Top 5 Publishing Articles/Blog Posts of the Week 11/21-11/25

­Red Number 5Every week, we recommend 5 publishing articles/blog posts that supplement the major news for the week. Whether data or industry commentary, we hope these 5 links will be a simple way to keep you in the know.

Over half of young UK readers say BookTok “helped them discover a passion for reading.”

Do book rating systems work?

Does the collapse of the Penguin Random House/Simon & Schuster merger signal the end of an era of consolidation?

What might the literary community lose without Twitter?

How are Christian publishers reaching out to their readers?

Top 5 Publishing Articles/Blog Posts of the Week 11/14-11/18

­Red Number 5Every week, we recommend 5 publishing articles/blog posts that supplement the major news for the week. Whether data or industry commentary, we hope these 5 links will be a simple way to keep you in the know.

How crucial are university presses to the commercial publishing ecosystem?

Is BookTok losing its reader-led credibility?

Why are HarperCollins workers on strike?

What readers did Z-Library benefit most?

Will “book rating” systems further limit library access in Texas?

People Round-Up, Mid-November 2022

PEOPLE

Michael Jacobs, President and CEO of Abrams, will step down from that role on November 28, to be succeeded by Mary McAveney. Jacobs will become executive chair of the board and serve in an advisory capacity during the transition. McAveney has been working as Chief Revenue Officer and Chief Marketing Officer at Open Road Integrated Media.

At Open Road, Peter McCarthy has become Chief Marketing Officer, succeeding Mary McAveney. He was most recently Director of Consumer Insights at Ingram Content Group.

At Penguin Young Readers, Ken Wright, President and Publisher of the Viking, Philomel, and Flamingo Publishing Group, will retire at the end of January 2023. Jordan Bishop joins Random House Children’s Books as Digital Marketing Associate. At Penguin Workshop, Celina Sun joins as Assistant Editor.

Dan Reynolds, SVP and Publisher of Workman Publishing, will retire at the end of the year.

At Macmillan, SVP, Communications and Events Erin Coffey is leaving the company on December 1. Francesca Oddo-Budinoff joins as Director, Marketing Strategy she was previously Senior Global Marketing Manager at Edelman. Victor Galloway joins as Senior Recruiter, Human Resources. At Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Molly Grote, lately Senior Publicist at MIT Press, joins as Senior Publicist. Rohan Kamicheril joins as Senior Editor; he is the founder of Tiffin and formerly Editor at Words Without Borders.

At Barnes & Noble Education, Hunter Blankenbaker joins as VP of Investor Relations. Most recently he was Head of Investor Relations at Justworks. He succeeds Andy Milevoj, who is now SVP of Investor Relations at 1-800-Flowers.com.

At the newly rebranded Canary Street Press, formerly HQN, Bess Braswell has been named Senior Publishing Director in addition to her existing role as Senior Publishing Director of Inkyard Press. Lisa Beech joins Nelson Books as Director of Publicity; previously, she was Associate Director of Publicity at WaterBrook & Multnomah.

Erin Fitzsimmons joins Sourcebooks as Senior Art Director for Fiction.

Jennifer Browne joins Holiday House as Creative Director of Neal Porter Books and Senior Art Director of Margaret Ferguson Books and Peachtree. Lucy Ricketts joins Peachtree as Designer.

At the University of Alabama Press, J.D. Wilson has been named Director, effective January 2023. He has most recently worked as Sales and Marketing Director at Northwestern University Press.

At Wonderwell, Eva Avery joins as Editorial Director. She was previously Editor at Chronicle Prism.

In agency news…Ann Rose, formerly of Prospect Agency, joins The Tobias Agency as Literary Agent. Sera Rivers joins Speilburg Literary Agency as Literary Agent; she was previously at Martin Literary Management. Additionally, Lara Love Hardin, most recently CEO and Senior Literary Agent at Idea Architects, is launching True Literary Agency. She will continue working on nonfiction and plans to expand her representation into literary fiction.

At Spiegel & Grau, Barry Harbaugh joins as Executive Editor and Joey McGarvey joins as Senior Editor. Harbaugh was previously Senior Editor at Little A/Amazon, and McGarvey was previously Senior Editor at Milkweed Editions.

Redina Demushi, formerly Senior International Operations & Marketing Associate at Scholastic’s International and Export Group, joins Scholastic Trade as Associate Global Marketing Manager. Talia Seidenfeld rejoins Scholastic as Editor; she was most recently at Callisto. Andrea Mosqueda, formerly Assistant Editor at Macmillan, joins as Associate Editor for Licensing, Brands, and Media.

Trey Glickman joins the digital marketing team at Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing as Graphic Designer.

At Verso Books, Colby Groves joins as Digital Marketing Strategist.

Ally Russell joins the newly-opened US branch of Nosy Crow as Marketing Manager. She was previously Consumer & Educational Outreach Manager at Candlewick. Avery Cook joins as Marketing Associate.

At Sounds True, Lyric Dodson has joined as Developmental Editor.

 

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Top 5 Publishing Articles/Blog Posts of the Week 11/7-11/11

­Red Number 5Every week, we recommend 5 publishing articles/blog posts that supplement the major news for the week. Whether data or industry commentary, we hope these 5 links will be a simple way to keep you in the know.

Could a slowdown in venture capital funding for publishers be positive?

Is it time for the scholars of #SciTwitter to move their online community to a different platform?

Without Twitter, can small presses and magazines survive?

How definitively did Judge Pan block the PRH/S&S merger?

What new pressures has the pandemic put on scholarly research?

Top 5 Publishing Articles/Blog Posts of the Week 10/31-11/4

­Red Number 5Every week, we recommend 5 publishing articles/blog posts that supplement the major news for the week. Whether data or industry commentary, we hope these 5 links will be a simple way to keep you in the know.

What children’s and YA trends were evident in Frankfurt?

How have parents’ rights groups increasingly allied themselves with law enforcement?

Are fandoms inevitably constrained by their canon?

Without a combined PRH and S&S, where will the industry head next?

What can communities do to defend their librarians?

Literary Agent Contact Sheet 2022

We’ve updated our Literary Agent Contact Sheet for 2022. The 2022 list has contact information for hundreds of literary agents and agencies in the United States. To conserve space, the word “agency” has been omitted from most listings. Those agencies doing business under a single last name are listed alphabetically, with the agent’s first name in brackets (e.g. [Jane] Smith). If you’re unfamiliar with an agency, we encourage you to go to their website to learn more about their specialties and preferred means of communication before contacting them.

Click the image above for the full PDF of the Publishing Trends 2022 Literary Agent Contact Sheet.

People Round-Up, Early November 2022

PEOPLE

Andrea Fleck-Nisbet, founding VP and Publisher of Harper Horizon, will succeed Angela Bole as CEO of the Independent Book Publishers Association. Bole will remain until the end of November before beginning her role as CEO of the Firebrand Group.

At Penguin Random House, David Phethean, VP, Mass Merchandise, National Accounts and Distributor Sales, will retire at the end of the year. Jordan Rodman has been named Senior Director of Publicity for Vintage Anchor. Most recently she was Director of Publicity at Avid Reader Press. At Random House Children’s Books, Liz Dresner, lately Senior Art Director for Sourcebooks, joins as Art Director, YA. Dana Mendelson joins Penguin Young Readers as Senior Designer.

At Avid Reader Press, Davis Kass, formerly VP and Executive Director of Publicity at Hilsinger Mendelson, joins as Senior Director of Publicity.

Catherine Woods joins MIT Press as Executive Editor for Economics, Finance, and Business. She was previously VP, Content Management at Macmillan Learning.

Bold Type Books eliminated the role of Editorial Director Hillary Brenhouse due to “changes in the partnership between the Type Media Center and Hachette.” Accordingly, editorial functions for Bold Type are moving into Public Affairs and books will be acquired for the Bold Type list by Public Affairs editors.

At Poets House, Rob Arnold will take over the position of Executive Director on December 1. Interim Director Cornelius Eady will stay in his role until November 30 and will remain involved with the organization thereafter. Arnold previously served as Interim Executive Director of Hugo House.

Anna Dobben, formerly Associate Director, Awards at the National Book Foundation, joins the San Antonio Book Festival as Literary Director and can be reached at anna@sabookfest.org.

In agency news…Victoria Hendersen joins Brower Literary & Management as Foreign Rights Agent. Previously she was Foreign Rights Assistant at New Leaf Literary & Media. At Donald Maass Literary Agency, Jolene Haley joins as Literary Agent. Carol Woien and Leslie Truex have joined Blue Ridge Literary as Junior Agents. Additionally, Andrea DeWerd, previously Senior Marketing Director at Harvest, is launching The Future of Agency, a book marketing and consulting company.

Kate Tuttle joins the book section of People Magazine as Executive Editor. Previously she was Contributing Editor, Books at the Boston Globe.

Leonard Marcus, Editor-at-Large, has departed Astra Books for Young Readers and can be reached at lm@leonardmarcus.com.

Senior Editor Jaime Levine has left William Morrow and can be contacted at jplevine55@gmail.com.

Due to the HarperCollins layoffs, Aubrey Churchward, Senior Publicity Manager, Children’s, has left her position.

At Algonquin, Marisol Salaman joins as Publicity Manager. Previously she was Senior Publicist for Portfolio and Sentinel. Evan Hansen-Bundy joins as Associate Editor; he was most recently Assistant Editor at Little, Brown and Company.

Perry Crowe joins Chronicle Books as Senior Managing Editor for Entertainment, while Eric Cromie joins as Website Manager.

At Candlewick Press, Tom Brennan joins as Senior Systems Administrator and Salma Shawa joins as Social Media Manager.

At Scholastic, Richard Gonzalez, Jr. joins as Production Editor and Maithili Joshi joins as Junior Designer.

Morgan Hillman joins Holiday House, Peachtree, and Pixel + Ink as Sales Director; she was previously Senior National Accounts Manager at HarperCollins. Bree Martinez, most recently Content Experience Manager at BookClub, also joins as these imprints as Publicist.

Angela Wix, lately Acquisitions Editor at Llewellyn Worldwide, joins Sounds True as Acquisitions Editor.

At The Experiment, Danica Donovan, formerly Assistant Portfolio Manager at Oxford University Press, joins as Associate Editor.

Dawn Raffel joins Northwest Review as Fiction Editor.

Ashley Delaney and Jordan Payne join Sourcebooks as Customer Experience Representatives, and Emma Grant joins as Buyer I for the manufacturing team.

 

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International Bestsellers, October 2022

Every month, Publishing Trends runs fiction international bestsellers lists from four territories–France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. This month, our four regular territories are joined by two more: Thailand and the United Arab Emirates. Those books that have been published in English are listed with their official English-language title. All others are translated as literally as possible from the original. Where applicable, the US publisher is listed after the local publisher, separated by a “/”. The lists are taken from major newspapers or national retailers, which are noted at the bottom of each list.

Download the full list as a PDF here.

Top 5 Publishing Articles/Blog Posts of the Week 10/24-10/28

­Red Number 5Every week, we recommend 5 publishing articles/blog posts that supplement the major news for the week. Whether data or industry commentary, we hope these 5 links will be a simple way to keep you in the know.

Does better data actually make for better art?

Who owns a story in translation?

Will COVID research ultimately be paywalled?

How tight is Amazon’s hold on discretionary spending?

Could Apple thwart Spotify’s audiobook ambitions?

Top 5 Publishing Articles/Blog Posts of the Week 10/17-10/21

­Red Number 5Every week, we recommend 5 publishing articles/blog posts that supplement the major news for the week. Whether data or industry commentary, we hope these 5 links will be a simple way to keep you in the know.

Could an NFT startup meaningfully change the industry, or just reflect current trends?

Would the problem of gatekeeping be lessened if scientific journals only reviewed articles, rather than accepting them?

How will European publishing be affected by a coming “perfect storm”?

Can literature shape the course of war?

Why does crime fiction elide so much “street crime”?