PEOPLE Larry Kirshbaum will join the Waxman Leavell Literary Agency as a Senior Agent starting February 24, the WSJ reported. Scott Waxman says, “He’ll be an independent agent building his own list like every agent does.” Kirshbaum was an agent for his own firm, LJK Literary Management, between 2005 and mid-2011 before becoming President of Amazon Publishing. (His former colleagues at that agency reconstituted as the Einstein Thompson Agency when Kirshbaum left.)…Continue Reading
PEOPLE Little, Brown editor Reagan Arthur has received her own imprint, Reagan Arthur Books. Arthur’s title will be VP, Editorial Director, and she will continue to report to Geoff Shandler. The imprint’s first books will be published in Fall 2009. Nancy Hancock has joined HarperOne as Executive Editor, reporting directly to Mickey Maudlin. Hancock was…Continue Reading
PEOPLE It seems as though anyone who wasn’t on vacation or sabbatical this month was busy changing jobs: Liz Perl has been named VP Publisher of Rodale, reporting to Tami Booth Corwin. She was previously Associate Publisher of Penguin‘s Riverhead, Perigee, HP, Portfolio and Sentinel lines and Director of Marketing and Executive Director of Publicity…Continue Reading
PEOPLE Simon & Schuster’s various imprints have been trimmed over the past few weeks: Rachel Klayman has been laid off from The Free Press, Jeff Neuman has left S&S (and may be reached at neudors@yahoo.com), and Rosemary Ahern (who arrived from Dutton less than two years ago), and Kim Kanner and an assistant have departed…Continue Reading
As Editors Keep Specializing, Are Generalists Going Extinct? Call it a healthy dose of editorial realism, or call it the Dilbert-ization of publishing. However you spin it, over the last few decades, it seems, that formerly abundant creature of the book-business veld — the free-ranging generalist editor, dismissive of pigeonholes and crossing categories at will…Continue Reading
Your Guide to Cost-Cutting Without Lopping Off Heads Now that synergy’s been debunked, and good old Thomas Middelhoff has been spun off, the publishing world has settled down to the rather more prosaic task of whittling away at its already bare-bones cost structure. “It’s clear there is retrenchment,” as one public relations executive says, but…Continue Reading
PEOPLE We will skip over the Thomas Middelhoff debacle, and move on to some moves that are less well covered, including that by a Middelhoff chronicler: The NYT’s David Kirkpatrick is leaving the Book Beat, to cover media, focusing on AOL Time Warner, along with Vivendi, Bertelsmann, and News Corp. His replacement will be named…Continue Reading
PEOPLE Heads rolling in and rolling out: Marco Ausenda, who comes from Touring Club Italia, will replace Antonio Polito as the head of Rizzoli US, reporting to Giulio Lattanzi. . . Jean-Marie Messier’s still running Vivendi, but of course major changes at Houghton Mifflin: Teri Kelly succeeds Wendy Strothman as SVP and head of trade…Continue Reading
As Pearson Hones Its Corporate Units, Penguin Putnam Starts Making Sense As Pearson CEO Marjorie Scardino likes to say, “It’s hard to make complicated things simple, but it’s usually worth it.” Well, this month Publishing Trends takes her at her word, and plunges into the fearsome Penguin Putnam organizational chart to sort out the dizzying…Continue Reading
PEOPLE There’s much happening at 375 Hudson Street: Danny Gurr has resigned as CEO of DK’s US operations, as a result of the following organizational changes effective immediately: The US editorial department will report primarily to DK UK Publisher Christopher Davis. Sales and Marketing will report through Dick Heffernan, President, Director of Sales, Adult Hardcover…Continue Reading
