Book View, July 2009

PEOPLE ROUNDUP

Seven people have been laid off from Kaplan, including Director of National Accounts, Bill Huelster (who may be reached at bhuelster [at] gmail.com) and Yulia Borodyanskaya, International Sales and Subsidiary Rights (yborodyanskaya [at] yahoo.com). Kaplan is moving the selling responsibility to its distributor, Simon & Schuster, and Mary Dolan, Executive Director of Sales, will oversee the relationship. Jennifer Farthing becomes Executive Director, Business Development, liaising between publishing and Kaplan Inc.

Michael Tamblyn has become VP Content, Sales and Merchandising at Indigo’s Shortcovers. He was President and CEO of BookNet Canada, which he founded in 2003. Noah Genner, BookNet’s Technology Director, takes over as CEO.

Scott Watrous has left Globe Pequot Press, where he was President and Publisher. COO Jim Joseph has taken over on an interim basis.

Andrew Gelman has left Rodale, where he was VP Business Affairs. He may be reached at andrewgelman [at] gmail.com. Meanwhile, Andrew Malkin has joined Zinio in the New York office to lead its e-book strategy and growth as VP, Book Content, reporting to CEO Rich Maggiotto. Previously, he held the position of VP Trade Book Sales at Rodale.

Kate Travers has assumed the position of Marketing Director for powerHouse Books. Most recently, she was at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Previously, she was Strategic Marketing Director at the Literary Ventures Fund and Marketing Director at Folio Literary Management.

Anne Kostick has left Dulcinea Media, where she was Editor-in-Chief. She may be reached at Foxpath IND (anne [at] foxpath.com), which specializes in web and print content, marketing, and strategy.

Philomel Books Editor-at-Large Patricia Gauch will leave the company on September 30 to return to full-time writing and lecturing. She joined the imprint as Editor-in-Chief in 1985.

The Jim Henson Company and Archaia announced that they have entered into a partnership that will publish comic books and graphic novels based on Henson titles, as well as new co-branded original properties. Joe LeFavi, Director of Publishing and Development at Henson, will serve as story editor.

Teri Tobias, Director of Foreign Rights at the Sanford J. Greenburger Associates, has left and and may be reached at teritobias [at] gmail.com. . . . Lucinda Blumenthal will be working for Christy Fletcher as an agent and in a marketing role for some of her bigger nonfiction clients. She was most recently a Sales Associate for Scholastic Marketing Partners. . . . Trena Keating, who had been an agent at Endeavor since last September (and Editor-in-Chief at Dutton prior to that) has established her own agency, Keating Literary. . . . Nancy Yost, lately of Lowenstein-Yost, is also striking out on her own and will be setting up her own business and sharing offices with Liza Dawson and Laura Dail. She may be reached at nancy [at] nyliterary.com.

Chris Lloreda, Touchstone/Fireside Associate Publisher, has moved to Atria as Deputy Publisher following the departure of Deb Darrock. Replacing Lloreda is David Falk, who was Director of Sales and Marketing at The Overlook Press.

Todd Berman will join Random House Publisher Services as Director, Client Development. He was at Harvard Business School Press, most recently as Director of Sales. He succeeds Todd McGarity, who recently left for Hachette.

Peter Berens has been appointed acquisitions scout for Running Press, reporting to Publisher Christopher Navratil. Meanwhile, Perseus is implementing a furlough program in which employees will be asked to take some additional days off “and pay will be temporarily reduced during the summer,” according to David Steinberger. Senior executives have also been asked to take “a more significant compensation reduction.”

Greg Mowery of Greg Mowery Public Relations has relocated his base and office from New York City to Portland, OR. He has increasingly specialized in the cookbook field, handling publicity campaigns for Betty Crocker and Pillsbury Cookbooks for Wiley, as well as individual campaigns. He may be reached at gregorybnyc [at] yahoo.com.

Rich Freese, President of BookMasters Distribution, is returning to National Book Network as President. He will remain in California and open an office there.

Mary Marotta announced that Mary Faria is joining Simon & Schuster as Director of Mass Merchandise/DSRM, Children’s Sales on July 6. Her direct reports include Karen Lahey (Levy, Target), Scott Kerkis (Anderson Merchandisers, Walmart, Sam’s Club, BJ’s, and Costco), and Lynda Wojick (Hudson News, Anderson News, Kroger). Faria has held various sales positions at HarperCollins, Abrams, and Little, Brown.

Jamie Iannone will serve as EVP, Shopping for BN.com and Barnes & Noble Digital, reporting to BN.com president William Lynch. Iannone was at eBay.

Dan Crissman has joined FSG’s Hill & Wang imprint as Assistant Editor. He was most recently at Wiley. . . . Linda Rosenberg, former FSG Associate Publisher and Director of Paperbacks, is currently available for editorial consulting. She may be reached at lindarosenberg13 [at] gmail.com.

Rob Weisbach Creative Management has hired former New Yorker book publishing director Erin Cox, independent editor David Groff, and former Weinstein director of development Jake Bauman as senior associates on a “virtual team.”

PROMOTIONS AND INTERNAL CHANGES

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Trade and Reference division has formed a Digital Strategy and Planning Group. The group is headed by Cheryl Cramer Toto, SVP of Digital Strategy and Planning, and also includes David Jost, VP of Digital Content Development; Sanj Kharbanda, VP of Digital Market Strategy; and David Langevin, VP of Digital Business Development.

Peter DeGiglio has been named COO at Bloomsbury Publishing. He was CFO.

Following the merging of Ingram’s units into a single Content Group, CEO Skip Prichard has promoted Phil Ollila to Chief Content Officer. He will oversee publisher services and the company’s distribution operation, Ingram Publisher Services. Lightning Source President David Taylor will be responsible for all publisher content acquisition activities, and Mark Ouimet becomes General Manager of Ingram Publisher Services. He was VP, Business Development.

At Penguin, Molly Barton has been promoted to Director of Business Development. She was Publishing Manager. Maria Gagliano has been promoted to Editor of Perigee and Prentice Hall Press.

Stephanie MacLean has been promoted to literary agent at Trident Media Group, where she started in 2007 as Dan Strone’s assistant.

DULY NOTED

Shelf Awareness celebrates its fourth birthday, and announces a circulation of 18,000, “composed of some of the most interesting, smart and challenging readers we could want.” So congrats to us all.

Kingfisher has relocated to the Flatiron Building, 175 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10010. Angus Killick may be reached at (646) 307-5447 and Marina Cambareri at (646) 307-5448.

Kids Licensing Forum, which ran for one day following the Bologna Children’s Book Fair this year, is expanding to a full three-day event in 2010, concurrent with the Book Fair from March 23–25. The Licensing Forum covers all children’s media, much as the February KidScreen Summit in New York does. Dates for KidScreen next year are Feb. 10–12, with Toy Fair in NYC Feb. 14–17.

UPCOMING EVENTS

A is for Antitrust, B is for Book, C is for Copyright, and D is for Digitize: A Conference on the Google Book Search Lawsuit will be held at New York Law School, 57 Worth St., October 8–10, 2009. Academics and practitioners will examine the settlement through the lenses of copyright, civil procedure, antitrust, the publishing industry, information policy, and literary culture. The conference is timed to coincide with the rescheduled fairness hearing in the Google Book Search case, which will be held October 7. E-mail infolaw [at] nyls.edu for more information.