PEOPLE
So much for the dog days of August. . . . Jim King, SVP and General Manager at Nielsen BookScan, has left the company to become a consultant to the industry. He may be reached at jim.king.j [at] gmail dot com.
Simon & Schuster Publisher Jon Karp has announced several more changes over the last few weeks: Editor-in-Chief Priscilla Painton will take the new position of VP, Executive Editor, focused on nonfiction. She joined Simon & Schuster from Time Magazine at the beginning of 2008. Victoria Meyer is leaving in October after 20 years at the company. She has been Executive Director of Publicity. Editor Sarah Hochman has left the company and may be reached at sahochman [at] gmail dot com. Meanwhile, Anne Rogers is joining Simon & Schuster as Director, Specialty Wholesale and Mail Order, reporting to Frank Fochetta, VP, Director, Field and Special Sales. She was in charge of special sales at Sterling.
Dee Dee De Bartlo is leaving HarperCollins after almost 13 years to join her former colleague, Gretchen Crary, at February Partners, a PR and marketing firm, as a partner. Kimberly Cowser has joined the company as Online Marketing Manager. She was a Senior Publicist at Simon & Schuster.
Barnes & Noble announced that John Foley has joined the company as president of Barnes & Noble eCommerce. Foley, who will manage the BN.com online retail business, had been at Barry Diller’s IAC, where he was most recently CEO of the Pronto Network. Jamie Iannone has been named president of Barnes & Noble Digital Products, responsible for all things NOOK, plus e-books and digital content; and third-party partnerships. Iannone joined B&N a year ago as EVP; previously he was at eBay, and Booz Allen & Hamilton. Foley and Iannone both report to William Lynch, B&N CEO.
Borders Group has announced that CFO Mark Bierley, who had recently been promoted to COO, has resigned “to pursue another employment opportunity.” VP Glen Tomaszewski has been named interim CFO while Borders searches for a new CFO. Meanwhile, Borders has hired Michele Delahunty-Cloutier as EVP, Chief Merchandising Officer, reporting to President and CEO Mike Edwards. Most recently, she was brand president at Chico’s.
Paul Olsewski, former Publicity Director at Collins and ReganBooks, has been named VP, Director of Publicity at Atria, reporting to EVP, Publisher Judith Curr.
Ari Lewen, Senior Editor at Disney/Hyperion, has left to join Jennifer Besser, who moved to Penguin last spring to become Publisher of Putnam. Lewen, who joins September 20, will be Executive Editor. . . . HarperCollins Children’s announced that VP, Director of Inventory Management David Toberisky will retire, effective January 1. Sheryl Moore-Anderson has returned to HarperCollins as Director of Children’s Inventory and will succeed him. She was most recently at Avon Products.
Jane Comins has left Yale University Press, where she was Associate Publisher, Publishing & Marketing Director. She may be reached at jane.comins [at] gmail dot com.
Brigitte Weeks is leaving DirectBrands, where she headed the Crossings Book Club, to become a volunteer with the Visiting Nurse Association’s Hospice Care.
Diane Salvatore, who left magazines briefly to become Publisher of Broadway Books, is now EIC of Rodale’s Prevention Magazine.
Michael Burkin, who was at Simon & Schuster and was then Chief Sales Officer at Oxford University Press, before moving out of publishing, is joining IDEO, a global design consultancy. He will help expand the NYC office and may be reached at mburkin [at] gmail dot com.
Leah Hultenschmidt and Don D’Auria, Dorchester editors, have left the company following its decision to focus on e-books. Dorchester said it will release all titles signed through 2011 and will continue to acquire new titles.
Irv Myers, former EVP/COO of Rowman & Littlefield and President of NBN International, has joined New Leaf Distributing as EVP/COO, reporting to CEO Alim Thompson.
Basic Books Executive Editor Tim Sullivan is leaving the company and will join Harvard Business Review Press as Executive Editor in September.
Jonathan Sainsbury has been named Art Director at Da Capo and Perseus. He had been art director at Pantheon and Knopf.
Lucy Del Priore has joined Macmillan Children’s as Director of School and Library Marketing. She was most recently a publishing consultant and freelancer; prior to that, she spent most of her career at Penguin Children’s.
Kelli Chipponeri has been named Executive Editor of the children’s division at Chronicle. She was previously the children’s Editorial Director at Running Press. In other moves at Chronicle, Leigh Saffold was named Associate Managing Editor of Custom Publishing, and Kim Romero and Laura Lee Mattingly have both been promoted to Associate Editor.
FSG is launching an imprint under the Scientific American name, with Hill & Wang Publisher Thomas LeBien overseeing. Amanda Johnson Moon has joined FSG as Senior Editor to oversee acquisitions for the new imprint. She had previously been an editor at Basic Books.
PROMOTIONS AND INTERNAL CHANGES
Peter Hubbard has been promoted to Senior Editor at William Morrow.
Crown Publishing Group’s Subsidiary Rights department announced two promotions: Rachel Berkowitz has been promoted to Manager, Foreign Rights, continuing to report to Linda Kaplan, VP, Director, Subsidiary/Foreign Rights. Nidhi Berry has been promoted to Subsidiary Rights Associate, also reporting to Kaplan.
At Penguin, Jacqueline Fischetti has been appointed to the new position of Director of Content Development, International. She has been Director of the Penguin Speakers Bureau since 2006.
Judith Rosen, Publishers Weekly’s New England correspondent, has been named the magazine’s new bookselling editor, beginning September 1.
DULY NOTED
The National Book Foundation has moved to 90 Broad St., Suite 604, New York, NY, 10004. Its phone number remains the same: (212) 685-0261.
Bowker has released its latest annual report on book consumer behavior and demographics, which also explores retail channels and the explosion of the e-book market. Some stats: More than 40% of Americans over the age of 13 purchased a book in 2009; women lead men in overall purchases, contributing 64% of sales. As in the past, boomers constitute the largest group of buyers, with 30% of sales. Their elders—matures—contribute 16%. Interestingly, 32% of the books purchased in 2009 were from households earning less than $35,000 annually, and 20% of those sales were children’s books.
UPCOMING EVENTS
The Brooklyn Book Festival takes place September 10–12. Writers include Dennis Lehane, Mona Simpson, and Gary Shteyngart.
The 24th annual Goddard Riverside Gala takes place on October 19 at 583 Park Ave. (rather than the past venue of Tavern on the Green), and honors Clyde Anderson, Chairman, President and CEO, Books-A-Million.
The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP)’s annual Spelling Bee takes place on Tuesday, October 26 at 7 PM at Diane von Furstenberg’s studio. Spellers include Jonathan Burnham, crown defender Ben Greenman, Nancy Franklin, and Francine Prose.
From November 7–11, the NYU Center for Publishing is joining up with KITAB and the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair to present a four-day series of seminars. Speakers, drawn from the faculty of the Center for Publishing, will speak to book publishing executives from 22 Arab countries.
IN MEMORIAM
Elaine Koster, literary agent and former Publisher of NAL, died on August 17 in New York, at the age of 69. An agent since 1998, Koster’s clients included Khaled Hosseini.
