PEOPLE
Richard Rhorer has been named Associate Publisher of Simon & Schuster, reporting to Jonathan Karp. Previously he was Director of Digital Business Development at Macmillan. . . . Sally Kim joined Touchstone on March 7 as Editorial Director, reporting to VP, Publisher Stacy Creamer. Kim was Executive Editor of the Harper imprint at HarperCollins. And Millicent Bennett has joined Free Press as Senior Editor. She was at Random House.
Brian McLendon joined Twelve as Associate Publisher on March 7. He was Deputy Director of Publicity at Ballantine Bantam Dell and an agent director of the Random House Speakers Bureau. Also at Twelve, was recently promoted to Publisher.
RCS Libri has hired Massimo Turchetta from Mondadori as Publisher of the trade book division in Italy. He will report to CEO Alessandro Bompieri. Marco Ausenda remains CEO of Rizzoli US and will also oversee all illustrated publishing within the RCS Group in the United States and Italy.
Lia Ronnen has joined Artisan as Executive Editor and Associate Publisher. She was Executive Editor at Melcher Media for 10 years.
Zondervan announced that President and CEO Maureen “Moe” Girkins left her position as of March 11. Scott MacDonald, Acting GM of Zondervan’s The City, will serve as interim President as a search for a new CEO is conducted.
Meg LaBorde Kuehn joins Kirkus Media in the new position of VP Business Development. Her most recently publishing position was COO of Greenleaf Book Group.
Jessica Schmidt has become National Accounts Manager at Sterling. She was previously Director of Sales at Quirk Books.
Iris DeBlasi is leaving Sterling’s Union Square Press to launch the digital division at Hilsinger-Mendelson, a literary PR company.
At PublicAffairs, Clara Platter has been named Senior Editor. She was at Princeton University Press. Brandon Proia has joined as Editor, from Basic Books. Senior Editor Lindsay Jones has left to pursue independent editorial projects and other interests.
Elizabeth Eulberg is leaving Little, Brown, where she has been Director of Global Publicity for Stephenie Meyer, to write fulltime. Heather Rizzo recently left to work full time for Michael Connolly.
Betty Woodmancy has joined Howard as VP, Associate Publisher. She was Publisher Business Development Executive at LibreDigital. Sally Brock has joined the company as a publicist. She was at Regnery.
Stephanie Swane has joined becker&mayer! as Juvenile Sales Manager. She was at Simon & Schuster as Manager of Customer-Driven Publishing.
Kaplan has hired Allison Risko as SVP, Content Management and Strategy, and Frank Rubino as Executive Director of Technology and User Experience.
In children’s: Zareen Jaffery has joined Simon & Schuster Children’s as Executive Editor, reporting to VP, Publisher Justin Chanda. . . .
Rachel Wasdyke has joined Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s as Publicity Manager, in the Boston office. She was previously at Bloomsbury Children’s and Little, Brown Children’s. . . .
Sarah Landis has joined HarperCollins Children’s as a Senior Editor, working on teen fiction reporting to Farrin Jacobs. She was at Hyperion/Voice. Karen Chaplin has joined the department as an editor, where she will acquire hardcover tween and teen fiction. She was an editor at Puffin Books/Penguin YRG. And Caroline Sun has been hired as Publicity Manager. She was a Senior Publicist at Penguin YRG.
PROMOTIONS AND INTERNAL CHANGES
Rizzoli’s Susan Masry has been promoted to International Sales Manager, overseeing sales to Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Latin America, the Middle East, and South Africa, as well as Rizzoli’s domestic export accounts.
At Kaplan, Edwina Lui has been promoted to Information Architect from Director of Content Management; Brett Sandusky to Director of Product Information from Marketing Director; and Shayna Webb to Associate Director of Digital Operations.
Mina Park has been promoted to Director of Strategic Planning at Nielsen BookScan.
At Hachette, Kelly Leonard takes the new role of VP, Executive Director, Web Strategies, overseeing strategy and development of all HBG websites. Associate Director, Online Marketing Brad Parsons and Online Marketing Coordinator Brianne Beers have moved to Grand Central.
Scribner Editor-in-Chief Nan Graham has been promoted from VP to SVP.
Atria Executive Editorial Director Emily Bestler will establish an eponymous imprint, Emily Bestler Books. Sarah Branham, who previously worked for her, has been named Senior Editor and now reports to Atria Editorial Director Peter Borland.
Karen Fink has been named Associate Director of Publicity at Random House. RHPG has promoted Noah Eaker to Senior Editor, Lindsey Schwoeri to Editor, and Ben Steinberg to Associate Editor. At Ballantine Bantam Dell, Associate Publisher Kim Hovey has been promoted to SVP; Shauna Summers to Executive Editor; and Jennifer Smith to Senior Editor.
Mary McCagg has been promoted to Director of Licensing, Key Property Development and Proprietary Publishing at Candlewick.
Maria Campbell has promoted Mary Pender-Coplan to Vice President. Pender-Coplan has been at the agency for five years and is responsible for dramatic rights and children’s book scouting.
Kerry Donovan has been promoted to Senior Editor at NAL.
UPCOMING EVENTS
The 15th Annual Books for a Better Life Awards take place at the Millennium Broadway Hotel in New York on Monday, March 7. Dr. Nancy Snyderman, author and NBC News’ Chief Medical Editor, and Jamie Raab, EVP, Hachette Book Group and Publisher, Grand Central Publishing will be inducted into the Hall of Fame. The evening will begin with a cocktail reception at 6 p.m., followed by the awards program from 7–8:30 p.m.
The AAP Annual Meeting convenes March 9 in New York, and is still open for registration. The main attraction is a keynote from Barnes & Noble Chairman Len Riggio, and the event closes with an interview with outgoing Wiley CEO Will Pesce.
The 2011 UJA-Federation Publishing gala will honor David Shanks and Barbara Marcus, who will receive the Harry Scherman Award. The gala takes place on May 4 at the Grand Hyatt New York. For more information, contact Marcy Fink at finkm [at] ujafedny dot com or (212) 836-1448.
DULY NOTED
A few observations from this year’s O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing conference:
- The crowd at TOC is more tech, less book—younger and more likely to work biz dev/technology/marketing than the DBW audience. The program seems to be determined, at least in part, by sponsors.
- In a panel on app development, participants agreed that the main challenge for their apps is discoverability, especially in the iTunes store. (Kirkus is addressing this problem—see The New Review.)
- Of the top 200 iPhone apps that cut their prices, in the major categories the price decrease leads to a decrease in ranking, says O’Reilly’s Ben Lorica. The effect disappears within a couple of days, whether the price has decreased or increased.
- In a panel on new business models for publishing, John Oakes of OR Books said the company’s bestselling books are written by authors with strong web followings. OR bases its advances on net revenue; Oakes said that an author whose book will sell less than 10,000 copies will do better with a traditional publisher, but those who sell more do “much better” with OR’s system.
- Watch Margaret Atwood’s keynote (with drawings!) at http://bit.ly/gekbXg, or the Washington Post’s Ron Charles on Jonathan Franzen at http://wapo.st/b4jQ35.
Gene Taft, who was in New York publishing before and opening his own publicity firm in DC, is Marketing and Outreach Manager of a new review site, The Washington Independent Review of Books, focused on DC-area books and publishing and written by DC authors. It is affiliated with the Washington Independent Writers association, and modestly funded by their Freedom to Write Foundation. The site currently has reviews, publishing-related features, and podcasts, and will eventually publish a literary events calendar and provide bestseller lists from Politics & Prose.
