Hachette Book Group has hired Kenneth Michaels as Chief Operating Officer. He succeeds Beth Ford, who left in September, and will join the company on January 5. He was most recently SVP of Global Business Process Management for the McGraw-Hill Companies.

Marie Coolman will join Hyperion as Executive Director of Publicity, taking over the position recently vacated by Beth Gebhard, who left to relocate to LA to work for the new Oprah Winfrey Network. Coolman had been Director of Publicity and Marketing for Hudson Street Press, and was previously West Coast Director of Publicity at Random House….Tina Andreadis announced that Kate Blum joins HarperCollins Publicity as Associate Director. She spent her eight-year career at Random House….Samantha Choy joins the Crown publicity department as Senior Publicist. She comes from W. W. Norton.

Lots of changes internationally: Quercus CEO Mark Smith announced that Anthony Cheetham has relinquished his role as Executive Chairman after two years, becoming Non-Executive Chairman immediately. The announcement comes in the wake of former Macmillan MD David North’s appointment as Managing Director….Michael Moynahan has been named HarperCollins’s new CEO for Australia and New Zealand. Moynahan was MD, Random House India, and chairman, Random House New Zealand.

Webster Younce has joined Henry Holt as a Senior Editor, reporting to Editor-in-Chief Marjorie Braman. He was most recently Senior Editor at Houghton Mifflin.

In children’s books: Corinne Helman will become VP of Digital Publishing and Business Development for HarperCollins Children’s Books. She was most recently VP Business Development at Scholastic. Sarah Shumway has joined the Katherine Tegen Books imprint at Harper Children’s as Senior Editor, acquiring primarily middle-grade and YA fiction. She had been at Dutton Children’s….Namrata Tripathi will join Atheneum Children’s as Executive Editor. She was most recently Senior Editor at Hyperion Children’s. Additionally, Associate Editor Lisa Cheng will move from Margaret K. McEldery to Atheneum, reporting to Tripathi….Greg Ferguson, formerly of HarperCollins Children’s Books, will join Egmont USA as Editor, reporting to Publisher Elizabeth Law. Nico Medina joined as Managing Editor. Most recently, he was Production Editor at Viking Children’s and Puffin.

Camille March has been appointed to the position of Editor at Black Dog & Leventhal, reporting to Elizabeth Van Doren. Most recently, March was at Weinstein Books as Associate Director of Publicity.

Carrie Thornton will move to Dutton on December 1 as Executive Editor. She was most recently Publishing Manager and Senior Editor at Crown/Three Rivers Press….Don Weise has been named Publisher of Alyson Books. He had been Senior Editor at Carroll & Graf….Matt Weiland has joined Ecco as a Senior Editor. He has been Deputy Editor of The Paris Review for the past two years and is the co-author of State by State (Ecco).

Langenscheidt has named Nel Yomtov as Executive Editor of Hammond, reporting to Langenscheidt’s chief Sales and Marketing officer Michele Martin. Most recently, he was Editorial Director at the Rosen Publishing Group. He will also work on a new series for Langenscheidt.

Amanda Tobier has joined Little, Brown as Marketing Manager. She was most recently marketing director for Avery and Viking Studio.

Among the recent Rodale layoffs was Andrew R. Malkin, VP, Trade Book Sales. He may be reached at armalkin [at]  gmail.com.

Bookspan parent company Direct Brands announced that Senior Director of Communications Paula Batson has left the company to pursue other opportunities. She will continue to consult for them. Melinda Meals has taken her place.

Michael Schluter has been named Senior Director of Sales at Palgrave Macmillan. He was previously Director of Library Sales at Sage.

Laura Ross has joined Jill Grinberg Literary Management. Jenny Rappaport is leaving the L. Perkins Agency to start the Rappaport Agency. Lori Perkins will continue with her agency and has promoted Marsha Philitas to senior agent.

Betty Wong has been hired as an editor at Clarkson Potter’s Potter Craft. She was at Melcher Media.

PROMOTIONS AND INTERNAL CHANGES

Kim Hovey was named Associate Publisher of Random House Trade Paperbacks, reporting to Jane Von Mehren and continuing to report to Libby McGuire, Associate Publisher of Ballantine. Sanyu Dillon, as Director of Marketing, will now oversee the marketing/advertising/promotion efforts and staff for RHPG, continuing to report to Tom Perry, Deputy Publisher.

Elda Rotor has been promoted to Editorial Director at Penguin Classics. Rotor arrived at Penguin in 2006 from Oxford University Press.

Philip Patrick announced that Jay Sones has moved from Crown to Three Rivers Press as Marketing Manager, reporting to Donna Passannante. Kira Walton has been named Associate Marketing Director for Harmony and Shaye Areheart Books. Vicki Tomao has been named Advertising and Promotion Manager. She started as Patrick’s assistant in 2004. Jennifer Reierson has been named Senior Designer. She joined the company in 2000. Sarah Breivogel has been named Publicity Manager for Shaye Areheart Books and Selina Cicogna has been named Publicity Manager for Clarkson Potter.

Kevin Callahan has been promoted to Associate Director of Marketing at HarperCollins.

Michelle Brower has been promoted to Agent at Wendy Sherman Associates.

DULY NOTED
Nielsen BookScan announced that beginning in the first week of 2009, Hudson Group will join BookScan’s reporting panel. Hudson Group will report sales from their Hudson News and Hudson Booksellers locations in airports and train and bus terminals. Sales data will appear under the “retail” store strata.

UPCOMING EVENTS
The 21st Annual Independent and Small Press Book Fair will take place at their headquarters on 20 W. 44th Street, New York, NY on December 6 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and December 7 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, go to http://www.nycip.org/bookfair.

Two NBCC events in 2009: On January 24 at 7 p.m. at the Housing Works Bookstore Café, announcers Sam Anderson (winner of the 2007 Balakian Award), Bill Henderson of Pushcart Press, Mary Jo Bang (winner of the 2007 Poetry award), Harriet Washington (winner of the 2007 nonfiction award), Alex Ross (winner of the 2007 criticism award), and others will announce the NBCC Awards finalists. The event will be hosted by NBCC President Jane Ciabattari. The night before, also at Housing Works, there will be a Poetry in Translation panel, “Has the U.S. Lost Touch with World Literature?” For more information, go to www.bookcritics.org.

The 4th Annual San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, Writers’ Conference & Literary Festival takes place from February 20 to 22, 2009. For more information, go to www.sanmiguelauthors.com and www.sanmiguelworkshops.com.

The American Book Producers Association BookBuilding 2.0 seminar has been rescheduled for March 10, 2009 from 9 a.m. 6 p.m. at The Players. The morning session will focus on the essentials of developing and producing books, and the afternoon will feature two panels: “The Internet and Electronic Publishing,” moderated by Carolyn Pittis of HarperCollins, and “What’s Next?: Trends in Publishing,” moderated by Barbara Marcus of Penguin Young Readers Group. For more information, e-mail office at abpaonline dot org.

JUST FOR FUN

Webster’s New World® College Dictionary announced the top five candidates for the 2008 “Word of the Year,” which will be selected by editors and researchers at Webster’s and announced during a national radio satellite tour on December 1. The top candidates are overshare, leisure sickness, cyberchondriac, selective ignorance, and youthanasia. Vote at www.newworldword.com.

Doubleday has eliminated 16 positions across all of the group’s imprints, in the editorial, marketing, publicity, art, and ad promo departments. Those leaving include editor Jennifer Josephy; Janet Silver, Nan Talese, Editor at Large; and from Spiegel & Grau, senior editor Tina Pohlman, Director of Publicity Gretchen Koss, Director of Marketing Megan Walker, and Walker’s assistant.

DK’s Rough Guides editorial department has been transferred back to the UK. (As many as 14 people are rumored to have left the company.) DK Eyewitness Travel and Rough Guides Marketing Director Geoff Colquitt’s job has been eliminated; all DK Adult Marketing now falls under Judy Powers. Geoff Colquitt may be reached at gcolquitt [at] mac.com or (914) 699-6998.

Hachette is merging its Orbit (SF) and Yen (graphic novel) imprints into a new division called Orbit. Tim Holman will run it as VP and Publisher. Co-publisher Kurt Hassler will now report to Holman and Rich Johnson will be leaving the company. He may be reached at rjhnzn [at] yahoo. com. Alex Lencicki, who was also at Orbit, will remain Marketing and Publicity Director for the new division.

Toni Sciarra, most recently an Executive Editor at HarperCollins and previously at Morrow and Simon & Schuster, is offering editorial and consulting services on nonfiction projects. She can be reached at tonionemail [at] yahoo.com or (212) 628-4072.

Karen Hansgen has been named Associate Publisher of the newly formed Skira-Rizzoli International Publications, which will focus on museum-related publishing. She was Publications Director at The New Museum.

As noted elsewhere, Little, Brown editor Reagan Arthur received her own imprint, Reagan Arthur Books, where she will be VP, Editorial Director and continue to report to Geoff Shandler.

Dan Weiss has left Barnes & Noble, where he was most recently Publisher and Managing Director of Quamut.com. Previously, he had run the company’s Sparknotes division. He may be reached at dweissco [at] gmail.com or (917) 613-7713.

Dick Robinson announced that Seth Radwell is leaving Scholastic, following the sale of Scholastic at Home this past summer. He was President of eScholastic and had managed Scholastic at Home since 2007.

Nancy Hancock has joined HarperOne as Executive Editor and Becky Cabaza has been named Editor at Large. Both report directly to Editorial Director Mickey Maudlin. Hancock was most recently Executive Editor at Rodale. Becky Cabaza, former Editorial Director of Three Rivers Press and most recently a freelance editor and ghostwriter, will continue to work from her home office. She can be reached at (973) 280-2429 or becky.cabaza [at] harpercollins.com. Shawn Nicholls has joined Collins as Director of Online Marketing. Nicholls comes from Crown, where he managed online marketing. And Matt Weiland is joining Ecco as Senior Editor. Most recently, he was Deputy Editor of The Paris Review.

Jed Donahue is leaving Crown Forum to become Editor-in-Chief of ISI Books and VP of Publications for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute in Delaware. Meanwhile, Campbell Wharton returns to Crown to take over as Publicity Director. . . . Hyperion’s Executive Director of Publicity Beth Gebhard has relocated to LA to work in the communications department of the new Oprah Winfrey Network. Marie Coolman takes her place. . . . Andrea Glickson has been named Director of Publicity and Marketing at Octopus USA, reporting to Jonathan Stolper. She was at Watson-Guptill. . . . Kim Small is the new Publicity Director for Watson-Guptill and Potter Craft. She was Executive Publicist at Workman. And Emily Takoudes joins Clarkson Potter as a senior editor, reporting to Editorial Director Doris Cooper. She was at Ecco.

Ginee Seo, VP and Editorial Director of her eponymous imprint at Atheneum at S&S, is leaving the company. Her future titles will be published under the Atheneum imprint.

Lisa Herling has been named SVP of Corporate Communications at Cengage Learning. She previously worked at HarperCollins as SVP, Director of Corporate Communications.

Belinda Rasmussen has been named Managing Director of the Carlton Publishing Group. She was Business Development Director for Egmont UK.

Bill Huelster has been hired as the Senior Director, Online Sales and Special Markets at Kaplan Publishing. He was most recently at Random House.

O’Reilly Media announced that Joe Wikert has joined the company as General Manager, O’Reilly Technology Exchange. He was VP and Executive Publisher of Professional/Trade, Wiley.

Charles Nurnberg, former CEO of Sterling, has founded Imagine Publishing. Nurnberg has teamed with Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul & Mary to form an eponymous imprint. Imagine will be distributed by BookMasters (BDS). In a separate announcement, BDS welcomed former PGW President Rich Freese as President of BDA and Atlas Books, which will continue to operate independently. Jeremy Nurnberg, formerly Sterling VP of Trade and Institutional Sales (and Charlie Nurnberg’s son), has been hired as the new VP Sales.

Matthew Lore has resigned from his position as VP Executive Editor, Da Capo Press. He can be reached at matthew.lore.email [at] gmail.com.

David Moldawer has joined Portfolio/Penguin as an editor, reporting to Adrian Zackheim. He was at St. Martin’s. Tim Sullivan departed earlier in the month for Basic Books. . . . Jordan Brown has been hired as Editor, Walden Pond Press, an imprint of HC Children’s Books. Brown started his publishing career at S&S Children’s Publishing.

Michael Broussard has created iSB New Media, a multimedia talent platform/literary agency based in LA. He was formerly an agent at Dupree/Miller and editor at Simon Spotlight Entertainment.

PROMOTIONS AND INTERNAL CHANGES
Cofounder of Weldon Owen, John Owen, has been named Group Publisher of Bonnier Publishing, which comprises nine companies in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and France. With this promotion, Terry Newell goes from President of WO U.S. to CEO. Sheena Coupe has also been promoted to CEO and runs the WO Australia operation. They both report directly to Des Higgins at Bonnier UK.

John Fagan, who wears a substantial number of sales and marketing hats at Penguin, is adding Plume and Hudson Street Press to his portfolio. He will have help from Liz Keenan, who has been named Publicity Director for both imprints.

At Holt’s Metropolitan Books, Sara Bershtel has been promoted to VP Publisher. Elsewhere at Holt, Karen Frangipane has been hired as Director of Marketing for Holt Children’s. She was at S&S.

Susan Canavan has been promoted to Executive Editor in Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s trade and reference division.

Annsley Rosner has been named publicity director at Crown and Shaye Areheart. She had been Publicity Director at Harmony and Three Rivers Press. . . . At Harper, Leslie Cohen has been promoted to Executive Director of Publicity and Jane Beirn to Senior Director.

Jennifer Hunt has been promoted to Editorial Director of Little, Brown Children’s.

UPCOMING EVENTS
CLMP’s annual Spelling Bee will take place on Monday, November 3 at Diane von Furstenberg’s studio. She will host the event. Contact jlependorf@clmp.org.

Esther Margolis, Founder and Publisher of Newmarket Press, will be honored with the New York Center for Independent Publishing’s Poor Richard Award at the Center’s Annual Benefit and Cocktail Reception. November 10, from 6 to 8 PM, at 20 W. 44th St.

IN MEMORIAM
Dan Harvey, a longtime book publishing executive, passed away on October 23, 2008 after a long struggle with melanoma. Harvey was most recently Senior VP, Director of Marketing for Trident Media Group, a literary agency. A memorial service will be held on Thursday, Nov. 20 at 6 PM at the Bruno Walter Auditorium, NYPL for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, 111 Amsterdam Ave. at 65th St.

WE HEAR WEDDING BELLS!
Constance Sayre, a founding partner of MPI, married Gilman Park on October 12. The family-only ceremony took place in the garden of her brother’s home in Chiswick, London. They have been significant others for 16 years. Mr. Park is President of Hudson Park Press. Ms. Sayre will continue to use her maiden name.

The Book Industry Study Group has a new Executive Director in the person of Michael Healy, Editorial Director of Nielsen Book Services. He will be the keynote speaker at BISG’s September 8 annual meeting and may be reached at michael@bisg.org. BISG’s previous Director, Jeff Abraham, left at the beginning of the year to become President of Random House Distribution Services.

Andrea Glickson has been named Director of Publicity at Watson Guptill. She was most recently Director of Marketing at Stewart, Tabori & Chang.
Editors are on the move: Peternelle van Arsdale is moving to Putnam as an Executive Editor after seven years at Hyperion. . . . Selena James has been named Executive Editor at Kensington overseeing Dafina Books. She had been at Pocket. . . David Patterson has joined Holt as Senior Editor, reporting to Jennifer Barth. He was previously at Public Affairs.

At Penguin, Jeffrey Krames has been named Editorial Director of Portfolio, reporting to Adrian Zackheim. Krames was most recently VP Publisher of McGraw-Hill‘s trade business books division. At McGraw-Hill, Leah Spiro has joined former HC colleague Herb Schaffner (who had reported to Krames) as Senior Editor in the business group. And Ellen Mendlow joins M-H’s test prep group as Publisher, reporting to Group Publisher Philip Ruppel. She was Editorial Director for test prep books at Princeton Review.

Jill Schwartzman has moved from HarperCollins to RH Trade Paperbacks as a Senior Editor, reporting to Jane von Mehren. Meanwhile, Doubleday Broadway Executive Editor Trish Medved has left the company. And RH Children’s Books VP Marketing Daisy Kline has also left.

Amy Kaneko was named to the new position of VP, Sales and New Business Development at Weldon Owen, recently acquired by Swedish media giant Bonnier. She has spent the last seven years at Chronicle Books, most recently as Executive Director of Marketing, and as Director of Mass Market and Specialty Sales.

Carie Freimuth has joined RH’s Waterbrook Press as Director of Sales, Marketing & Planning for General Market Sales.

OUP is creating a new scholarly reference unit, based in New York, incorporating print and online publishing for the institutional market, run by Kim Robinson as Editorial Director, reference. Lenny Allen has been named Associate Director of field and inside sales. He had been in national accounts at FSG, and Kimberly Craven has been named Director of Trade and Academic Marketing. She had been at Wiley. Meanwhile, Betsy DeJesu, who had been at OUP, is moving to S&S Children’s as senior Publicist for Simon Spotlight Entertainment.

At Globe Pequot Press, Cissy Tiernan has joined the company as Director of National Accounts, succeeding Michelle Lewy who was promoted to VP, Sales earlier. Tiernan was recently Director of Sales for Yorkville Press and VP Sales & Publisher Services at Blue Sky Media Group.

John Wicker has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of Klopotek North America. Wicker had been EVP of Vista International.

Reader’s Digest has hired David Krishock as President of Books Are Fun, taking over from interim president Thomas Barry. Krishock had been President and CEO of Scholastic Book Fairs.

In publicity, Annsley Rosner has joined Crown as Director of Publicity for Harmony Books and Three Rivers Press. Rosner most recently was Associate Director of Publicity at Dutton and Gotham Books. Meanwhile, Christine Aronson has been named Director of Publicity for Crown Publishers and will continue as Director of Publicity for Shaye Areheart Books. She had been Associate Director. And at FSG, Laurel Cook has been named Assistant Director of Publicity. She had been in book retailing.
Mike Rohrig has left Scholastic and may be reached at 203.451.0187.

PROMOTIONS

RH Children’s Books VP, Executive Director, Publicity, Judith Haut has been promoted to VP, Comm-unications for the division.

At S&S Children’s, Caitlyn Dlouhy has been named Editorial Director, Atheneum Books for Young Readers. Pulse Aladdin and Pulse PAM have been merged into one imprint as of Spring 2007, Simon Pulse. As a result, Jennifer Klonsky, Executive Editor, has moved over from Aladdin to work on Simon Pulse full-time. Senior Editor, Michelle Nagler, continues with Simon Pulse.

Kate Rados has been promoted to Publicity Manager at Sterling.
Kathryn Mennone was recently promoted to Director of Strategic Partnerships at Globe Pequot. She will work with parent company Morris Communications divisions to create business synergies between the publishing division Globe Pequot Press, and the magazine, newspaper, and radio units.

Lyssa Keusch has been promoted to Executive Editor, Avon mass market
Joelle Dieu has been promoted to Subsidiary Rights Assistant Manager for both the Random House and Ballantine imprints of the RH Publishing Group.

SEPTEMBER EVENTS

PW reports that the first annual Brooklyn Literary Festival will be held on September 16 at Borough Hall in downtown Brooklyn. The festival, organized in conjunction with the Brooklyn Literary Council, Brooklyn Tourism, the Brooklyn Public Library and BAM, will feature a range of authors, including Ann Brashares, Jennifer Egan, Nicole Krauss, Jhumpa Lahiri, Philip Lopate, Rick Moody, and Colson Whitehead. Several local independent bookstores, among them McNally Robinson, Freebird Books, Spoonbill & Sugartown, and St. Petersburg Books, will be on hand to sell books. There will be more than 100 exhibitors. Call Briggs Haddon at 718 802 3717 for further information, or go to http:// visitbrooklyn.org.

September 29th is the final submission date for entries for the Eleventh Annual Books for a Better Life Awards, presented by the NYC Chapter of the National MS Society. The ceremony will take place on February 26th at the Millennium Broadway Hotel.

The 2006 National Book Festival, organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress and hosted by Laura Bush, will be held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 30, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., between 7th and 14th streets (rain or shine). The festival is free and open to the public. www.loc.gov/ bookfest

The Sobol Award for Literature, a “national contest designed to discover gifted but unknown writers and help them get published and find enthusiastic readers” will accept submissions starting in September. The winner receives recognition, help with his or her writing career and a $100,000 cash prize. The Sobol Award Literary Agency will represent the authors of the ten finalist novels as well as selected other entries from among the top 50 submissions and will help them find the right publishing houses and “secure the best terms.” Brigitte Weeks is the Editorial Director and Laurie Rippon is the Marketing Director for the awards. For information go to www.sobolaward.com

DULY NOTED

The second annual New York Times Great Read in the Park, presented by Target, is Sunday, October 15 in Bryant Park. More than 120 nationally known authors including James Elroy, Mary Gaitskill, Oscar Hijuelos, Susan Isaacs, Malika Oufkir and Frank Rich will read and sign books and participate in various panel discussions. The Great Brunch will feature Mary Higgins Clark, Sebastian Junger, Alice McDermott, Anna Quindlen and Tavis Smiley; and The Great Tea featuring mystery writers Tess Gerritsen, Walter Mosley, Nora Roberts and newcomer Jed Rubenfeld, will be held at The Hudson Theatre in the Millennium Broadway Hotel. In addition, Target hosts a Children’s Stage with all-day, live programming. The Gently Used, Greatly Loved Book Sale will also be held, with proceeds benefiting the New York public libraries and the Fund for Public Schools. For further info: www.nytimes.com\greatreads

Goddard Riverside is soliciting donations of books or gift items for their 20th annual New York Book Fair, November 17-19. Go to Goddard.org for details.

Ten years ago, Bookreporter.com launched on AOL and this Fall Co-Fonder and President Carol Fitzgerald is celebrating The Book Report Network’s 10th anniversary and the 1.3 million unique visitors who go to its seven sites every month. It is, Fitzgerald claims, the largest non-commercial group of book websites on the web. For more information, go to www.TheBook ReportNetwork.com.

Foteini Tsigarida, who was Manager, Market Analysis and Forecasting at HarperCollins is returning to Athens to take over and relaunch a bookstore, Bookstop. She tells PT that “It will specialize in foreign language books, eclectic world literature and travel.” If you’re in the area, or want to meet at Frankfurt, email her at foteini@ earthlink.net

Rick Frishman tells PT (and presumably, the world) that Planned TV Arts ( PTA) will be celebrating its 45th Anniversary in February. With its many specialty divisions, PTA is are always looking for dedicated publicists. For more information, go to http://www.planned tvarts.com for more.

The beginning of a new year seems to have prompted some early spring cleaning, with an unusual number of moves around the industry.

The one that got the most attention was Sara Nelson’s move to PW as its new Editor-in-Chief, replacing Nora Rawlinson, who may be reached at norar@nyc.rr.com.

Lee Boudreaux has left Random House, where she was Executive Editor.

Tracy Carns has been named Associate Publisher of Reganbooks, reporting to Judith Regan. She was previously Associate Publisher of The Overlook Press. Other news at HarperCollins, Jacqueline Murphy has been named Executive Editor, Harper Audio. She was Director of Sub Rights at Harcourt. … Stephen Hanselman has left HarperCollins, where he oversaw HarperSanFrancisco and various New York units in the HarperInformation Division.

Ileene Smith ,VP Senior Editor, has leftRandom House. … Basic Books has hired Yale UP’s Lara Heimert as an Executive Editor, specializing in history. Heimert replaces Chip Rosetti, who recently moved to Cairo. … Deborah Brody has joined McGraw-Hill Professional as a Senior Editor in the self-help/health/parenting group. She was most recently a senior editor at Holt.

In marketing and publicity: Craig Herman VP, Director of Marketing at Simon and Schuster will be leaving the company at the end of February.  He may be reached at craig_herman@hotmail.com…. Ina Howard has joined  Avalon Publishing Group  as a Senior Publicist.  Howard was a publicist at Nation Books. … Director of Publicity Elisabeth Calamari has left FSG for Pantheon, with the title of Publicity Director. She had been replaced by Sarita Varma, who has been with FSG for about a decade. … At HarperCollins Pamela Spengler-Jaffee has been promoted to Director of Publicity for the Morrow/Avon Group. She had been Assistant Director.

Much is happening in children’s books:

Mary Alice Moore has been hired as Editorial Director at Scholastic’s Grolier division, reporting to Heather Burgett, SVP Direct Marketing Services for Scholastic’s At Home Division. She was publisher at innovative Kids. Susan Bishansky is stepping down from her position as Editorial Director to work on a consulting basis and be replaced in her former position by Cindy Eng who was VP, Editorial Director, Little Simon.

Meanwhile, Anne Schwartz has left S&S to return to Random House Children’s Book to head her own, as yet unnamed imprint. Suzanne Harper has also left. She had moved to S&S last July as SVP, Publisher for hardcover. With the exit of Schwartz and Harper, Emma Dryden becomes VP, Associate Publisher of Atheneum Books for Young Readers and Ginee Seo gets her own imprint. Seo had been Atheneum Associate Publisher.

David Nelson has been named VP, Publisher Beaufort Books. He was previously at Sales Director at Zagat and Harcourt. … Children’s book publisher innovativeKids has hired Tammy Johnston, who was most recently at ABC Books and previously at Candlewick, as VP of Sales, in charge of its new in-house sales program. … &S has hired Lauren Monaco as Director of Sales, national accounts. She was Director of Sales for Borders at Random House.

Martin Levin has returned to Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman, to co-manage publishing mergers and acquisitions with Robert Halper and serve again as Counsel. He spent the last year working at The van Tulleken Company and was closely involved in the recent sale of Walker & Co. to Bloomsbury.

Rutledge Hill Press promoted Associate Publisher Pamela Clements to the position of Publisher. Founder Lawrence Stone is serving as Publisher Emeritus, focusing on acquisitions. Clements has worked for a total 11 years at Rutledge’s parent company Thomas Nelson.

Marcus Leaver , CEO of the U.K.-based Chrysalis Publishing Group, is moving to Sterling, in the newly created position of EVP and COO, starting April 1.

And Juergen Boos has been named Director of the Frankfurt Book Fair, succeeding Volker Neumann. Boos has been at the German branch of Wiley since 1997. He starts April 1, but Neumann will continue to work until his contract runs out at the end of this year.

Promotions

HarperCollins has been a veritable beehive of activity these last few weeks: David Hirshey, Executive Editor, has been named a SVP of HarperCollins Publishers. … Following the hiring of Joe Tessitore, George Bick has been promoted to SVP, Director of Sales and Associate Publisher, Collins and Philip Friedman has been amed VP and Publisher, Collins Reference. Replacing Bick, Brian McSharry becomes VP, Director of Sales for Morrow/Avon and director of cookbook sales. He was National Account Manager for Morrow/Avon. … Mark Tauber has been promoted to Deputy Publisher at HarperSanFrancisco. The unit is now part of the recently-created Harper Morrow.

Harold Clarke has been named President and Publisher of Readers Digest RD Books and Music division. Neil Wertheimer has been promoted to the new role of Editor-in-Chief of books for the North American Publishing group, in charge of both trade and direct mail book operations.

Milena Alberti- Perez has been named Director of Spanish Language Publishing at Vintage Espanol. She was Director Corporate Development forRandom House.

At S&S Frank Fochetta has been promoted to VP Director of Field and Special Sales. Amanda Patten has been promoted from Editor to Senior Editor at TouchstoneFireside.

February Events

NYU’S Third Management Forum for Independent Publishers will be held on April 15-16. Among the speakers in this useful, nuts and bolts program are Nielsen Bookscan’s Jim King, Bookspan’s Larry Shapiro, Perseus’s David Steinberger, and Ingram’s Phil Ollila. The price is $950, or $855 before March 18. Call (212)992-3236 or www.scps.nyu.edu/indy.

• The Small Press Center and The General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen will host the next speaker in The New Yorker talks, David Remnick, on Feb. 8. Adam Gopnik will speak on March 22. Reservations are recommended. Admission is $15, $10 for members, and $5 for students. For more information, call (212)840-1840. E-mail info@smallpress.org, or go to www.smallpress.org.

• Books for a Better Life Awards, to benefit the New York Chapter of the MS Society, takes place on Feb. 28 at the Millennium Broadway Hotel at 6 p.m. Meredith Vieira is the emcee and legendary publisher Oscar Dystel and author Heidi Murkoff are the Hall of Fame Inductees. For information call Jenny Green Sherman at (212) 463-7787 x 3016 or email jsherman@msnyc.org.

Duly Noted

The McEvoy Group, formed by Nion McEvoy, the chairman and CEO of Chronicle Books, increased its equity investment in Hartle Media, publisher of 7×7 magazine, on the acquisition of a controlling interest in California Home & Design magazine from 18 Media, LLC.

• Tokyopop Inc., the country’s leading manga publisher, has announced the “highly anticipated” fifth Rising Stars of Manga competition, launched on December 1, 2004 and running through February 15, 2005.  Aspiring artists and writers are encouraged to submit their 15-to-20-page manga—along with completed entry forms—to Tokyopop “for the chance to join the next generation of nationally published manga-ka.” Go to www.tokyopop.com/news/mangatalent/index.php.

Change is the constant in publishing at the moment: Bookspan cut its staff by about a dozen people, including longtimers Norm Schneider, VP Marketing, and Nancy Whitin, who oversaw the Specialty Clubs, including The Good Cook, History, Crafters, Country Homes, Military, Stage & Screen, Mystery Guild, etc.

Natalie Chapman has been named VP, Publisher, Culinary Books at Wiley. She was most recently at Creative Homeowner Press. Will Kiester has been named publisher of a packaged line of coedition books at Quarto Publishing. He will be based in New York and was formerly Senior Editor at Black Dog & Leventhal. Jill Bernstein has gone to Ecco Press as Director of Publicity. She was previously VP, PR Publishing at Meredith. Mark Bryant has gone to HarperCollins as Executive Editor, reporting to Susan Weinberg. He was most recently at Men’s Journal.

Kate Folkers has left FSG and has been named Sr. Marketing manager for Adult Books at Harcourt. Both she and husband Steve Kasdin, who has been named Director of Marketing for Harcourt Children’s, will be moving to San Diego. Kasdin had been Associate Marketing Director at Scholastic. . . Chris Knutsen, who came over from the New Yorker, is leaving Riverhead. Wendy Carlton is leaving New York but not Riverhead, and will remain Nick Hornby’s editor.

Tom Stewart has been named Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Business Review, which was purportedly looking for a “thought leader” to succeed the infamous Suzy Wetlaufer. He will commute from NY to Cambridge. Most recently he wrote a column for Time Inc.’s Business 2.0 and was on the Board of Editors at Fortune. But previous to his magazine publishing, he held several positions in book publishing, including President and Publisher of Atheneum.

More on children’s: Liza Baker has been named Editorial Director, Hyperion Books for Children, replacing Andrea David Pinckney, who went to Houghton Mifflin in May as Publisher of Children’s. Carol Roeder, S&S Children’s VP, Sub. Rights and International Markets, has left the company. SVP Alan Smagler is looking for her replacement. . . HarperCollins’ Susan Katz announced “with deep regret” that Harriett Barton, VP and Creative Director of Children’s Books, has retired. Barton began at T.Y. Crowell and joined HC in 1977 when Harper bought the company. . . Following the departure of Maria Modugno, Editor-in-Chief of the children’s book division, Little, Brown VP and Publisher David Ford announced that Megan Tingley has become VP, Associate Publisher and Editor-in-Chief while continuing to acquire titles for her eponymous imprint. Bill Boedeker, currently VP Marketing, has also been named Associate Publisher . . . Gary Richardson has been named Publisher, McGraw-Hill Children’s Publishing, Education. Previously he had been at Zonderkidz. Finally, Phyllis Fogelman, longtime children’s book editor and publisher, has resigned as VP Publisher of her own imprint at Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers.

Bloomsbury USA Editorial Director Karen Rinaldi takes over as Publisher in December, when Alan Wherry retires. As Wherry puts it, “Enough is enough” after 43 years of working.

As announced earlier, reorganization at Random continues apace, with David Naggar moving into the position of President of Random Audio and Diversified Publishing Group, reporting to Jenny Frost, and Christine McNamara becoming VP, Publisher of Random Adult Audio. Mary Beth Roche, who was Publishing Director of Random’s Audible.com, goes to Holtzbrinck’s Audio Renaissance (which recently relocated from the West Coast) as Publisher starting November 18. Robert Allen’s position of President, Random Audio has been eliminated. To the delight of many, Don Weisberg returns as head of the Random House sales group, while remaining EVP/COO. Michael Palgon has been promoted to EVP of Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group. He was most recently SVP Deputy Publisher.

After a short stint at Scribner, Ileene Smith lands at Holt, where she’ll serve as Executive Editor, reporting to Jennifer Barth. . . Molly Lyons has been named Associate Editor at Lifetime magazine, handling all the book coverage. Lyons was previously at SELF.

As reported elsewhere, Stephen Hanselman, Publisher and Editorial Director of HarperSanFrancisco, has been promoted to SVP, Publisher of a new general books division that combines HarperSanFrancisco and HarperInformation. Hanselman announced that Mickey Maudlin is joining HSF as Editorial Director. He had been at Christianity Today International. In addition, Mark Tauber returns to HSF as Associate Publisher. He had left to be a founding partner of Internet start-up Beliefnet.com and Agora Media. Tauber will oversee marketing and sales, and assist Hanselman in running the division.

NOVEMBER DATES

The Small Press Center launches the third in its series of Interviews With Great Publishers on Nov. 12. Tom McCormack, former CEO of St. Martin’s and author of Endpapers, which just closed after a four month run, will be interviewed by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt at Small Press Center on 20 W. 44th from 6 to 7:30. Go to www.smallpress.org.

• Also on November 12 is the Mercantile Library’s “Rare Books, Fine Wines” gala evening, co-hosted with Bookspan and Jeroboam Wines, at which The Clifton Fadiman Medal for Excellence in Fiction will be presented. Call (212) 755-6710 or contact mercantile_library@msn.com.

• November 20, 2002 is the date for this year’s National Book Awards gala at the New York Marriott Marquis. Tickets are $1,000, but for $100 you can sip wine and eat canapes with the best of ’em before dinner. Contact natbkfd@mindspring.com or go to www.nationalbook.org.

LOOKING AHEAD

On Wed., December 4, HarperCollins’ Larry Ashmead, bookseller Roxanne Coady, PW’s Daisy Maryles, Little, Brown’s Michael Pietsch, and moderator Gayle Feldman will discuss “Best and Worst of Times: Best Books vs. Bestsellers in a Changing Business.” The event, which takes place at Columbia Journalism School (Lecture Hall, 3rd Floor) at 116th and Broadway, is sponsored by the National Arts Journalism Program at the Columbia Journalism School, and co-sponsored by the Women’s Media Group.

DULY NOTED

In the webbed world: Arts & Letters Daily, a site that died earlier in October, has been resurrected after the Chronicle of Higher Education acquired it, according to The Chronicle’s website, along with the assets of its parent company, which published the magazine Lingua Franca. The sale is expected to close imminently.

• comScore Networks, which tracks e-commerce, reported very strong sales for the third quarter of 2002. Total consumer online sales for the quarter reached $17.9 billion, up 35% versus the third quarter of 2001, and up 2% versus the second quarter of 2002. Year-to-date sales through Sept. 30 totaled $52.5 billion, up 41% versus the same period in 2001, and nearly equal to the $53.1 billion in spending posted in all of 2001. Books are up 10% versus last year, to $538 million, though the 4th quarter is what profitability hinges on.

PARTIES & EVENTS

Join agent Tom Wallace, publisher of Old Earth Books‘s Michael Walsh, and the Gotham Book Mart’s Andreas Brown to celebrate the republication of Edward (Ted) Whittemore’s Jerusalem Quartet — including his first novel, Quin’s Shanghai Circus, all originally published by Wallace at Holt — at the Gotham Book Mart on Monday, November 11 from 5 to 7 pm. It may be your last chance to visit the space before Brown moves.

• The publication of Al Silverman’s umpteenth book, It’s Not Over Till It’s Over: The Stories Behind the Most Magnificent Heart-Stopping Sports Miracles of Our Time (Overlook Press), was held at NYU’s Fales Library where Silverman has donated his papers, which include his editorial and research notes, as well as files on the selection process at BOMC, where he presided for many years. He was introduced by the Fales’ Marvin Taylor, who confessed he had come around to sports late in life, and Peter Mayer, who referred to him as “publishing’s pater familias.” Silverman then read from the Ali/Frazier fight in ’73 chapter where he referred to Ali as “the Yo-Yo Ma of sports.”

When I first came down to New York, some folks asked me why I was going into a doomed industry. Couldn’t I see that television was going to kill book-reading dead? In the years since, I’ve heard again and again that the industry had struck an iceberg. I was told we were holed below the waterline by videos, CD-ROMs, computers, and even books themselves — which is to say that in 1975, Walter Meade of Avon mass market told me to get out of hardcover fiction because in five years there wasn’t going to be any. Later I was told — and also did not believe — that Barnes & Noble would assassinate publishing as we know it.

In fact, of the changes I’ve seen, many have been merely an increase or decrease in size. Take chain stores. They’re not new; my first employer had the Doubleday bookshops chain, though it was a small one. The media today notice and decry the rise of mega-publishers, but those of you with keen memories can testify that, throughout the forty years, small or fading publishers were constantly being acquired by bigger brethren — John Day, Sun, Orion, Crowell, Lippincott, Rawson, Atheneum, Pantheon, Schocken, Scribner’s. But new publishers have always been born at a greater rate than older ones were dying.

We’ve seen the decline of the importance of independent bookstores. But do you want to know something? Nobody in this nation knows for sure how many independents there are today. When I last tried a count in 1996, there were more independents than in 1986. And there were more in ’86 than in ’76 — and so back through this century. It always makes the news when an indie goes out of business, never when a new one is opened up. I remember two years ago, there was an elegiac article when a certain indie closed its doors. That same week, three new stores opened in New York — and you never read a word about it.

Here are three more constants in our industry. One: The alleged pundits, and the industry statistics they rely on, are consistently wrong. Two: We as an industry have always been very bad at wooing the right personnel. I mean this in two senses. We’re weak at filling the bottom jobs — that is, at recruiting the best and the brightest coming out of college. And we’re even worse at filling the top jobs. Take down an LMP of eight or ten years ago and read who the CEOs and eds-in-chief were. Recall how, when they had those jobs, they looked like they knew something. Notice how many aren’t there anymore. The third consistent fact of life in the book industry involves the media. The good news is, The New York Times is the best newspaper in the world. The bad news is, The New York Times is the best newspaper in the world. The basic fact is the media know next to nothing about our business. The only difference from 1959 is that back then at least they never pretended to understand the business side.

One regrettable change we might agree on has been that so few of the large-house CEOs of today came up through editorial. In the earlier years at St. Martin’s, even when I was a CEO, I was an editor. In 1977 I signed 111 books, and one of them was The Far Pavilions by M.M. Kaye. I took Mollie’s fifteen-hundred page manuscript off to the hills of Pennsylvania, and worked on it for three weeks. By my final years in publishing, however, my annual signings were down to 25, and I was lucky to edit ten of them. Why? Because St. Martin’s — which billed $2 million in sales in 1959 — was approaching $300 million by the late ’90s. I was drafted onto the boards of seven companies around the world. I had little time left for sitting down with authors.

In looking forward, for a quirky new perspective, think of the rise of online bookselling as analogous to the rise of book clubs between the wars. The clubs serviced people where there weren’t any bookstores. As more retail outlets were created, club growth flattened. One of their responses was to develop niche clubs. I remember once selling a St. Martin’s title to The Waterfowling Book Club. That one club took four times more copies than we placed in all the bookstores in America. Online selling is a new and severe threat to clubs, but it won’t kill them. What clubs continue to do for their members is winnow and select.

In the end, the history of our industry reveals that change was always with us, and that suggests it always will be. We’ll get bigger, and more efficient, and new stuff will arise. But remember: We always notice change. We’re slower to notice what stays fundamentally the same.