People Roundup, Mid-June 2013

PEOPLE

The National Endowment for the Arts announced that Ira Silverberg, Director of Literature programs, will leave the agency and return to New York City. Silverberg’s departure is effective July 11, 2013. Amy Stolls, Literature Program Officer, will be the Acting Director of Literature until a new director is in place. Silverberg joined the NEA in October 2011.

Beth Lamb has been appointed to the newly created position of Vice President, Associate Publisher, Vintage Anchor, reporting to Anne Messitte.  She was most recently Associate Publisher for Trade Books at Rodale. As a result, Hyperion VP, Associate Publisher Kristin Kiser is moving to Rodale as VP Deputy Publisher, reporting to newly named Publisher, Mary Ann Naples.  Naples has also announced that Jennifer Levesque will be joining as Editorial Director of Trade Books.  She was most recently at Abrams.

Elisabeth Dyssegaard, Hyperion Editor in Chief, will join Palgrave Macmillan as Executive Editor on June 24 with a focus on acquiring books in history. She will report to Karen Wolny, Editorial Director of Trade.

Jacob Lewis has been named VP, Publishing Director for CrownHogarth, and Broadway Books, effective July 8. He is currently the Co-founder and CEO of Figment.com.

Phoebe Yeh will join Random House Children’s Books as VP, Publisher, Crown Books for Young Readers on June 21, reporting to Barbara Marcus. Yeh was most recently Editorial Director at HarperCollins Children’s.  Michelle Nagler will join Random House Children’s Books as Associate Publishing Director for the Random House / Golden Books group.

With publication of fine arts and photography instruction titles by Watson-Guptill and Amphoto Books reassigned to Ten Speed Press, nine positions are being eliminated, including that of Victoria Craven, Editorial Director of Watson-Guptill, Amphoto Books, and Potter Craft.

Betina Cochran is joining Highlights in the newly created position of Editorial Director of Interactive Publishing and Strategic Partnerships.   Most recently, she worked as Associate Director of Licensing and Business Development for the American Museum of Natural History.

Joe Wikert, formerly General Manager of the TOC Division of O’Reilly, has announced that he has accepted a position with Olive Software.

Tim Ditlow has left Amazon Children’s, within the Marshall Cavendish division, where he was Associate Publisher (after working for Amazon-owned Brilliance Audio since 2008). He can be reached at timditlow@gmail.com

As a result of Kingfisher’s decision to scale back its U.S. operations, Kingfisher has announced that Brian Buerkle, who joined the company as Associate Publisher and Director of Marketing, left the company in December 2012.

Genoveva Llosa has joined HarperOne as Senior Editor. She was at Jossey-Bass most recently and has also worked at HarperBusiness, Crown, and Harvard Business Review Press.

Sarah Harrison Smith will become the new Children’s Editor at The New York Times, taking over from Pamela Paul, who was promoted recently to Editor of The New York Times Book Review. Paul replaced Sam Tanenhaus, who stepped down after nine years in the position to become a Writer-at-Large.  Smith has served as an editor in the Metropolitan section and also worked as the Managing Editor of The New York Times Magazine. Read More »

From the Ground Up: Inventing Mexican Publishing in 2013

While many BEA 2013 Conference sessions dealt with the familiar subject of how an established industry adapts to change, the recurrent issues in BEA 2013′s Global Market Forum on Mexico were a bit different. Unlike some industries that are “reinventing” themselves, Mexican publishing is a small trade community attempting to build a large and globally competitive industry—and consumer base—from scratch. The country’s GDP growth of 5.5% in 2012 and status as one of the fastest-growing providers of skilled tech jobs in the world all add up to unprecedented amounts of disposable income. Even more importantly, between 1990 and 2000, Mexico’s literacy rates for people between the ages of 10 and 15 went from around 12% to more than 90%. As this generation has reached adulthood, millions more literate people than ever before are wielding unprecedented spending power.

But as has been pointed out elsewhere, literacy is no guarantor of book consumption.  Such has been the case with Mexico, where the average adult reads fewer than two books per year. Alongside the new president, Enrique Peña Nieto‘s, call for a new overhaul of the system, many outside the educational sector, including publishers and arts-and-culture sectors of the government, are honing in on the nation’s Millennials in much the same way as literacy activists did in the 90s, hoping to “change [the nation’s] reading habits from childhood and from within schools,” says Ana Laura Delgado, Director of independent children’s publisher Ediciones El Naranjo. The mission to overhaul the way Mexicans consume books, says Felipe Rosete, Editor at Sexto Piso, won’t be effective if practiced “by government-implemented reading programs alone. A new reading culture depends on the publishing industry itself to use campaigns, affordable pricing, and activities that complement governmental programs.”

One example of a concerted focus on children’s books is the collaboration between publishers, booksellers, and the government to establish a children’s section in every Mexican bookstore, which Nina Alvarez Icaza of Fondo de Cultura Economica calls “one of the most important initiatives in recent years.” However, this example of one strengthened link in the supply chain points to the bigger gap that remains. As it is, an estimated 94% of Mexican municipalities have no significant sales outlet for books–making children’s sections or lack thereof a moot point. When asked what the biggest challenge is for book business in Mexico today, publisher after publisher answered “distribution.” The lack of options exists at every point of the supply chain, not just the endpoint: Diego Rabasa, an editor at Sexto Piso, points out that the scarcity of specialized book distributors and wholesalers within Mexico cramps the flexibility of business between publishers and booksellers, and Linda Goodman, president of The Bilingual Publications Co, a US importer of Spanish-language books, bemoans the lack of professional publicity outlets to learn about new releases. Read More »

Focus on Children’s: New Digital Players at BEA 2013

While much of the interest at BEA focuses on physical products, we were curious about what new digital companies were being represented on the exhibition floor, specifically within the children’s space. Though there weren’t many digitally-focused new players present, we did want to highlight some that were:
  • Molly Moccasins: Available in 146 countries, this ad-free website offers 70 stories and games revolving around the character of Molly and her friends. A printed companion book is currently being sold, which has a code that gives unlimited access to all of the website’s features.
  • Story Sticker: Selling QR codes as a sticker that can be attached inside children’s books, Story Sticker offers a corresponding app that allows parents to record themselves reading any book of choice. The app is free, but the stickers can be sold at retailers, and partnerships are in being considered to print QR codes in directly in books.
  • FarFaria: A storytelling/gaming world for young children, FarFaria features “islands” that each contain an animated storybook (not unlike MindshapesMagic Town).  Comprised of original and licensed content and adding new stories weekly, this subscription service is currently available in the Apple store.
  • iSchool Initiative: Though they weren’t exhibitors, iSchool Initiative, spearheaded by 22 year-old IDPF keynote speaker Travis Allen, is an initiative dedicated to integrating mobile devices into school curriculum. With 11 full-time employees, this fully-funded non-profit encourages mobile techniques that can be used to enhance the educational experience.

Tipping the Scales: Publishers Launch BEA 2013

If “Wild West” and “Discoverability” have been buzz words of BEAs past, “Scale” is certainly a strong contender for this year’s theme. Size and scale certainly come to mind when looking at the ever-increasing offerings and co-located events supplement the BEA exhibit hall, from IDPF and bloggers conferences to library tracks and author events. Size and scale especially seemed like relevant points of discussion at the Publishers Launch BEA conference, as they address some of the elephants in the room: what is going to happen once Random House and Penguin becomes one mega-publisher? How are publishers dealing with Amazon now that it’s not only the leading book retailer but making the moves to become a major publishing outfit? As a result, much of what was covered at Publishers Launch BEA, held Wednesday, May 29th at the Javits Center, centered on whether or not size will really matter and what the behemoths of the industry, which only seem to be getting bigger, mean for everyone else.

Anticipating Random/Penguin

For agents on a panel about consolidation, much is still up in the air. While no one said that they believed consolidation or rapid growth in agencies will be the solution to counterbalance the large companies potentially getting larger, they did agree that scale will matter. Size is not the only factor that defines the scale of a company, but its weight and influences, as well. Two publishers becoming one means that there will be one less option to leverage an author against another. The question of size also translates to authors. As Brian DeFiore of DeFiore and Company pointed out, “A mega-company needs mega-authors to survive,” meaning that agents “need major clients more than ever.” Robert Gottlieb of Trident Media agreed, talking about how consolidation will possibly mean bigger incentives for bestselling authors, but may make it even harder for mid-list authors who are struggling; agents might be less inclined to stay with clients through rough times.

Random/Penguin also means the publishers will have greater resources to finally breach some barriers the industry has repeatedly come up against. Idea Logical‘s Mike Shatzkin predicted that Random/Penguin will finally be able to create a successful subscription service, which had previously been impossible due to “agents not wanting to transfer the power of the author to the subscription manager.” The possibilities of a consolidated company were also highlighted in the business development panel, moderated by Market Partner International‘s Lorraine Shanley, that discussed how these departments finding areas of strategic growth in partnering with new companies and business opportunities.

Dealing with Amazon

On the retail side, Amazon also came up often in reference to their not-so-secret adversarial relationship with publishers. Former Macmillan President Brian Napack highlighted the conflict of interest between the two, succinctly explaining that Amazon manages the customer and publishers manage the author, and as those two move into one another’s spaces, friction is bound to occur. This was a sentiment echoed by Scott Hoffman at Folio Literary Management who said his philosophy has been that “you don’t get rich selling books to publishers, you get rich selling books to people.” Still, Michael Cader explained that Amazon having almost no margin will make it hard for publishers to compete as their margins increase. Mike Shatzkin agreed that costs need to go down but ideas can be large: “For publishing as an industry, [find a way to] make it smaller. For publishing as a function, make it bigger.”

Overall, when talking about scale, many of the presenters emphasized that companies in all aspects of the business will have to be, (in the words of Brian Napack), “laser-focused on what you do really, really well.” F+W’s David Nussbaum demonstrated how the company’s shift in focus to its core competencies of content, community, commerce, and curation led to its 38% growth in the last 3 years. According to Hachette’s Ken Michaels, it is this combination of innovation (on the side of content) and execution (in delivering that content to consumers) that creates scale.

References to size didn’t just stop with the Publishers Launch conference. Just down the hall at IDPF, Malcolm Gladwell gave a speech, titled after his new book but apt nonetheless, about “David and Goliath” in which he talked about the need for book businesses to cut out less effectual, larger money pits and to instead focus on more functional, localized branches/businesses. While perhaps not a prescription across the board, it does reflect Robert Gottlieb’s observation that publishing is moving to a place where it will be very top and bottom heavy, with little options for mid-level companies. Davids and Goliaths may be in battle, but those in between are perhaps the ones to watch.

People Roundup, June 2013

PEOPLE

Macmillan has hired Bob Miller to start a new, stand-alone company specializing in nonfiction. Miller was most recently Group Publisher at Workman Publishing.

Cary Goldstein will join the Simon & Schuster imprint as VP, Executive Director of Publicity and Senior Editor on June 3. He was previously Publisher of Twelve at the Hachette Book Group.  It was also announced that Tracy Guest, Director of Publicity, is leaving S&S.

Skip Prichard has been named President and CEO of OCLC. He was most recently at Ingram Content Group Inc., where he served as President and CEO.

Andrew Weinstein has joined Scribd as VP, Content Acquisition. He was most recently at his own startup, AW Media, and previously at Ingram.

Corinne Helman, VP, Digital Publishing and Business Development, is leaving HarperCollins Children’s to move to Toronto.

James Phirmam has joined Houghton Mifflin Harcourt as National Account Manager. Previously he was Senior Sales Manager at Lonely Planet. In addition, Jessica Gilo has been named Marketing Specialist for HMH’s Culinary Group; previously, she was at Hachette.

Ryan Doherty is joining Ballantine Bantam Dell as Senior Editor, reporting to Editorial Director, Nonfiction, Jennifer Tung. He was previously Senior Editor at Spiegel & Grau.

Storey Publishing President and Publisher Pamela Art will step down; she has been with Storey, an imprint of Workman, since its founding.

Kathleen Schmidt will join Weinstein Books as Publicity Director as of July 1. She was most recently Founder and CEO of KMS Public Relations, and before that, VP, Director of Publicity at Atria.

Erin Hotchkiss joined the Abrams Adult Marketing department as Senior Marketing Manager; she comes from Scholastic’s Storia.

Kathryn Wiess has joined digital solutions company Qbend as Director of Sales. Weiss was previously at Better World Books and, prior to that, at The Book Depository and Ingram.

PROMOTIONS

Benjamin Steinberg has been named Manager, Consumer Verticals and Partnerships at Random House‘s Corporate Digital Marketing Group. Previously, he was an Associate Editor for the Random House imprint.  At the Random House imprint, Andy Ward is now VP, Editorial Director, Nonfiction, and David Ebershoff is VP, Executive Editor.

Crown Archetype announced that Suzanne O’Neill has been promoted to Executive Editor, Talia Krohn has been promoted to Senior Editor, and Stephanie Knapp has been promoted to Associate Editor.

In addition to his current responsibilities as VP and Executive Editor at FSG, Sean McDonald has been appointed Publisher of FSG Originals and Director of Digital and Paperback Publishing.

Greg Mortimer has joined S&S Digital as Senior Online Marketing Manager. Previously he was online marketing manager at Scribner.

HarperCollins has announced some “adjustments” in their General Books group, driven by It Books publisher Cal Morgan’s move to the Harper division as SVP Executive Editor, and continuing as Editorial Director of Harper Perennial and Harper Paperbacks: Lynn Grady has been promoted to SVP, Publisher of It Books, now reporting as part of the Morrow division to Publisher Liate Stehlik. Harper Design becomes part of the Harper Division.  At General Books, Dana Trombley has been promoted to Senior Manager, Digital Marketing.

Abrams announces Elisa Garcia has been promoted to Director of Trade Sales. Jody Mosley is promoted to Director of Special Markets. Erica Warshal has been promoted to Director of National Accounts.

Kelly Burdick has been promoted to Associate Publisher of Melville House.

Read More »

The Next Big Thing: Business Development in Publishing

While Business Development is not necessarily one of the first departments that comes to mind when thinking of careers in the publishing industry, it is an area of increasing importance in light of the many startups and platforms that are now part of the digital landscape. The term “Business Development” or, more commonly, “biz dev” is broad but encompasses many things: creating and maintaining relationships with vendors and potential partners, finding new revenue streams, and pitching business to new clients, in addition to sometimes maintaining marketing/sales channels.

So what exactly does a business development position and department look like? How does the biz dev professional interact with publishing colleagues on the one hand, and new vendors on the other, and what metrics do they use to gauge success? We talked to people who work in several different publishing business development capacities to explore these questions.

Though definitions and workflows vary, everyone agrees that business development revolves around relationships and connections with other companies. “The definition for business development used by some is ‘the creation of long-term value for an organization,’ so this generally means working with people with whom you don’t currently have a business relationship,” explains Ted Hill, President of THA Consulting. “Any time I meet people I’m thinking about how I can work with them even if it’s not the reason we were introduced,” says Steve Sandonato, VP of Business Development & Strategy at Time Home Entertainment Inc. “You need to always think outside the traditional business models to create a spark of a new idea.  If the spark of the idea is thought of without a specific partner in mind you need to identify and contact companies that can help you realize that idea.”

When asked how they view biz dev in publishing, almost everyone agreed that the definition has to be tweaked. “Positions in biz dev didn’t exist until the mid-90s. It’s a digital, new economy term,” says HarperCollins’ Director of Digital Business Development, Adam Silverman. “At HarperCollins, biz dev is a combination of strategy, business analysis, and legal—finding new channels and new partners to sell ebooks. Biz dev then stays involved to oversee any new terms or territories with new channels.” If this sounds  familiar, it might be because  “business development is often just a fancy way of saying ‘sales,’” explains Doug Stambaugh, VP, Global eBook Market Development and Strategy at Simon & Schuster Digital. For Kate Travers, Director of Digital Business Development at Workman, digital means direct sales, but also marketing: “creating verticals around a brand and closer relationships to consumers,” she explains.

As for whom publishers are building relationships with, companies range from startups to known industry resources. “The role of business development for me is about creating new relationships and partnerships as well as expanding and leveraging existing ones,” says Peter Balis, Director of Digital Business Development at Wiley.  “New partners include companies like Inkling and Bookshout and we have expanded our partnerships recently with Apple and O’Reilly.” Adam Silverman also mentioned Inkling in particular, talking about how they offer “an evolving model on the fly” that has been changing with the market. Many of the industry professionals we talked to also spoke about the importance of the library and elearning community in discovering new frontiers and business opportunities. Read More »

People Roundup, Mid-May 2013

PEOPLE

Brenda Marsh has left her position as VP, Author Relations at B&N, where she has worked since 1998, and can be reached at brendasmarsh@gmail.com

Margie Chan-Yip has left her position as VP, Global Publishing at Hasbro and will consult in global business development, brand licensing and publishing strategy.  She may be reached at mcyip99@gmail.com

Doug Pocock has been named Managing Director of Abrams & Chronicle Books in the U.K., a partnership formed in 2010 by the two U.S. publishers based in London. He was formerly a consultant at The Media Partners and ran Egmont USA.

Diana Blough joined Random House Publisher Services as Imprint Sales Director; she was working as a consultant, and previously worked at Bloomsbury.

Alison Impey joined Knopf/Delacorte/Dell as Art Director. Stephanie Moss has been promoted to Associate Art Director. 

Sean Desmond has been named Editorial Director of Twelve, a newly created position. He was previously Executive Editor at Crown.

Joe Wikert, formerly General Manager of the TOC Division of O’Reilly, has left the company and can be reached at jwikert@gmail.com

Julia Carvalho has joined Chronicle Books Special Sales team as National Account Manager; she was formerly East Coast Sales Representative at Taschen.

At Open Road, Pete Beatty is now Acquisitions Director. He was previously Senior Editor at Bloomsbury.  Summer Smith will be joining Bloomsbury Adult Trade as Associate Director of Publicity. Previously, she was Publicity Manager at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Julie Buntin, formerly the Literary Events Coordinator at The powerHouse Arena, is now Director of Programs and Strategic Outreach at CLMP (Council of Literary Magazines & Presses).

Ed Wilhelm has been named Director at Books-A-Million. Most recently at The Finish Line, he was formerly with Borders as Executive VP and CFO.

Ryan Chapman has joined the publishing start-up, Atavist Books, as Associate Director of Marketing. Previously he was Marketing Director at Penguin Press. Read More »

Driven to Disruption: Reading James McQuivey’s Digital Disruption

PT Book Review LogoEWPublishingTrends.com continues its regular column in which we review, explicate, and excerpt books that we think will resonate with people in the business of publishing and media. 

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The word “disruption” is hardly unfamiliar to those in the publishing industry. Almost every part of book business has been affected by disruption, particularly of the digital kind, from the advent and availability of ereaders to the struggle for bricks-and-mortar stores to keep up with online retailers. With several disruptive companies already in full swing and announcements of new startups every day, Forrester Research VP and Principal Analyst James McQuivey’s Digital Disruption: Unleashing the Next Wave of Innovation (published, appropriately enough, by Amazon this year) seems like the ideal read for anyone in the book business.

Though this title  is not specific to book business, McQuivey repeats throughout that digital disruption will affect every industry. The agility of new electronic platforms and digital technology in general has not only accelerated the rate of change in every business sector, but also allows for individuals to wield  greater power. McQuivey cites entrepreneurs like Guy Cramer, who developed an online camouflage business, and Charles Teague with his weight loss program/community FitNow, as case studies demonstrating how one idea can create an entire business. He also goes so far as to say that future companies may be a part of a “disposable economy” where small teams of innovators work together on a certain project and disband after completion. This all embraces the lean startup mentality—but what is a company to do when it is not a startup? How can legacy publishers take advantage of this revolution? Read More »

People Roundup, May 2013

PEOPLE

Brendan Cahill has joined Random House, Inc. as Vice President, Corporate Projects, working with departments across the company on a variety of internal and externally-directed endeavors, beginning with digital-partnership development opportunities.  He was previously CEO of NatureShare, and before that VP and Publisher at Open Road, and an Editor at Running Press, Grove/Atlantic, and Gotham Books.

W. Ralph Eubanks has announced that he will be leaving his post as the Director of Publishing at Library of Congress to become Editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review

SVP of Hachette Digital & Audio Maja Thomas is leaving the company after 22 years with Time Warner and then HBG, “for the next exciting chapter of her career.”  She has led Hachette Audio since 2000 and Hachette Digital since 2005, chief strategist for HBG of the Bookish website.  Though she will be consulting for Hachette until the end of the year and reachable via that email address, she will also be  at majathomas@gmail.com

Courtney Hodell is leaving FSG, where she was Executive Editor. She can be reached at Courtney.hodell@gmail.com.

Margaret Coffee has joined Egmont USA as Sales and Marketing Director. Most recently she was VP of Sales at Albert Whitman, and was previously at Scholastic for more than 16 years.  Katie Halata moves up to Sales and Marketing Manager at Egmont.

Michael Cairns is joining Publishing Technology as COO of their Online Solutions division, succeeding Louise Russell and reporting to George Lossius.  Most recently, Cairns has been a consultant and served as Chief Revenue Officer for SharedBook, focused on their Academic Pub platform.

Deputy Executive Director of the Book Industry Study Group (BISG), Angela Bole, will become Executive Director of the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) in July, remaining based in New York. Current Executive Director Florrie Binford Kichler, is retiring from the post in June.

Christian Trimmer will be joining S&S Books For Young Readers as Senior Editor.  He has worked for the Walt Disney Company for nearly 13 years.

Ken Brooks, Cengage SVP, Global Production & Manufacturing Services, has left the company to restart his operations and product development consulting firm, Treadwell Media Group.

Julia Kenny is joining Dunow Carlson & Lerner as an Agent, rejoining her recent colleague Eleanor Jackson. Kenny was at Markson Thoma–from which Geri Thoma, Jackson, Laney Katz Becker and Kenny have all departed since early March.

Maddie Caldwell has joined Knopf, reporting to Director of Media Relations Paul Bogaards. She was at Weed Literary for the past year.

Jennifer Corcoran will join Little, Brown Children’s on May 6 as Director of Publicity. She was most recently Publicity Director at Disney Publishing Worldwide.

Julie Just, who became an Agent at Janklow & Nesbit in late 2010 after working at the NYT Book Review as Children’s Book Editor, is moving to Pippin Properties. Read More »

All Dressed Up with No Place to Go: The Renaissance of Argentinian Publishers VS. Global Isolationism

PrintFrom April 25 to May 19, the Buenos Aires Book Fair will be welcoming readers and Spanish-language publishing professionals around the world, seeking, says the Fair’s Executive Director, Gabriela Adamo, “to reassure Argentina’s place as a leading country in the Spanish book industry.” Like every other part of the Spanish-language book industry, Argentina is feeling the effect of Spain’s suffering publishing industry. Add the country’s own high inflation and recent laws making it all but impossible to import books manufactured outside the country, and the situation seems dire.

While no one denies the extreme challenges, there is almost equally universal agreement among Argentinian publishing professionals that their industry is at a more exciting place now than it’s been since Argentina’s literary “golden age,” post-World War II. Despite the economic and legal challenges, many within the industry see specific ways that Argentina could very reasonably “reassure” its place in—and even help reshape—the global Spanish book industry if governmental policies shifted even slightly.

Argentinian book business’ greatest international challenge currently comes from the home front. In autumn 2011, faced with  annual rates of inflation over 20% and taking a policy stance of “cultural sovereignty,” the Argentinian government introduced rigorous guidelines for all aspects of international trade. For the book industry, this means strict import quotas on the number of books manufactured outside Argentina and extensive chemical tests to the materials of those books that are imported, along with newly complicated procedures for sending international payments.

Read More »