PEOPLE
Changes in the far-flung HarperCollins realm: Carl Raymond has left ReganBooks to go to DK as Director of Marketing. Claudia Riemer Boutote has joined HarperSanFrancisco as Senior Director of Publicity. She was most recently at Workman as Marketing and Publicity Director. In New York, Mimi Kayden has been named Marketing Consultant at HarperCollins Children’s Books reporting to Diane Naughton and Susan Katz. Victoria Stapleton has been hired as Library Services Manager, from S&S. Meanwhile, HC announced that Josh Marwell has been appointed President of Sales. George Bick, SVP Sales Morrow/Avon, has been promoted to SVP Sales and now also oversees Field Sales. Brian Grogan, VP, Director of Distributor Sales, has been named SVP Distributor Sales, reporting to Bick. Nina Olmsted, VP of National Accounts, has been promoted to SVP. Mark Hillesheim, currently National Accounts Manager, has been named VP, Director of National Accounts and Backlist Sales for the General Books Group, reporting to both Bick and Olmsted. In a subsequent announcement, Carl Lennertz, VP Marketing, has been named to the newly created position of VP Independent Retailing, reporting to Marwell. Jeanette Zwart will become VP Sales, Eastern Region; Kristin Bowers has been promoted to VP Sales for the Western Region; both report to Bick. Charlie Trachtenbarg has been named Manager of Sales Analysis. He had previously been Regional Sales Manager.
Ex-S&S people are finding jobs around town: Bill Seibert was named Senior Director of Operations at Rodale. He was most recently VP Director of International Finance and Operations at S&S. Alan Smagler, who was most recently at S&S Children’s, has formed Smagler Associates, providing Executive Coaching and Management Consulting services. Smagler can be reached at (516) 295-5180 or coachsmag@aol.com. And Karen Weitzman (kweitzman@aol.com), former VP of Foreign Rights at S&S has agreed to act as the representative for Big Apple Tuttle-Mori Agency for China, which was previously handled by the Greenberger Agency. She joins longstanding U.K. reps, Anne Martyn and Nina Martyn, as well as French rep Marie-Pierre Robert.
Rich Kelley has moved from a consulting role to a permanent position as Director of Marketing and Membership for the NY Academy of Sciences. He was most recently SVP for Bookspan’s Computer and Science Clubs. In other Bookspan news, Joe Pittman has moved to the company’s Venus and Doubleday Book clubs, reporting to Sharon Fantera. Pittman was most recently at NAL, and has published two novels.
Nader Darehshori, previously CEO of Houghton Mifflin, has founded supplemental ed publisher Cambium Learning Inc. … Neal Goff has left Columbia House, where he had been consulting, to become EVP of Marketing at Weekly Reader Corp., reporting to the new President, Emily Swenson. … Natalie Kaire has gone to Clarkson Potter as Editor. She was most recently at Hyperion.
Ellen Beal has been named Editorial Director at Running Press. She was Director of Product Development at Berlitz International. Jennifer Kasius recently joined the company as a Senior Editor, from Crown. As of the end of March Running Press co-founder Buz Teacher will work part-time for the company, and CEO David Steinberger announced the new reporting structure: Executive Director of Sales John Whalen will become Group VP and Publisher for Running Press, dividing responsibilities for the division with COO Al Struzinski. Both will report to Steinberger. Matty Goldberg has been reassigned to Group VP and Director of Sales, reporting to new Perseus Group COO Joe Mangan.
Meanwhile, Associate Publisher Carlo DeVito has left Running Press for Penguin, where he will become Publisher of a new, yet-to-be-named, multi-faceted division, which will feature “book-plus” products, hardcover and paperback books, as well as other merchandise. And Counterpoint Publicist Patty Garcia has gone to Viking.
Publishers Lunch reports that Google has “bolstered their efforts to develop the beta feature Google Print into a major repository of online book text with the hiring of Tom Turvey.” He had been at ebrary, and before that, BN.com.
In retailing, Vin Altruda, who has been President of Borders international stores since 1997, has become President of Borders stores worldwide, assuming the responsibilities of Tami Heim, who had been president of Borders’ US stores for the last four years. Heim has resigned. Tanya Rojas has become B&N’s Director of Community Relations, replacing Judy Collins, who has left the company. Rojas previously worked as Senior Director of Communications at L’Oreal. Mary Carlomagno, who worked on marketing and sponsorships, has left the company.
PROMOTIONS
Geoff Shandler has been promoted to Editor-in-Chief at Little, Brown, a position previously held by Publisher Michael Pietsch. … Eileen Bishop Kreit has been promoted to VP Publisher at Puffin, succeeding Tracy Tang who has left the company. … Philip Turner has been promoted from Executive Editor to Editor-in-Chief of Carroll & Graf Publishers, as well as to Senior Director of the Avalon Group.
MARCH EVENTS
Romantic Times Booklovers Convention will be in NY March 24-28 and brings writers, publishers, agents, and fans together. Romance editors attending include Bantam’s Wendy Mcauley and Harlequin’s Isabel Swift. Agents include Anne Hawkins (Paul Reynolds), Nancy Coffey, and Meredith Bernstein. More than 100 writers will attend, with Barbara Taylor Bradford as a headliner. Registration is required for all options except the book fair. Go to www.romantictimes.com and click the NY Convention link or call (718) 237-1097 ext. 10.
• March is the eighth annual Small Press Month, organized by Small Press Center and Publishers Marketing Association (PMA). The theme for 2004 is “Let Every Voice Be Heard! Support America’s Independent Small Publishers,” and events include The Small Press Book Fair at the Small Press Center, 20 W. 44, March 27-28. Over 200 independent book and magazine publishers take part. Admission is free. For info call (212) 764-7021 or visit www.smallpress.org.
(Meanwhile AAP has announced a national conference for independent publishers, “2005 and Beyond,” on September 10 in New York. Contact Anne Garringer at agarringer@publishers.org.)
DULY NOTED
The 100th anniversary of Theodor Seuss Geisel’s birthday is on March 2, and Random House has created the “Seussentennial” to celebrate it. A yearlong tribute to Dr. Seuss, “Seussentennial: A Century of Imagination” began with a 40 city tour and includes a year-long rotating exhibit at the Geisel Library at the University of California, San Diego. Meanwhile, NEA’s Read Across America Day will be celebrated as usual on March 2.
• While on the subject, The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) writes about changes at the National Endowment for the Arts. NEA literature specialist Amy Stolls is quoted saying the NEA “did get an increase in funds” for 2005. She says NEA guidelines are now only available online at www.nea.gov. Stolls is available at (202) 682-5771.
• To celebrate its eight years of existence, comScore re-released the January 1996 Media Metrix Website rankings alongside the January 2004 ranking of the top Internet properties, together with some interesting stats: The number of Internet users has grown from about 20 million in 1996 to 152 million in 2004; while broadband was almost unknown in 1996, today 35-plus percent of home Internet users have broadband; e-commerce was almost non-existent in 1996. Spending in 2004 will easily surpass $100 billion. The top sites of 1996: Aol.com; Webcrawler.com; Netscape.com. The top sites of 2004: Yahoo! Sites; MSN-Microsoft Sites; Time Warner Network.
In January alone, 83.5 million Americans, or 55% of Internet users, visited either eBay (ranked fourth) or Amazon (sixth). On that note, Kosmo Kalliarekos of the consultancy The Parthenon Group stated at the recent AAP meeting that a used book is “ flipped” online five times — a number that “will doubtless expand.”
