PEOPLE
Change is the constant in publishing at the moment: Bookspan cut its staff by about a dozen people, including longtimers Norm Schneider, VP Marketing, and Nancy Whitin, who oversaw the Specialty Clubs, including The Good Cook, History, Crafters, Country Homes, Military, Stage & Screen, Mystery Guild, etc.
Natalie Chapman has been named VP, Publisher, Culinary Books at Wiley. She was most recently at Creative Homeowner Press. Will Kiester has been named publisher of a packaged line of coedition books at Quarto Publishing. He will be based in New York and was formerly Senior Editor at Black Dog & Leventhal. Jill Bernstein has gone to Ecco Press as Director of Publicity. She was previously VP, PR Publishing at Meredith. Mark Bryant has gone to HarperCollins as Executive Editor, reporting to Susan Weinberg. He was most recently at Men’s Journal.
Kate Folkers has left FSG and has been named Sr. Marketing manager for Adult Books at Harcourt. Both she and husband Steve Kasdin, who has been named Director of Marketing for Harcourt Children’s, will be moving to San Diego. Kasdin had been Associate Marketing Director at Scholastic. . . Chris Knutsen, who came over from the New Yorker, is leaving Riverhead. Wendy Carlton is leaving New York but not Riverhead, and will remain Nick Hornby’s editor.
Tom Stewart has been named Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Business Review, which was purportedly looking for a “thought leader” to succeed the infamous Suzy Wetlaufer. He will commute from NY to Cambridge. Most recently he wrote a column for Time Inc.’s Business 2.0 and was on the Board of Editors at Fortune. But previous to his magazine publishing, he held several positions in book publishing, including President and Publisher of Atheneum.
More on children’s: Liza Baker has been named Editorial Director, Hyperion Books for Children, replacing Andrea David Pinckney, who went to Houghton Mifflin in May as Publisher of Children’s. Carol Roeder, S&S Children’s VP, Sub. Rights and International Markets, has left the company. SVP Alan Smagler is looking for her replacement. . . HarperCollins’ Susan Katz announced “with deep regret” that Harriett Barton, VP and Creative Director of Children’s Books, has retired. Barton began at T.Y. Crowell and joined HC in 1977 when Harper bought the company. . . Following the departure of Maria Modugno, Editor-in-Chief of the children’s book division, Little, Brown VP and Publisher David Ford announced that Megan Tingley has become VP, Associate Publisher and Editor-in-Chief while continuing to acquire titles for her eponymous imprint. Bill Boedeker, currently VP Marketing, has also been named Associate Publisher . . . Gary Richardson has been named Publisher, McGraw-Hill Children’s Publishing, Education. Previously he had been at Zonderkidz. Finally, Phyllis Fogelman, longtime children’s book editor and publisher, has resigned as VP Publisher of her own imprint at Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers.
Bloomsbury USA Editorial Director Karen Rinaldi takes over as Publisher in December, when Alan Wherry retires. As Wherry puts it, “Enough is enough” after 43 years of working.
As announced earlier, reorganization at Random continues apace, with David Naggar moving into the position of President of Random Audio and Diversified Publishing Group, reporting to Jenny Frost, and Christine McNamara becoming VP, Publisher of Random Adult Audio. Mary Beth Roche, who was Publishing Director of Random’s Audible.com, goes to Holtzbrinck’s Audio Renaissance (which recently relocated from the West Coast) as Publisher starting November 18. Robert Allen’s position of President, Random Audio has been eliminated. To the delight of many, Don Weisberg returns as head of the Random House sales group, while remaining EVP/COO. Michael Palgon has been promoted to EVP of Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group. He was most recently SVP Deputy Publisher.
After a short stint at Scribner, Ileene Smith lands at Holt, where she’ll serve as Executive Editor, reporting to Jennifer Barth. . . Molly Lyons has been named Associate Editor at Lifetime magazine, handling all the book coverage. Lyons was previously at SELF.
As reported elsewhere, Stephen Hanselman, Publisher and Editorial Director of HarperSanFrancisco, has been promoted to SVP, Publisher of a new general books division that combines HarperSanFrancisco and HarperInformation. Hanselman announced that Mickey Maudlin is joining HSF as Editorial Director. He had been at Christianity Today International. In addition, Mark Tauber returns to HSF as Associate Publisher. He had left to be a founding partner of Internet start-up Beliefnet.com and Agora Media. Tauber will oversee marketing and sales, and assist Hanselman in running the division.
NOVEMBER DATES
The Small Press Center launches the third in its series of Interviews With Great Publishers on Nov. 12. Tom McCormack, former CEO of St. Martin’s and author of Endpapers, which just closed after a four month run, will be interviewed by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt at Small Press Center on 20 W. 44th from 6 to 7:30. Go to www.smallpress.org.
• Also on November 12 is the Mercantile Library’s “Rare Books, Fine Wines” gala evening, co-hosted with Bookspan and Jeroboam Wines, at which The Clifton Fadiman Medal for Excellence in Fiction will be presented. Call (212) 755-6710 or contact mercantile_library@msn.com.
• November 20, 2002 is the date for this year’s National Book Awards gala at the New York Marriott Marquis. Tickets are $1,000, but for $100 you can sip wine and eat canapes with the best of ’em before dinner. Contact natbkfd@mindspring.com or go to www.nationalbook.org.
LOOKING AHEAD
On Wed., December 4, HarperCollins’ Larry Ashmead, bookseller Roxanne Coady, PW’s Daisy Maryles, Little, Brown’s Michael Pietsch, and moderator Gayle Feldman will discuss “Best and Worst of Times: Best Books vs. Bestsellers in a Changing Business.” The event, which takes place at Columbia Journalism School (Lecture Hall, 3rd Floor) at 116th and Broadway, is sponsored by the National Arts Journalism Program at the Columbia Journalism School, and co-sponsored by the Women’s Media Group.
DULY NOTED
In the webbed world: Arts & Letters Daily, a site that died earlier in October, has been resurrected after the Chronicle of Higher Education acquired it, according to The Chronicle’s website, along with the assets of its parent company, which published the magazine Lingua Franca. The sale is expected to close imminently.
• comScore Networks, which tracks e-commerce, reported very strong sales for the third quarter of 2002. Total consumer online sales for the quarter reached $17.9 billion, up 35% versus the third quarter of 2001, and up 2% versus the second quarter of 2002. Year-to-date sales through Sept. 30 totaled $52.5 billion, up 41% versus the same period in 2001, and nearly equal to the $53.1 billion in spending posted in all of 2001. Books are up 10% versus last year, to $538 million, though the 4th quarter is what profitability hinges on.
PARTIES & EVENTS
Join agent Tom Wallace, publisher of Old Earth Books‘s Michael Walsh, and the Gotham Book Mart’s Andreas Brown to celebrate the republication of Edward (Ted) Whittemore’s Jerusalem Quartet — including his first novel, Quin’s Shanghai Circus, all originally published by Wallace at Holt — at the Gotham Book Mart on Monday, November 11 from 5 to 7 pm. It may be your last chance to visit the space before Brown moves.
• The publication of Al Silverman’s umpteenth book, It’s Not Over Till It’s Over: The Stories Behind the Most Magnificent Heart-Stopping Sports Miracles of Our Time (Overlook Press), was held at NYU’s Fales Library where Silverman has donated his papers, which include his editorial and research notes, as well as files on the selection process at BOMC, where he presided for many years. He was introduced by the Fales’ Marvin Taylor, who confessed he had come around to sports late in life, and Peter Mayer, who referred to him as “publishing’s pater familias.” Silverman then read from the Ali/Frazier fight in ’73 chapter where he referred to Ali as “the Yo-Yo Ma of sports.”
