OnCopyright 2012: Prospering in the Creative Economy

By Kimberly Lew
April 3, 2012
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“Advancing the Creative Economy” was the theme of the Copyright Clearance Center’s OnCopyright 2012 conference on March 30, and an important first order of business seemed to be defining what, exactly, a creative economy is. For many, it became a matter of semantics: “piracy” and “stealing” vs. “infringement,” “individual” vs. “commercial,” “intellectual property” vs. “creative greater good,” and “copyright” vs. “licensing.” The philosophical implications of these words clearly depended on what roles panelists played in the creative economy, as did the preference as to whether copyright ambiguities be better defined, or remain vague and fungible.

The idea of “Remixing” was a big part in  discussions, with many panelists conceding that nothing is wholly original anymore. Instead, several spoke to the power of making work available for the greater good, particularly for educational purposes like the National Gallery in Washington, DC’s tax-funded online photo gallery of public domain work, which can be downloaded freely. Filmmaker Kirby Ferguson’s video presentation, “Everything is a Remix, Part 4,” pointed out that the problem with copyright laws is that nobody wants to enforce them until their own work is being infringed upon. As Eve Sinaiko, Director of Publications at the Jewish Museum in New York City, articulated, “The presumption is that everything is a product that can be monetized” and even the most open-minded creators can find themselves being wooed by opportunistic litigation.

Indeed, there did seem to be a discrepancy between the original creators and the large-scale copyright holders, and while individual artists seemed more open to the possibility of remixing and finding alternatives to legal recourse (which can take 1-5 years to resolve), those who deal with copyright on artists’ behalves called for better enforcement and more clearly-defined terms. Author and journalist Robert Levine explained that the importance of copyright is to “adjudicate the lines… where self-interests meet” and to help determine a compromise between one’s “right to remix” and an author’s “right not to be remixed.” The problem with current copyright law is that it lasts too long, covers too much stuff, and is not enforced.

For Robert Levine and singer-songwriter Erin McKeown, the idea of infringement isn’t necessarily a worry. Through a study by The Future of Music Coalition, McKeown discovered that only 20% of her income comes from copyright and that even that is a high because she owns all her masters and her music. Levine admitted that “[he doesn’t] need copyright for 70 years after [his] death. But [he] would like a couple months where [his book is] not pirated.” Read More »

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People Roundup, April 2012

By PT Editors
April 2, 2012
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PEOPLE

Evan Schnittman is joining Hachette Book Group on May 7 in a new executive position of EVP, Chief Marketing and Sales Officer. He will oversee  marketing and sales for all divisions of the company, which includes digital sales and marketing, advertising and promotion, and the market research and analytics group. He has been Managing Director, Group Sales and Marketing, Print & Digital at Bloomsbury and OUP since July, 2010

Carl Raymond has joined the Lisa Ekus Group as Associate Director of Media Training, responsible for training culinary professionals to present themselves in all forms of media. Previously he was Publishing Director for DK Publishing and worked at HarperCollins and Guideposts.

Marysue Rucci will return to Simon & Schuster as VP, Editor-in-Chief on April 2. She was most recently Editorial Director at Putnam and originally worked at S&S from 1997 through 2010.

Craig Young will be returning to HarperCollins, where he began his publishing career in 1990 in the International Sales Department, as VP, Associate Publisher of Ecco and Amistad. For the past twelve years, Craig has worked in sales at the Hachette Book Group – as the Director of National Accounts from 2000 to 2008, and most recently as the VP, National Accounts & Sales Director for BGI, LB, Adult and Octopus USA.

Karen Rinaldi, formerly EVP, Publisher and General Manager of Rodale Books, and Publisher and Managing Director of Bloomsbury US, will join HarperCollins as SVP and Executive Editor, reporting to Jonathan Burnham and starting April 16 th. She will have her own list of broad-based health and wellness and general non-fiction titles and will be hiring her own team.

Al Zuckerman is stepping down as Chairman of Writers House, the literary agency he founded in 1974. Taking over as Chairman is Amy Berkower, who formerly served as President. Simon Lipskar will be the agency’s new President.

Kate Travers has gone to Workman Publishing as Director, Digital Business Development.  She was Digital Marketing Manager at F+W.

Mulholland Books Editor John Schoenfelder will be leaving Little, Brown to work for film producer Scott Rudin, where he will oversee the development department. Schoenfelder joined the crime & suspense imprint in December 2009 from Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s Press, where he was an Assistant Editor. Mulholland launched its inaugural list in April 2011.

Marie Coolman is taking over from Peter Miller, who left for Liveright, the new Norton imprint,  as Senior Director of Publicity and Communications at Bloomsbury. She was formerly Executive Director of Publicity at Hyperion and Voice. She earlier held senior publicity positions at Penguin for Hudson Street Press and for Random House on the West Coast.

As reported last year in Publishing Trends, Publisher of the Golden Books Young Readers Group Kate Klimo has stepped down, Random House Children’s President and Publisher Chip Gibson announced recently. Klimo has worked at Random House since 1984, and spearheaded the acquisition of Golden in 2001. She will be Director of Creative Development at Media Assets Management Associates, where she “will continue turning our books into great TV shows.”

Editor-in-Chief of Random House Books for Young Readers Mallory Loehr  adds to her responsibilities as Publishing Director of the Golden group, reporting to Gibson. She now manages both the editorial and art departments for both groups.

Golden Books Editor-in-Chief Chris Angelilli will be promoted to Editor-in-Chief, Executive Director, licensed publishing. As part of his new duties he will also oversee Random House Children’s new partnership with Nickelodeon, where it will be the television company’s primary book publisher as of spring 2013.

PROMOTIONS AND INTERNAL CHANGES

Kevin Callahan has been promoted to Associate Publisher of It Books at HarperCollins.  He joined It Books as Associate Director of Marketing and was involved in the  launch of the imprint.  Matt Harper has been promoted to Executive Editor of the creative development team, reporting to Lisa Sharkey.

Laura Keefe has been promoted to Director of Digital & Trade Marketing for Bloomsbury’s  adult group, and Jonathan Kroberger has been promoted to Associate Publicist. For Bloomsbury Children’s and Walker Children’s, Katy Hershberger has been promoted to Director of Publicity.

Jessica Napp has been promoted from Publicity Manager to Associate Director of Publicity for Rizzoli; she joined Rizzoli in 2007. Read More »

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Kramer vs. Kramer: Who’s winning in the battle of digital devices?

By Kimberly Lew
March 30, 2012
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Make no mistake that the consensus is that the Apple iPad is the best tablet on the market, and the press conference this month announcing the iPad New only cemented its place at the top. Boasting a new screen that is already prompting conversation on the best new ways to displaying content, excitement surrounding the iPad New has been strong, though not overwhelming. The question, of course, then becomes whether or not the tablet is really the best device for reading purposes. Complaints have already been circulating about the quality of magazines on the iPad New, since many publishers have not been creating files compatible with the screen. Also, conflicting reports have indicated both that ereader sales have waned in the post-Christmas months but also that tablets may not cannibalize dedicated ereader sales as some have feared. Are Barnes & Noble and Amazon competing with Apple and each other for the title of the ultimate electronic reading device? Or are their own products struggling even against one another to assert themselves as the best reading experience provider?

Who is making the best case for readers and who is being overruled? Read some of the excerpts below and draw your own conclusions.

“Apple is still indisputably at the top of the tablet market, but the next iPad (which most people are calling the iPad 3) faces a host of competitors that are clamoring after their own little niches. There is no tablet out there that surpasses the iPad 2 on every level, but here are 20 tablets that — in one way or another — distinguish themselves from Apple’s gadget.”

— Hayley Tsukayama, The Washington Post (3/1/2012)

 

“But there are signs that publishers are cooling on tablets for e-reading. A recent survey by Forrester Research showed that 31 percent of publishers believed iPads and similar tablets were the ideal e-reading platform; one year ago, 46 percent thought so.”

— Julie Bosman and Matt Richtel, The New York Times (3/4/2012)

 

“Seasonality is surely part of the cause for the decline in unit shipments. Ereaders like Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook are great beneficiaries of the gift-giving season. But DigiTimes Research indicated that the introduction of viable, less expensive tablets like Amazon’s own 7-inch, Android-based Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet from Barnes & Noble at the end of last may be having a more profound effect on ereader sales.”

— Damon Poeter, PC Magazine (3/5/2012)

 

“Best overall e-ink reader: Amazon Kindle Touch with Special Offers. Unlike the Nook Simple Touch, the Kindle supports audio (Audible audiobooks, MP3 playback, and text-to-voice autonarration). It’s also a great touch-screen e-reader. Add support for library lending, the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (for Prime members), and integration with Amazon’s world-class online store, and you’ve got an e-ink reader that edges out the competition for just $99.”

— John P. Falcone, CNET (3/12/2012)

 

“What to make of the conflicting reports? It’s just another reminder that they are estimates and that this data is coming from research firms, not directly from Apple, Amazon and Barnes & Noble themselves. As I’ve written before, it is too early to say whether media tablets will cannibalize e-reader sales. It could happen, but three months of Kindle Fire sales doesn’t provide enough data to generalize, and device adoption patterns may be very different outside North America.”

— Laura Hazard Owen, Paid Content (Mar 13, 2012)

 

“We’ve spent more than a week with this thing, and yes, the screen is lovely. That A5X processor is a tab-loading, game-rendering beast. Yes, the optional stupid fast LTE connection smokes even my leveled-up home cable connection. And yes: It is pretty. But if you’ve owned—or even played with—an iPad before, Cupertino’s new hotness will leave you cold. It’s an upgrade. It feels like an optional configuration rather than something, shall we say… resolutionary. And that, frankly, is a bummer.”

— Joe Brown, Gizmodo (3/24/2012)

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Whose Digital Manga is it Anyway? Publishers vs. Scanlation

By Elisabeth Watson
March 29, 2012
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Protesting government controls on “harmful” content, 10 major Japanese manga publishers announced their boycott of the 2011 International Anime Fair (IAF) and teamed with a number of anime studios to form a rival event, the Anime Contents Expo (ACE). Both events were canceled of the earthquake last March, but were scheduled again this year. The IAF closed this week and the first-ever ACE will run March 31-April 1, with advanced ticket sales over 50,000. The significant attention Japanese manga has won for its domestic plight inspired PT to take a look at the genre’s challenges abroad. That the biggest international threat is digital piracy shocks no one. The scale and efficiency of that piracy, however—and the recency of any strong proactive response from publishers—is worth talking about.

In many ways, manga’s digital revolution had its road-blocks in the making before it even got started. Digital piracy was seized on by manga’s young readership early on, but, according to Kurt Hassler, Publishing Director at Yen Press (Hachette’s manga imprint), it was around 2007 when digital piracy truly became a force for manga publishers to reckon with. Scanlation, where users of a website upload scans of original manga pages and translate the work using collective amateur language skills, is a particular driver of digital piracy, as it makes whole works available online without license or permission. One such site, OneManga.com, had a reported 1,074,790 different pages of illegally translated and distributed content at the beginning of 2011 and at that time was the 300th overall most popular website in the United States.

Hassler argues that rather than “pushing” manga publishing into the digital age, the genre’s robust digital piracy-base has retarded its progress. As if the challenges of image-rich content weren’t enough, Japanese publishers have feared that licensing digital editions internationally is as good as hanging out a “pirates welcome” Jolly Rodger. Consequently, digital rights have been all but impossible for US and other international publishers to negotiate. Read More »

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SWIPE 2012: Tablets Command Attention

By Lorraine Shanley
March 20, 2012
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At SWIPE, the Magazine Publishers Association conference on “tablets, e-readers and smartphones,” held at the Grand Hyatt on March 20, tablets dominated the discussion.  Not surprisingly, the “new iPad” was the focus of much adulation – especially given magazine publishers’ delight at how well ads looked in the pixelated screen.  But there was also concern that, for the near future, apps would have to be created for both the “new” screen, and the iPad and iPad 2 screen.

Magazine publishers have had a hard time of it, with print sales disappearing, advertisers reluctant to pay for digital ads, and consumers resisting paid subscription models.  But, as tablets gain momentum, screen quality improves, and multiple newsstand platforms and “social magazines” offer ways for publishers to monetize their content, some optimism is returning.

Paul Verna, Senior Analyst at eMarketer, gave some interesting stats:  depending on the category, up to 40% of digital single copies sold are backlist issues; 70% of readers want to purchase directly from the editorial and ad pages of the magazine they’re reading; already 52% of readers purchase something from magazine pages every week (and that’s before those luscious new iPad ads have flooded the market).  Digital magazine ad sales will grow 67% over the next five years.

Panels on digital newsstands and social magazines (like Flipboard, Yahoo’s Livestand and Google Currents) showed what a plethora of opportunities publishers are presented with, including the ability to agglomerate content from different magazines around a consumer’s interest, like business or cooking. Eventually, functionality – as in shopping lists created from recipes – will travel with the content when one user sends it to another user.  As most of the participants were on the advertising side, they hastened to mention that ads could travel too, and even feature the shopping lists in those ads.

But two panels brought the audience to content.  In one, best-in-show apps were showcased.  These included Martha Stewart’s gorgeous Cookies apps, created for the new iPad with Calloway Digital Arts; National Geo’s April issue, which includes a 360 degree view of the Titanic, and Backpacker’s latest issues, with interactive maps and you-are-there videos.  All the assembled agreed that a lack of standards in apps means that consumers are often stymied as to how to make them work.  Adobe’s Bruce Bell told the audience that  focus on usability is key, even at the expense of the editorial voice.  “Cue the user on how to use the app,” he urged.  Backpacker’s Anthony Cerretani mentioned that 70% of readers want their magazine to be accessible in both vertical and landscape versions.  MSLO’s Gael Towey told the audience to “experiment.”  She said the editors create stories around functionality, like the video of a puff pastry that, when tapped, opens up to reveal its secrets.  For National Geo, it’s all about “storytelling,” which sometimes means telling the story only with pictures.  On certain pages in the Titanic app there is just a photo, with no text — though the user can click on the button for the caption. All urged the use of audio/video, and slides.  Of course, such rich features don’t translate to smart phones, so have to be stripped down (though smart phone users are “reading like crazy”).  Smart phone readers like short pieces, and tablets tend to be read at night, so articles in those formats can be longer.

The final panel was assembled to compare and contrast Kindle Fire with Apple iPad, but Macworld’s Jason Snell and Consumer Reports’ Paul Reynolds agreed on almost everything – Kindle’s better for reading and Amazon presents the customer with a better, more standardized user and service experience.  But Apple is ahead with anything that has “bells and whistles,” or requires high quality resolution.  Size matters – though can be a positive or negative, depending on what the user want to get out of the device.  Nook appeals to women and has found a good niche as a reliable, less expensive alternative.  And when Windows 8 comes out, it could kill off android tablets (which everyone seems to agree are not that impressive as a class, in part because Google hasn’t embraced tablets).

The conference was upbeat and provided some useful perspective for text-based content providers looking at the digital future.  There was no argument with one panelist’s comment:

Tablets will get faster, slimmer, cheaper.  Print won’t.

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People Roundup, Mid-March 2012

By PT Editors
March 15, 2012
Comments (1)

PEOPLE

CEO Marcus Leaver is leaving Sterling Publishers to become the new COO of Quarto in  the UK, hired by Laurence Orbach, who has announced his retirement.

Editorial Director Jason Prince, Executive Editor Nathaniel Marunas and Editors Greg Oviatt and Stuart Miller, VP Operations Kim Brown, and VP Sales Karen Patterson have left Sterling. Theresea Thompson has been promoted to Executive VP at B&N and will be overseeing Sterling.

Alexander Star will join Farrar, Straus and Giroux as Senior Editor on April 2, from the New York Times Book Review, where he has been a Senior Editor.  Previously, he worked at the New York Times Magazine as its Senior and then Deputy Editor. Prior to that, he was the Founding Editor of the Boston Globe Ideas section.

Former Macmillan President Brian Napack will join media private equity firm Providence Equity Partners as a Senior Advisor and will also join the board of educational software company Blackboard, Inc. Napack will look for new investment opportunities in education and media, and support the firm’s existing portfolio companies.” He left Macmillan at the end of 2011.

Martina Challis has been hired as Publisher at Hot Key Books in the UK, reporting to  Managing Director Sarah Odedina, starting in early July. Challis is currently Publishing Director at Kingfisher UK.

Rachel Bressler, is joining The Park Literary Group as Executive Director,Corporate and Publisher Relations, beginning March 26th.  She was VP, Associate Publisher, Ecco Books.  Her successor has not been announced.

Author and Editor Rakesh Satyal has relocated to San Francisco to join Lexicon Branding.  He was most recently a Senior Editor at HarperCollins.

Michelle Montague has joined Abrams,  as Executive Director of Adult Marketing and Publicity, reporting to Mary Wowk, VP of Sales and Marketing. She was Executive Director of Advertising and Promotions at Simon & Schuster. Eric Klopfer has been promoted to Editor.

At Random House‘s Digital Channel and Marketplace Development Group, Lauren Monaco has been appointed VP, Director, Digital Channel and eCommerce Development.  She was most recently VP Sales, National Accounts at S&S.  Christine McNamara was named to the new position of VP, Director, Consumer Verticals & Partnerships; Jinny Kwon has been promoted to VP, Director, Design and Production.

Andrea Au Levitt has joined Reader’s Digest as a Senior Editor, acquiring and developing health and food books. She was projects director, Prevention Books at Rodale.

Carmen Johnson has joined Amazon Publishing New York as Associate Editor. She had been an Editorial Assistant at Knopf.

Digital Book World Community Relations Manager Matt Mullin has moved to Barnes & Noble in March as a Manager of Digital Content.

Nick Van Amburg has been appointed to the newly created position of VP of Marketing for Ruckus Media Group. He was previously with ngmoco, a mobile social gaming company, where he was Director of Product Marketing.

PEN American Center announced the election of Peter Godwin as its President. Godwin succeeds Kwame Anthony Appiah, who served as President for the last three years.  The newly-elected and reelected officer trustees of the Board also include John Troubh, Executive Vice President; Ron Chernow, Vice President; Victoria Redel, Vice President; John Oakes, Treasurer; and Elinor Lipman, Secretary.

Peter Harper has been appointed SVP Americas of Guinness World Records, as well as heading up the New York City office. He was previously Executive Director of New Product Development within Time Home Entertainment.

Regina Hayes, President and Publisher of Viking Young Readers, will transition to Editor-at-Large this summer as she approaches her 30th year at the imprint. She will continue to work with a select group of authors.

Janklow & Nesbit Associates announced that Carlo Martinelli and Amanda Schweitzer have been hired to run an LA office they are opening to extend their services in the film, television and digital communities. Both came from Vuguru, Michael Eisner’s digital studio.

HarperCollins announced that Angela Tribelli has been appointed to the newly created position of Chief Marketing Officer, General Books Group. Tribelli, who comes from NYC & Company, will report to Michael Morrison, President & Publisher.

Read More »

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Reading Jonah Lehrer’s Imagine: How Creativity Works

By Lorraine Shanley
March 12, 2012
Comments (1)

With this post, PublishingTrends.com begins a regular column in which it reviews, explicates and excerpts books that we think will resonate with people in the business of publishing and media.  

Jonah Lehrer‘s Imagine: How Creativity Works is being published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on March 19, and already has enormous coverage, most notably in the Wall Street Journal, where Lehrer writes the (what else?) Head Case column.  In his March 10 article, he distills his thesis that creativity isn’t one gene or way of approaching the world, but instead a variety of distinct thought processes (it’s also a good way to pick up salient tips on how to foster creativity):  http://on.wsj.com/zvUCgJ

The book, for which a major tour is planned, sports blurbs from Malcolm Gladwell and Joshua Foer, two obvious inspirations.  Its editor, and the editor of his last two books is Amanda Cook, (who gets huge kudos in the acknowledgments, as does Lehrer’s agent, Sarah Chalfant).

What makes Lehrer’s new book a useful tool for people in businesses that require continual creativity and innovation is that he brings anecdotes about famous people and inventions, research (check out InnoCentive.com), puzzles  and tips to every page (and yes, I read this as a print book).  He’s also good at repurposing metaphors, as when he quotes an NIH scientist who explains that the brain’s left hemisphere is the side that sees the trees, while the right hemisphere “is what helps you see the forest.” Read More »

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Reevaluating Digital at AWP

By Elisabeth Watson
March 8, 2012
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On Wednesday, February 29, 2012, eve of the 35th annual conference of the Association of Writers & Writers Programs (AWP), the members of the Council of Literary Magazines & Presses (CLMP) met for a general meeting. About 100 CLMP members were in attendance, representing largely non-profit presses and magazines, generally with very small lists and distribution, all dedicated to publishing work of high artistic quality, often from very new or experimental authors. In his welcome to members, Jeffrey Lependorf, Executive Director of CLMP and Small Press Distribution, referenced the more than 200 publishers in attendance at this year’s conference, saying that what was once “a conference with a little book fair attached,” is quickly becoming more like “a huge book fair with a conference attached.”

Although this recently expanded publisher-presence might be pushing focus beyond the strict label of “writers and writers programs,” Lependorf sees a symbiotic relationship between growing numbers of publishers and the boom in conference registration overall—which maxed out this year at 10,000, more than a month before the event began. “For writers attending—largely representing highly literary and therefore sometimes less commercially viable work—the presence of so many of the publishers most likely to publish them presents the greatest draw to attending.” From this viewpoint, it is AWP’s growing publishing presence that is making it more of a writer hot-spot than ever before.

Read More »

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Luke? Darth Vader? Who has The Force behind them in this month’s battle of the ereaders?

By Kimberly Lew
March 2, 2012
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February was a numbers game, as many analysts sifted through data to try to gauge which ereader was faring the best in the marketplace. With statistics shared at the O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing conference, as well as results from studies in anticipation of the Apple iPad 3, it’s unclear who exactly is topping the charts, though most numbers may indicate that sales aren’t meeting expectations for both the Kindle and Nook. Still, there have been some interesting developments over the past month with Barnes & Noble releasing a less expensive version of their Nook Color that will compete more directly in price with the Kindle Fire and more evidence supporting the creation of an indie ereader.  However, the release of the iPad on March 7th may enforce many beliefs that Barnes & Noble and Amazon aren’t equipped to compete in the tablet market, and meanwhile others might be starting to claim ereader fatigue.

So which device is starting the new month on top? Read on to draw your own conclusion:

 

“Changewave Research, which conducts surveys of U.S. consumers on technology products and services, found that 54 percent of those who have purchased the [Kindle Fire] tablet  since its November launch are “very satisfied” with their purchase, with an additional 38 percent declaring themselves “somewhat satisfied.” Last November 74 percent of iPad owners surveyed by Changewave said they were “very satisfied” with their tablets, whereas only 49 percent of those who bought something other than the iPad felt the same way.”

— Tom Krazit, mocoNews (2/2/2012)

 

“In the wake of Amazon’s disappointing Q4 results, the Kindle Fire has ignited a veritable firestorm of debate.

Lackluster reviews and suspicions that the tablet device is being sold below cost have led analysts to anxiously eye the company’s dwindling cash reserves.  But amidst the heated debates about functionality and pricing, one concern has received relatively little attention: should Amazon be competing in the tablet market in the first place?”

— Peter Fader, Forbes (2/3/2012)

 

“From my perspective, both as a reader and a publisher of ebooks and crowdsourced travel guides, EPUB 3 is a clear winner as it’s an open format – though this isn’t a clear endorsement of iBooks. Titles bought via iBookstore are restricted to devices authorized for the same iTunes account. So ‘choosing iBooks’ is not the same as ‘choosing EPUB 3.’”

— Matt Stephens, The Register (2/6/2012)

 

“This hybrid market is possible because there is no “killer device” like, for instance, the iPod for music. As long as there are options for digital migration, there will still be multiple opportunities in a hybrid marketplace, said [Jack] McKeown, including the possibility of an independent bookstore-branded e-reader device. For the 2011 survey McKeown cited, a number of different demographics said they would be interested in such a device, including 13% of women over 45. The price for this device? Respondents agreed that it should be around $100.”

— Gabe Habash, Publishers Weekly (2/14/12)

 

“The Apple iPad 3 is poised to sweep the tablet market and steal more than 50% of the Amazon Kindle Fire’s customers, according to a new study.”

— International Business Times (2/21/2012)

 

“Barnes & Noble slashed its fiscal 2012 guidance. The company blamed its larger-than-expected losses partly on disappointing sales of the Nook Simple Touch, the company’s $99 black-and-white e-reader. Sales of the Nook Tablet topped expectations, B&N said.”

—  Julianne Pepitone, CNN Money Tech (2/21/2012)

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People Roundup, March 2012

By PT Editors
March 1, 2012
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PEOPLE

Open Road announced that Tina Pohlman, Vice President, Publisher, Three Rivers Press and Broadway Paperbacks/Crown Publishing, will be its new Publisher, starting on March 5.  Market Partners International conducted the search. Earlier, Open Road announced that former Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Bantam Dell Nita Taublib will be a Strategic Advisor for Romance. And, former Holt Editor-in-Chief Marjorie Braman is joining Open Road as Consulting Editorial Director. She will continue to run her independent literary consulting business for authors.

Callaway Digital Arts, Inc. (CDA) has expanded its management team, including Lisa Holton, who has been named Vice President of Content Development. Holton’s most recent executive post was as President for Scholastic Trade Publishing. CDA will buy some projects from Fourth Story Media (FSM), which she started after leaving Scholastic,  and Holton will continue to work these at Callaway.

HarperCollins announced that Angela Tribelli has been appointed to the newly created position of Chief Marketing Officer, General Books Group. Tribelli, who comes from NYC & Company,  reports to President and Publisher Michael Morrison. Stephanie Selah has rejoined HarperCollins as Senior Marketing Manager. She was most recently Marketing Manager at Palgrave Macmillan and first worked in marketing at HarperPerennial, Harper Paperbacks, and Avon Trade Paperbacks.

Meanwhile, Rachel Kahan is  joining William Morrow as Executive Editor.  She has worked at G.P. Putnam’s Sons since 2005, most recently as Senior Editor.

President and Publisher of Picador and Editor-at-Large at Macmillan, Frances Coady is leaving the company as part of an editorial restructuring of the paperback imprint. As a result, Picador staff will report to FSG Publisher Jonathan Galassi and Holt Publisher Steve Rubin.  Galassi and  Rubin will oversee the paperback publication of titles they published initially in hardcover.

Quercus Executive Director of Sales & Marketing, Mike McGrath, has been named Publisher of Templar Publishing, effective this summer.  Templar is a Bonnier imprint.

F+W’s Matt Mullin, who was DBW’s Community Relations Manager, has moved to B+N as a Manager of Digital Content.

Earlier in February The Weinstein Company and The Perseus Books Group announced two new positions in their Weinstein Books co-publishing venture — Georgina Levitt as Publishing Director and Amanda Murray as Editorial Director.  Levitt was previously Associate Publisher of Vanguard Press and Murray was mostly recently Senior Editor at S&S.

Bridget Marmion announced the launch of marketing consulting firm, Your Expert Nation, with a national network of experts. She will work with Strategic Partner Rich Kelley (who also contributes to Publishing Trends) and the community of experts to prepare focused marketing campaigns.

In children’s, Jennifer Gonzalez has joined  the Macmillan Sales Department in the new position of VP, Children’s Sales. She hadbeen Director of Sales, Mass Merchants, at Random House for the last three years. Mark Von Bargen is being promoted to Senior Director, Trade Sales, for children’s books.

Roshan Nozari has joined Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s in the new position of E-marketing & Publicity Specialist. She was previously Publicity Associate at Random House Children’s Books Digital Publishing Group.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has named Mary Cullinane as their new SVP of Global Corporate SocialResponsibility. She is based in Boston, reporting directly to CEO Linda Zecher. Cullinane “spearheaded Microsoft’s education-related innovation programs and initiatives worldwide.”

Perseus Books Group announced that David Bronstein has joined the company in the new position of Chief Talent Officer, reporting toDavid Steinberger. Bronstein previously worked at Omnicom Media, Universal Music and MTV Networks. Patrick Kirk has taken the position of VP, Program Office. He was most recently with Credit Suisse.

Webster Younce will join Free Press as Senior Editor; he spent the past two years in Berlin at Suhrkamp Verlag, where he oversaw the company’s English-language and international literature program.

Vanessa Kehren has been named an Editor at Blue Rider Press. She will assist Publisher David Rosenthal and Senior Editor Sarah Hochman on a variety of projects, as well as acquiring titles in both fiction and nonfiction. She was previously an Assistant Editor at Little, Brown.

FSG Senior Editor Paul Elie is leaving to join the Georgetown University faculty as a Senior Fellow with the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs. He has been with FSG since 1993.

Katherine Furman has joined Reader’s Digest as Senior Editor for their trade books division. She was previously an Editor at Sterling.

Sumiya Nowshin has joined Tor/Forge Books as Marketing Manager. She was most recently Associate National Accounts Manager at Random House Children’s Books.Contributing Writer and Critic for the New York Times Magazine and Harper’s Wyatt Mason joins Yale University Press as Consulting Editor-at-Large for the Margellos World Republic of Letters, the Press’s series for literature in translation.

Cara Bedick has joined The Experiment in the newly-created position of Editor; she most recently was Associate Editor at Gotham. Ani Chamichian has also joined the company as Sales Director.

Kevin Mulroy has been hired as Publisher of Quayside’s Fair Winds Press and Quiver Books replacing William Kiester who left to start his own publishing venture, Page Street Publishing Company. Mulroy has been at Potomac Global Media after working at the National Geographic Society.

PROMOTIONS AND INTERNAL CHANGES

Michelle Yung has been promoted to imprint sales director at Random House Publisher Services, 

Laura Perciasepe has been promoted to Editor for the Riverhead Books hardcover and paperback imprints. She has worked there for five years.

Carmen Johnson has joined Amazon Publishing New York as Associate Editor. She had been an Editorial Assistant at Knopf.

Simon & Schuster Children’s has announced multiple promotions in their marketing department to “both increase our marketing resources and focus them according to the various categories within which we publish,” President Jon Anderson wrote in a memo.

Lucille Rettino has been promoted to VP, Director of Marketing; Elke Villa takes the new title of Associate Marketing Director, and reporting to Elke will be Chrissy Noh, promoted to Senior Marketing Manager. Julie Christopher also takes the new title of Associate Marketing Director, focusing on middle grade, novelty and licensing books, and reporting to her is Carolyn Swerdloff, promoted to Marketing Manager. Holly Hunnicutt has been promoted to Deputy Director of Sub-rights for Macmillan Children’s.

At Quirk Books, John J. McGurk has been promoted to the position of Director, Digital & Print Production.

Kevin Callahan has been promoted to Associate Publisher of It Books. He was formerly Director of Marketing for It Books and Harper Design. He joined It Books as Associate Director of Marketing and was involved in the launching of the imprint.

Elizabeth Bewley has been promoted to Senior Editor at Little, Brown Children’s, . She joined their Poppy imprint in 2008. Also, Lisa Moraleda has been promoted to Associate Director of Publicity, and Jessica Bromberg moves up to Publicity Manager.

Billy Kingsland has been promoted to Managing Director at literary agency Kuhn Projects, “both an acknowledgement of his stellar ongoing work serving the agency’s clients as well as an expression of his growing role in the agency going forward.” Kingsland joined Kuhn Projects in 2004 after stints at William Morris and Russell & Volkening.

Caryn Wiseman has been promoted to Senior Agent at Andrea Brown Literary Agency.

DULY NOTED

Barnes & Noble announced the finalists for its Discover Great New Writers Award, which can be viewed on their blog here. Winners will be announced on March 7.

Washington Independent Review of Books, an online publication (www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com) dedicated to provoking and sustaining conversations about all types of books, marks its first anniversary.  The Independent’s first year of operation has seen many notable achievements: more than 400 book reviews posted, more than 120 features, a periodic poetry feature by Grace Cavallieri and two regular columns, a literary calendar, and a steadily growing community of readers.

The London Book Fair will present their ninth annual Lifetime Achievement Award in International Publishing to Jorge Herralde, Founder, Proprietor and Director of Anagrama in Spain.

IN MEMORIAM

Barney Rosset, Founder and Former Owner of Grove Press and Editor-in-Chief of the Evergreen Review, died on February 23, 21, 2012. Over the course of his career, he has championed the First Amendment and the careers of writers, including  Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett,  Malcolm X, Pablo Neruda, and David Mamet.

John Turner Sargent, Sr. died February 5.  He was 87 years old.  Sargent, father of Macmillan President John Sargent, Jr., joinedDoubleday as an Assistant to then President Douglas Black. Following Black’s retirement, Sargent succeeded him as President and subsequently became CEO and Chairman.

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