. The event,
which benefits the National MS New York City
Chapter, takes place at the Millennium Broadway 145
West 44th Street in New York. The Event Chair is Steve
Murphy, President and CEO Rodale.
•
Sally Wood, President of Pearson Education’s
Family Entertainment Network, tells PT about
a book publishing event that is taking place online,
with more than a million children reading the fictional
journal of a 7th grader in Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Greg
Heffley’s Journal, at Funbrain.com, FEN’s education
site. The journal, which is written and illustrated
by online game designer and comic strip author Jeff
Kinney, was launched on May 20 and does not yet
have an offline publisher. In September, Funbrain.com
will relaunch Diary of a Wimpy Kid and run it
one day at a time, corresponding with the actual days
of the school calendar.
Memoriam
Celebrate
the life of Roger W. Straus on Wednesday, September
29, 2004, at 3 p.m. at The Unterberg Poetry Center at
the 92nd Street YM-YWHA, 1395 Lexington Avenue
in New York.
©2004
Publishing Trends
