The Translator: Siobhan O’Leary

Siobhan O’Leary, former Associate Manager, Foreign Rights, Crown
siobhan.c.oleary [at] gmail.com

The Model

Writing projects, translation, and representing US literary agents to German publishing communities

The Background

O’Leary has a special place in this article (and our hearts!) not only because she used to be the International
Editor of PT, but because she did what lots of people have dreamed of but never imagined actually doing—set up shop abroad.

We’d like to think O’Leary’s days in MPI’s offices collecting German bestsellers for PT sparked her interest in Berlin, but in reality, a six-month stint there between her time at MPI and Crown, and her participation in last year’s Frankfurt Book Fair fellowship program, are probably more responsible. She left the corporate world of Random House earlier this year and moved across the Atlantic with the intention of setting up her own business.

O’Leary is now juggling a variety of projects. She is working with the Frankfurt Book Fair to help promote the Tools of Change conference that will take place this October. She’s also been taking on a range of writing projects, most recently for the new Museyon travel guide series, and German-to-English translation projects, “including a brochure for the Jewish Museum Berlin, publishers’ rights guides, an exhibition review from a Berlin-based art magazine, and even part of a technical manual for air conditioners!” She’s also representing several US literary agents to German publishers, including Movable Type and the Indent Literary Agency, and plans to build that side of her business.

“Although many would say that periods of economic downturn are the worst time to branch out on one’s own, and I tend to be a pretty risk-averse person,” O’Leary says, “in a certain sense, the industry-wide layoffs I was witnessing diminished a lot of the fear I had. Don’t get me wrong, I still have a patch of gray hair that I attribute to my lengthy internal debate about whether or not to make the move, but so far I have no regrets. There are times when I feel like a college student again, pulling all-nighters to finish projects, and start-up costs can add up, but it’s a small price to pay for being in the city I love.”

She advises others not to get too isolated. “Even if you are working on your own (or perhaps especially if you are working on your own), it’s important to find ways to collaborate with others and to stay connected with industry developments.” Plus, a more practical tip: “Never get into the habit of working in your pajamas if you work from home!”

The Social Media Consultant: Cindy Ratzlaff

Cindy Ratzlaff, former VP, Brand Marketing, Rodale
Brand New Brand You blog, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

The Model

Social media strategy coaching for authors and publishers

The Background

“Going right to the consumer through social media is the new direct marketing,” says Ratzlaff. “But it’s a pretty steep learning curve to learn how to talk to people and have relationships online. It’s so important you get your voice and message right and understand that this is about making friends and having relationships.”

One of Ratzlaff’s clients, for example, is a children’s literacy website with a celebrity spokesperson, but Ratzlaff decided the spokesperson’s persona character she plays, not as her celebrity self. “She always talks to parents, librarians, teachers, and grandparents about reading to children, in character,” she says. “We’ve talked a lot about finding all of the mom sites. All of this can be very laborious and time-consuming, so it’s important to develop a friend- and follower-building strategy and set a time for using it every day.”

Ratzlaff will soon be a licensed social media expert. She’s part of the first class in Relationship Marketing Specialist Mari Smith’s social media certification program. “We’re partnering with other professionals in our classes to do some case studies, in hopes that we’ll have some really exciting things to show publishers going forward,” Ratzlaff says. But publishers should jump in without getting too hung up on metrics. “If you sit and wait until you think [your social media strategy] is perfect,” she warns, “everyone will have moved past you already. There are new players in the field every day. You will be left behind if you wait.”

The Editor: Juliet Ulman

Juliet Ulman, former Bantam Dell editor
Paper Tyger

The Model

Developmental/comprehensive editing, plus line-editing, for freelance authors and independent publishers

The Background

“After eleven years with Bantam Dell, I was laid off. I had been working in large corporate publishing for over a decade, and I really wanted to take some time before making my next move,” says Ulman. “Once I left that track, it suddenly became clear to me, as it never had before, that I could pursue a different route.”

Still, Ulman found going it on her own “initially unnerving. I’d always shunned freelance work, believing that the lack of structure and the isolation would be . . . difficult. You wonder at first whether you’ll be able to bring in enough work, whether your existing network will prove powerful enough to sustain you during those first lean months, whether you will make dreadful mistakes and be unable to pay your mortgage, whether your friends will forget about you.”

Luckily, she “found it to be a smoother transition and much more fun than I ever expected, honestly. . . . I love being able to work in a pattern that is more natural, less draining, and more productive for me—breaking up my workday into little pieces, alternating between projects, hitting a rhythm of work-break-work. I love that my job now consists of the one thing that I never stopped loving, the editorial work. I don’t worry about all of the additional uncertainties and decisions and stressors of the publication process. I’m not accountable to the whims of the market or to publicity or to the sales department, not to anyone but the author—and the only thing I need to focus on is the text.”

Ulman offers extensive advice to others who are going out on their own. “Set yourself up with a solid billing system and keep up with it,” she recommends. “It is absolutely vital to have a cushion of money to keep yourself afloat, [as] it will take several months for the money from those first few jobs to flow through. In the meantime, you will still have bills to pay.

“Every peer I spoke to when discussing my freelance plans said the same thing: from what they’d observed, it took six to twelve months for a freelance business to really get off the ground, and then they were busier than they had ever been. I was lucky enough to have some time to prepare between when I was told I was being laid off and my final day. In that time I came up with my business name, secured the domain, designed a website, set up a business phone number, purchased vital equipment and supplies, drafted my standard contract template, and arranged for my first freelance assignment with a publisher with whom I had an existing relationship.”

Her final piece of advice is to remember that you’re not alone. “Just because you’ve gone out on your own, that doesn’t mean that you are alone. Join your local freelancers group—in New York, the Freelancers Union is a great resource—talk to people in your field, get involved in conversations on Twitter and related listservs. There are career benefits, to be sure, but it also keeps you from spending too much time in your own head. One of the great benefits of a vibrant workplace is the conversation between you and your colleagues, and ongoing and inspiring dialogue of new ideas and fresh perspectives—don’t think that those conversations have to end just because you now work from your couch. Some of the most interesting, inspiring discussions about my industry that I’ve had came after I left the safe boundaries of the industry as I knew it.”

The Publicist: Barb Burg

Barb Burg, former SVP and Executive Director of Publicity and PR, Bantam Dell
Barb Burg, Ink

The Model

Publicity, public relations, media training and placement, publishing strategy, brand management consulting

The Background

“It’s often said that when one door closes, another opens. That’s what happened to me. When the door to Random House closed suddenly earlier this year, it afforded me the opportunity to see what else I could do after 24 years as an in-house publicity executive. Within days of leaving, authors and agents began calling me asking if they could hire me freelance.”

Burg’s advice for others in her situation is to “talk to as many people as you can and use every resource available to you. You will be surprised how kind and generous people can be. I was. The good thing about a lot of publishing work is that you don’t need a lot of space and equipment, so expenses are limited, and happily many of our skills are easily transferable. I’m working out of an office in my home and finding it surprisingly efficient.

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.

S&S Launches Pulse It, Book Social Networking Site for Teens

Simon & Schuster has launched Pulse It, a book social networking site where 14- to 18-year-olds can read and review new S&S titles online, create profiles, communicate with authors and other members, and earn points redeemable for prizes. The initiative is similar to Penguin UK‘s Spinebreakers, which launched in 2007.

The site grew out of the company’s earlier p-book initiative, the Pulse Advisory Board, which had 3,000 teenage members who received free books each month in exchange for providing feedback. “It was a lot to manage in terms of mailing lists, it was costly, and we had a waiting list of kids to get on,” says Adam Rothberg, S&S VP Corporate Communications. The teens provided an answer to the problem when “unbidden, they started jumping on our Simon & Schuster message boards. So we said, you know, we’ve got a waiting list, they’re online, let’s build this site that gives them books and allows them to do what they normally do anyway, all online.”

Pulse It members can read one book a month from a selection of two recently released or soon-to-be-published titles. The online reading software has been adapted from the software used on the company’s adult site, Rothberg said, to “make it more compatible for the community functions we’re looking to build.” Users can save their place in the book, participate in discussions about it from directly within the software, and post their reviews to Facebook.

The two book selections this month are Pure by Terra Elan McVoy and Girl Stays in the Picture by Melissa de la Cruz. The title selection (and site design) suggest that Pulse It is aimed at girls, and they’re reviewing away, generally giving Girl Stays in the Picture a big thumbs down. “very boring. I didnt like it at all,” wrote hg2008, while haleyknitz said “the plot line seems to be mediocre” and Lollyheart thinks “on a scale 1 to ten its a 3.”

Reinvention

We are looking for people who used to work in publishing, and started their own ventures this year. Are you one of those people? If so, we’d like to feature you in an upcoming article. Please get in touch!

Food Writing in 2009

PT thanks Judith Weber of Sobel Weber Associates for her reporting.

Late in the week at the Symposium for Professional Food Writers, Chronicle editor Bill LeBlond introduced an efficient “information delivery device.” As he demonstrated, it enabled the user to open to a recipe, a block of text, or a beautiful four-color photograph. The device could be transported into the kitchen to guide a cook through a recipe, and, when finished, the user could embed the content into his library, where it would be preserved and available for future reference. He held up the device for everyone to see. It was, of course . . . a book.

So much of the talk at this gathering of professional food writers had focused on the new electronic media—websites, blogs, podcasts, social networking—that it was useful to be reminded of the value of the book. Read More »

Distribution 2009

Though nobody’s immune to the bad economy, distributors haven’t taken as much of a hit as other groups in publishing this year.

“It’s easier in this economy to be working with a large distribution group,” says Eugenia Pakalik, Director of Sales and Marketing Distribution Services at Norton. The ideal IPM client, says Jane Graf, Director of International Publishers Marketing, is a “mid-size publisher who wants to focus on their publishing program and leave the cares and concerns over sales and marketing” to someone else. Read More »

Book View, June 2009

PEOPLE ROUNDUP

Crown Publishing Group President and Publisher Jenny Frost announced the appointment of Diane Salvatore, who was most recently Editor-in-Chief of Ladies’ Home Journal, as VP, Publisher of Broadway Books, a new position following the realigning of Broadway and Doubleday within the Random House Group.

Margaret Milnes, VP, Licensed Publishing, Nickelodeon, has resigned after 10 years with the company. Paula Allen, formerly Warner Brothers Consumer Products and Screenland Associates, has joined Nick as SVP, Global Publishing. She will report to Leigh Ann Brodsky, President, Nickelodeon and Viacom Consumer Products.

Read More »