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.
