People
As Fall sets in, there are many jobs that are being vacated, created, and filled. Those leaving include Becky Cabaza, Editorial Director at Three Rivers/Crown, who is becoming a freelance editorial consultant. She can be reached at (973) 280-2429 and by e-mail at bcabaza@hotmail.com. … Susan Naythons, EVP Sales, is leaving PGW to spend more time with her family. There are no immediate plans to replace her. … Stephanie Fierman, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at Zagat, has left the company. She may be reached at sfierman@hotmail.com.
Jon Anderson, most recently at Penguin, has been named VP Creative Director at Running Press. … Allison Devlin, formerly of DK and most recently of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers has moved to Watson-Guptill as Marketing Director. … Jon Ackerman has been named Senior National Accounts Manager for Motorbooks. He was with Klutz Press.
Lisa Tomasello is stepping down as Director of Mass Merchandise Sales at S&S to follow her husband, who is relocating. However, she will take on the position of Retail Marketing Manager. Anne Zafian, VP Client Services at TW Books, will succeed her.
Publicity continues its volatility, with Seale Ballenger moving to Morrow-Avon as Director of Publicity. He held the same title at Atria Books. His former Associate Director at Atria, Ben Bruton, will follow him to Morrow. Bruton moved to Atria from Doubleday in March 2004. Meanwhile, Scribner has named Suzanne Balaban, who had been Morrow’s Assistant Director of Publicity, to the position of Director. Jennifer Slattery has joined Simon Spotlight as Publicist for the new imprint. She comes from Penguin.
As previously reported: Kristina Peterson has been named Workman’s Director of International Publishing. She was most recently at S&S, but consulted for Workman this summer.
Eileen Bertelli has gone to Barron’s Educational as Sales Manager. She was most recently at Avery/Penguin.
New York Observer publishing/media reporter Rachel Donadio is moving over to The NYTBR in mid-October. She will write and edit reported pieces, essays, and interviews covering the book publishing world, along with doing some review work.
Scholastic EVP and President of e-Scholastic Donna Iucolano has left to become CEO of International Masters Publishers (IMP) North America. Meanwhile, Jack Perry has moved to Scholastic as VP Trade Sales, reporting to Barbara Marcus. He was formerly at Soucebooks. Ken Wright has been promoted to VP, Associate Publisher and Jazan Higgins, who has been consulting with Scholastic, has been appointed to the newly created position of VP, Publishing Director. Both will report to SVP, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher Jean Feiwel.
Volker Neumann will be leaving the Frankfurt Book Fair at the end of December. The announcement came three weeks before the start of the fair.
Leigh Haber has joined Rodale full time as Executive editor in the NY office, and will also serve as a Contributing Editor to the company’s Men’s Health and Organic Style magazines. Haber had been working for Rodale as editor-at-large. Prior to that, she was at Hyperion.
George Rubich, former CFO at Henry Holt, is re-entering the publishing fray (more recently he’s been consulting for The Wildflower Group) with Innova Publishing (innovapublishing.com), which he defines as “extreme makeover for books.” CDS is handling distribution.
AuthorHouse, one of the “self-publishing services,” has hired a board member as its new CEO. Bryan Smith was in venture capital and had served as Chairman of the board for AuthorHouse.
Anne Garinger’s replacement as Project Coordinator of the AAP is Tracy Kaufman. She may be reached at (212) 255-0200 x262, or Tkaufman@publishers.org.
Midpoint has just set up a California office headed by John Teall, formerly of PGW. Another hire, Julie Hardison, Marketing Director, will work out of its Kansas City DC.
Promotions
Jim Chandler, Chief Commercial Officer of Ingram Book Group, was named President and CEO succeeding Mike Lovett, who moves to the parent company, Ingram Industries. Peter Clifton, President of Ingram International, will assume some of Chandler’s current responsibilities.
Franklin Electronic Publishers announced that Elizabeth Mackey has been promoted to the position of VP, Business Development, in addition to her role as VP, Content/Publisher Relations.
Rene Alegria has been promoted to Publisher and Editorial Director of the HarperCollins’ imprint, Rayo. The imprint will undergo a major expansion with the hiring of Raymond Garcia as Associate Publisher, Michelle Dominguez as Senior Publicist, Clara La Rosa as Editor, and the promotion of Andrea Montejo to Editor.
October Events
New York Is Book Country takes place October 2, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and October 3, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Washington Square Park and surrounding areas of New York University’s campus. Art Spiegelman, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jimmy Breslin, Gail Collins, the “Daily Show” writers, Harold Evans, Arnold Scaasi, Leslie Schnur, and many more authors will be speaking during the two day fair.
• AAP is sponsoring, “Introduction to Publishing” October 21-22 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at its New York Office. Speakers include Walker’s George Gibson, literary agent Henry Dunow, Random’s Ilene Smith and HarperCollins’ Jane Friedman. AAP member cost, $345; non-member cost, $395. For information, call (212) 255-0200 x262.
• The American Book Producers Association (ABPA) presents “Making Books Happen: Book Producing Today” on October 26 at The Players Club, 16 Gramercy Park South. Topics include “The Legal Picture,” “The Financial Picture,” and “The Expanded Role of Branding in Publishing.” 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.
• The NYT’s Christopher Lehmann-Haupt begins his next season of interviews at the Small Press Center on October 28, with E. L. Doctorow. And this year the 17th Annual Independent and Small Press Book Fair will be held Saturday, December 4th from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday, December 5th, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., instead of its usual March date. All events take place at 20 West 44th Street. For more information, email the Center at info@smallpress.org or call 212.764.7021.
Duly Noted
DM News reports that the number of lifestyle magazines published 2003-04 grew to 264 from 206, citing the National Directory of Magazines published by Oxbridge Communications. Directory Editor Deborah Striplin attributed the 28% growth to a post-9/11 nesting trend.
Crafts is a booming category, with magazines in this niche up 25% to 129. Golf titles were up 24% to 135. And political science and politics magazines were up 23% to 128 titles. But management titles declined 25% to 95 this year, from 127 in 2003. News magazines dropped 24% to 57. History magazines fell 23% to 128 titles, from 166.
At 971 titles, college student and alumni publications was the largest magazine category in 2004, follwed by medicine, at 965 and religion/theology, at 724 titles. The number of Internet-only magazines grew to 168 from 124 last year. The directory lists a total 18,821 titles, of which 1,174 are new.
• At BISG’s annual meeting, Executive Director Jeff Abraham demonstrated that getting all segments of this industry — much given to internal squabbling — on the same page is not impossible. In the presence of representatives from the ABA, AAP, AAUP, PMA, Ingram, B&T, B&N, BGI, Levy, Amazon and any number of printers, publishers and other acronyms (i.e., pretty much the entire industry), he sought and gained approval for two of today’s most contentious issues: a US industrywide adoption of the Bookland EAN bar code by January 2007 (ultimately discarding the less than efficient or sufficient UPC code), and the conversion of ISBN’s from 10 to 13 digits. And during the same two years that he’s been on the job, he’s increased BISG’s membership by over 50%.
In Memoriam
A memorial service will be held for Sandy Richardson, former editor and husband of St. Martin’s Publisher Sally Richardson. The service will be held on Wednesday, October 13th at 6 p.m. at the Century Club, 7 West 43rd Street, New York. Friends and colleagues are welcome.
