PEOPLE
There’s been major movement in publishing these last few weeks of summer, which PT will recap for those who have been literally or figuratively out of it:
Kara Welsh has been named VP, Publisher of New American Library, reporting to Leslie Gelbman. She was VP, Deputy Publisher at Pocket Books. And Therese Burke, formerly President of Sales for HarperCollins, has moved to DK (now also part of Penguin Putnam) as VP Sales and Marketing. Finally, PP-wise, Brant Janeway has been promoted to the position of Director of Marketing and Publicity for Plume Books. He was previously Publicity Manager.
Kris Puopolo is leaving S&S and moving to Broadway as Senior editor, according to Gerry Howard, and will “be acquiring books in both hardcover and trade paperback in the key areas for Broadway of spirituality, self-help and inspiration as well as in general nonfiction.”
Paul Dinas, formerly Editor-in-Chief at Kensington, has become Executive Editor of Select Editions at Reader’s Digest. Meanwhile, Reader’s Digest magazine named Jacqueline Leo VP and US Editor-in-Chief. She was most recently at Meredith Interactive.
Nader F. Darehshori, Chairman, President, and CEO of Houghton Mifflin, announced on August 15 that, with its purchase by Vivendi Universal, “approximately 60 corporate positions have been identified as duplicative and will be eliminated,” though some might be offered other jobs in the new corporate empire. Meanwhile, Gail Deegan, EVP, CFO; Elizabeth Hacking, SVP, Strategic Development; and Gary Smith, SVP, Administration, will be leaving Houghton Mifflin, effective October 1, 2001.
Rich Freese has been named President and CEO of MBI Publishing, aka Motorbooks, in St. Paul, MN. He was formerly SVP of National Book Network . . . Jim Nichols has been named Sales and Marketing Director for Consortium Book Distributors. He was formerly at Kodansha. . . Anna Johnson has moved from Scholastic to Bloomsbury USA as Marketing Director for their Children’s Book division, launching Spring 2002. She joins Editorial Director Victoria Wells.
Some doings in the art world: Max Anderson, Director of the Whitney, announced that Garrett White has been named Director of Publications and New Media. He had been Director of Publications at the LA County Museum of Art. (Meanwhile, David Ross, the previous director of the Whitney, who went on to SFMoMA three years ago, resigned from that directorship in mid-August.) Richard Dobbs, formerly the Book Manager at MoMA, has landed at the Metropolitan as the new Coeditions and Reprints Manager for Special Publications. And the Museum of Modern Art, MoMA Retail has announced the appointment of Norman Laurila to the position vacated by Dobbs last year. Laurila was the owner of A Different Light Bookstores (New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco), which he founded in 1979 and sold last year.
Cameron Brown is leaving Cameron Brown/Chrysalis on August 31. “Having helped to get us through a very difficult period and deliver a solution which protected most people’s jobs and ensured that all suppliers were paid, I feel it is now time to move on,” he says. “I have no specific plans for the moment but am looking at a number of different options.”
DEALS
Big deal to report: three books by Clark Howard, who is a consumer advocate and the #3 daytime radio talk show host in the country, went to Hyperion for $1.5 million. Laurie Liss agented the deal, which consists of a book previously published by Longstreet Press, plus two new projects.
Broadway’s Charlie Conrad bought world English rights to An Italian in America by Beppe Severignini. It is “an Italian journalist’s memoir of his year living in Georgetown and of the odd ways of Americans (at least as far as an Italian is concerned).” Published by Rizzoli in 1995, it sold more than 300,000 copies in Italy.
DULY NOTED
The Common Review, a quarterly magazine that The Great Books Foundation launched this month, is “intended to provoke serious thought and discussion among a general audience.” Subsequent issues will be available by subscription or single copy sale. The Great Books Foundation claims to reach more than a million students. For information call (800) 222-5870 or log on to www.greatbooks.org.
• Sales of The Wind Done Gone — whose net sales were originally projected at 15,000 — is “closing in on 200,000 copies,” Houghton Mifflin Publisher Wendy Strothman tells PT. She remarks, “Because of this case, The Wind Done Gone has entered the lexicon and is likely to be read and taught for decades.”
• Wendy Diamond, publisher of the celebrities-and-pets magazine Animal Fair, has loosed her latest pro bono book into the marketplace: Pets And Their Celebrities, with photos by Christopher Ameruoso and a foreword by John Travolta. The book includes pics of pets with Pamela Anderson, Janeane Garofalo, and Paula Abdul, and has a first printing of 80,000 copies. Every purchase also contributes to Last Chance for Animals. Get ’em while they last.
• Walker (ne Walter) Meade, publisher of Avon Books in the 1980s, has his debut murder mystery novel, Unspeakable Acts, coming from Upstart on September 20th, his 70th birthday!
SEPTEMBER DATES
Summer’s over — let the parties begin! On September 11 Book Industry Study Group celebrates 25 years at NY Public Library’s Trustees Room. Tickets: $100. Call Lisa Anzalone at (732) 583-0066.
• On September 19 Book magazine celebrates the “1 million subscriber milestone” at its 3rd anniversary party at the Puck Building. Invitation only. Call (212) 849-8258 for details.
• Also on the 19th, Kiepenheuer & Witsch mark their 50th year at a celebration at the Goethe Institute.
• On September 21, the Association of Authors’ Representatives celebrates its 10th anniversary at a gala event at the W Hotel in Union Square. Tickets: $50. Write AAR at PO Box 237201, Ansonia Station, NYC 10023 for tickets.
• Also in September. . . . The Ecco Press turns 30, and Goldberg McDuffie Communications celebrates its 20th year. Congrats to all.
• Senior & Shopmaker is hosting a reception for its latest exhibition, “A Private Reading: The Book as Image and Object,” a group show that “examines the book as metaphor in modern and contemporary art.” Thursday, September 13 from 6-8 at 21 E. 26th Street. Email gallery@seniorandshopmaker.com or call Betsy Senior (who is, coincidentally, married to Charlie Hayward (see August issue of PT) at 213-6767.
• EPM Communications is presenting a series of workshops on When To Target, When To Mainstream, September 10-12, 2001, at The Bottom Line Cabaret in New York. The three back-to-back conferences discuss marketing to women (Sept. 10), marketing to black, Hispanic, and Asian American markets (Sept. 11), and marketing to teens and tweens (Sept. 12). Contact EPM at (212) 941-0099.
• Will Lippincott, Publisher of Strategy + Business, tells us that the fourth quarter issue of the magazine will be devoted to business books and will include fourteen essays, written by various management gurus, each highlighting five or six titles. In addition, the magazine’s website is being relaunched Nov. 1 and will feature a list of the top 25 business books of the millennium, chosen by magazine editors, including Randall Rothenberg.
MAZELTOV
Congratulations to Peter Mayer and Inez Bon, proprietor of Dutch restaurant NL, who tied the knot on August 12th.
• Congrats to Golden’s Stephen Weitzen and wife Michelle, on the birth of Isabella Fredie Weitzen on Thursday, August 9th.
IN MEMORIAM
HarperCollins’ beloved Editor-in-Chief, Robert Jones, died on Aug. 13 after a long battle with cancer. His memorial will be at the University Club (1 West 54) at 3 pm on September 10. (Jacket and tie required.)
Albert Vitale, Chairman of International eBook Award Foundation (IEBAF), alerted us to the death from breast cancer of IeBAF’s President and Executive Director Roxanna Frost, who was 43.
