People Round-Up, Early December 2014

PEOPLE

Hachette Book Group EVP, Chief Marketing and Sales Officer Evan Schnittman is leaving his position as of December 12^th, after two and a half years. The position was created for him and will be eliminated when he leaves. Chris Murphy was promoted to SVP, Group Sales Director of Hachette and will join the company’s executive board. He was previously SVP, Retail Sales. In his new position, he will oversee all of HBG’s sales groups. He will report to CEO Michael Pietsch.

Former Rodale CEO Steve Murphy stepped down from his position as Chief Executive at Christie’s after four years at the company.

Bruce Tracy returned to Workman Publishing as Senior Editor after a brief stint at Time Home Entertainment, Inc. as Executive Editor.

Shawna Mullen will join Abrams as Associate Publisher, Adult Trade in mid-December. She is currently Executive Editor at Taunton Press.

Dan Ruffino was named Managing Director of Simon & Schuster Australia. Most recently, he was at Get Reading! Programme as Creative Director. He will report to Simon & Schuster UK Chief Executive and Publisher Ian Chapman.

Jeanne Reina joined William Morrow and Dey Street Books as VP, Art Director. She was formerly Art Director at Atria Books.

Vanessa Mobley joined Little, Brown as Executive Editor. Previously, she was Executive Editor at Crown.

Caroline Horn is now Director of Institutional Advancement at The Library of America. Previously, she was Director of Development and Marketing at Midori & Friends.

Leah McLaughlin is now a Freelance Editor and Consultant. She was previously Editorial Director at Oxmoor House. She can be reached at leahmclaughlin2@gmail.com.

Nick Small joined Grand Central Life & Style as Publicity Manager. He was previously Associate Publicist at St. Martin’s Press.

Paul Stevens will join Quirk Books as Acquisitions Editor in January. Formerly, he was Editor at Tor Books.

In children’s publishing, Erin Stein joined Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group as Publisher of an unnamed new imprint. Previously, she was Editorial Director at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. She will report to Macmillan Children’s President and Publisher Jon Yaged. . . Rachel Lodi is now Associate Digital Publicist at Penguin Children’s. She was previously at Palgrave Macmillan.

Sulay Hernandez launched a book development and editorial consulting company called Unveiled Ink. It will work with literary agents and writers to prepare manuscripts for traditional and self-publication. She was formerly Editor at Other Press and Touchstone.

Carl Lennertz launched ExpressEdit.net, a service to edit the first 15 pages of a manuscript. He was formerly Executive Director of World Book Night US.

Ronald J. Domanic joined the Board of Books-A-Million. He recently retired from his position as SVP and CFO at HD Supply.

Amy Pederson joined the BISG Board of Directors as Board Member. She is VP at Elsevier.

Ellie Pyle is now Editor at Vertigo, a comics imprint of DC Entertainment. She was formerly an Associate Editor at Marvel Comics.

Rayhane Sanders will join Lippincott Massie McQuilkin as Agent in January 2015. She was previously Agent at WSK Management.

Kathy Daneman launched Kathy Daneman Public Relations. She was formerly Publicity Director at Portfolio, Sentinel, and Current.

Helen Tobin joined Knopf as Publicist. She was previously Associate Publicist at Little, Brown.

Meagan Stacey Levinson is Senior Editor of Sociology and Psychology at Princeton University Press. Previously, she was Senior Editor at Crown.

John Leahy joined Cengage Learning as CFO. Previously, he was Executive VP and CFO of Care.com. Additionally, Bob Gibney joined as Chief Accounting Officer and SVP, Financial Planning and Analysis, Frank Vari as SVP, Tax and Richard Veith as SVP, Treasurer.

In religious publishing, Jessica Wong is now Senior Acquisitions Editor at Nelson Books.

Jennifer Maloney is now Books Report at Arena, the Wall Street Journal’s national arts section.

PROMOTIONS

HarperOne SVP, Associate Publisher Claudia Boutote will run HarperElixir, the new mind, body, and spirit line of books from HarperOne. Libby Edelson will move from Ecco to the new imprint at Senior Editor.

In a restructuring at Workman, David Schiller has become Group Creative Director and Jenny Mandel is now Executive Director of New Business Development. Both positions will report directly to Workman CEO Dan Reynolds. Kate Travers was promoted to Director of Digital Business, Emily Krasner to Director of Special Markets and Custom Publishing, and Randall Lotowycz to Director, Online Retail Accounts, all reporting to Mandel. Page Edmunds is now Associate Publisher and Selina Meere is Executive Director of Publicity and Marketing. Both will report to Susan Bolotin. Claire McKean has been promoted to Managing Editor, Tricia Remark to Promotion Manager, and Megan Harley to Promotion Assistant, all reporting to Edmunds along with the entire promotions department. Jessica Wiener is now Director of Integrated Marketing and will report to Meere. Andrea Fleck-Nisbet is Executive Director, Digital Strategy & Operations. Thea James was promoted to Director, Publisher Operations and Digital Product Development and Molly Drislane is now Manager of Digital Operations & Analytics. Drisdane and James will report to Fleck-Nisbet.

PublicAffairs promoted Jaime Leifer to VP, Associate Publisher and Publicity Director and Lindsay Fradkoff to Marketing Director.

Douglas Reil was promoted to Publisher, Executive Director of North Atlantic Books.

Stacey Lewis was promoted to VP, Director of Publicity, Marketing, and Sales at City Lights Publishers.

Fiona Brown was promoted to Associate Director of Publicity at Little, Brown and Morgan Moroney was promoted to Publicist.

Meg Leder moved from Perigee to Penguin Books, where she will retain her title of Executive Editor.

Genevieve Dominguez is now Associate Managing Editor at Grosset & Dunlap/Price Stern Sloan and Laura Stiers is Production Editor.

Knopf promoted Brittany Morrongiello to Publicist.

Jo Lusby is now Managing Director at Penguin Random House North Asia.

Jill Smith is being promoted to Director of the Denver Publishing Institute, effective January 1^st. She was previously Co-Director.

Roxanne Chen was promoted to Director, Product Management for Fodors.com.

Grigory Tovbis was promoted to Editor at Metropolitan Books.

Krista Ingebretson was promoted to Agent at Susan Golomb Literary Agency.

At The Library of America, Trish Hoard was promoted to Managing Editor.

DULY NOTED

Launch Kids/DBW takes place January 13^th, the opening day of Digital Book World (see below) and features speakers from Google, Alloy, Amplify, Kickstarter, Penguin Random, HarperCollins, and more.

Susanna Einstein and Meg Thompson have decided to split the Einstein Thompson Agency into two separate agencies. In the new year, The Thompson Literary Agency and Einstein Literary Management will both be open for business. Each agent will retain her clients and continue to work with Hodgman Literary for foreign rights.

David Kent will leave his position as CEO of HarperCollins Canada at the end of the year after 14 years in the position. Executive Editor and Editor-in-Chief Iris Tupholme and VP, Sales & Marketing Leo MacDonald have been promoted to manage the company. HarperCollins Canada will also transfer its distribution business to RR Donnelley at this time.

Mary Anne Thompson Associates has been appointed US scout for the Children’s/YA market for Ravensburger in Germany.

The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) will be integrated into the American Booksellers Association as of January 1^st. ABFFE President Chris Finan will become ABFE Group Director.

Washington Post Book World Former Editor Marie Arana was named Co-Director of the National Book Festival.

Amanda Bullock named Festival and Events Manager for the Wordstock Festival at Literary Arts, Inc. Previously, she was the Director of Public Programming for Housing Works Bookstore.

The International Licensing Industry Merchandisers’ Association and University of California Los Angeles have teamed up to offer a 12-week course at UCLA for licensing industry professionals beginning January 6^th.

The Austin, TX office of eBook Architects will close on January 1^st and the company will discontinue its ebook development services.