Major changes at Random House under Madeline McIntosh, President Sales, Operations, and Digital. Joining her team are Nina von Moltke, VP, Digital Publishing Development; Amanda Close, VP, Digital Sales and Business Development; and Pete McCarthy, VP, Online and Digital Marketing. Andrea Sheehan, formerly VP & Director, Digital Strategy and Business Development at RHPG, will now report to von Moltke as VP, Digital Publishing and Product Development. Amanda d’Acierno, VP, Publisher, Random House Audio, Books on Tape and Living Language; Tim Jarrell, VP, Publisher, Fodor’s Travel Publishing; Fabrizio Larocca, VP, Creative Director; and Susan Livingston, now Director, Digital Business Management and Planning will also report to von Moltke. In addition, Sheila O’Shea becomes Director of Publicity, Digital Initiatives.Amanda Close, currently VP, Group Sales Director, Crown Publishing Group, becomes VP, Digital Sales and Business Development. Reporting to Close will be Jeff Weber, now Director, Digital Sales, formerly Associate Sales Director, Amazon; Randi Rosenkranz, Senior Manager, Digital Channel Development; and Lilly Kim, Account Manager, Digital Sales.

Pete McCarthy, VP, Online Marketing, will expand his department in a new mission to maximize the ability “to convert consumer interest to incremental purchases.” Newly reporting to McCarthy is Christine McNamara, currently VP, Director, Adult Sales, Borders Group and Books-A-Million and now taking on the newly created role of VP, Partnership Development. Chelsea Vaughn, Director, Online Marketing Operations, will continue to report to McCarthy. In addition, Camille Collette, Director, Web Production, and Jinny Kwon, Creative Director, are transferring to McCarthy’s department from Crown online marketing.

Andrew Weber, SVP, Director, Operations, and Technology, welcomes John Bohman, VP, Sales and Customer Operations, to his team. Bohman formerly held that role reporting to Jaci Updike, SVP, Director, Adult Sales. Continuing to report to Bohman are Chris Demyanovich, VP, Customer Operations, and Janice Vanghele, Director, Sales Services. Newly reporting to Bohman are Christian Waters, VP, Director, Sales Planning, and Kelly Fischbach, formerly Director, Online and Digital Sales, now Director, Online and Digital Sales.

Nihar Malaviya has been promoted to VP, Strategic Planning and Projects for Sales, Operations, and Digital. He was VP, Director, Business Operations and Strategy. Newly reporting to Malaviya is David Thompson, VP, Sales Analysis.

Newly reporting to Jaci Updike is Julie Black, VP, Director, Sales Strategy.

In the Crown Publishing Group, Jill Flaxman has been promoted to VP, Group Sales Director. She was VP, Imprint Sales Director. Jacqui Lebow, formerly responsible for selling Crown to Barnes & Noble, takes Flaxman’s place.

In the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Janet Cooke continues as VP, Group Sales Director. James Kimball continues as VP, Imprint Sales Director. Newly reporting to Kimball is Carlos Azula, VP, Director, Foreign Language Sales.

Candice Chaplin, formerly Marketing Director for the Information Group, has been promoted to Imprint Sales Director for Random House Audio Group, Fodors, Living Language, Prima, The Princeton Review, and Sylvan. Chaplin reports to Cynthia Lasky, SVP, Group Sales Director. Allyson Pearl continues to report to Lasky as VP, Imprint Sales Director.

In Random House Publishing Services, Skip Dye now reports directly to Updike as VP, Group Sales Director.

In online sales: Al Greco, formerly VP, Director, National Retail Accounts, will now move to become VP, Director, Online Sales. Reporting to him will be Anh Schluep, National Account Manager, Knopf Publishing Group; Kristen Fleming, National Account Manager, Crown Publishing Group; and Elena Legeros, Online Sales Coordinator. Newly joining from the Borders team are Richard Callison, National Account Manager, Random House Publishing Group and Jen Tolan, National Account Manager, Audible, Audio, Princeton Review, Fodors, Sylvan, Living Language, and Prima.

In the Barnes & Noble sales group: Kim Shannon continues in her role as VP, Director of Sales, Barnes & Noble, now reporting directly to Updike. In the Borders sales group, with Christine McNamara moving to Pete McCarthy’s Online and Digital Marketing group, Beth Koehler has been promoted to Director of Sales, Borders Group. Books-a-Million: Glenn Ellis, VP, Director, Field Sales, continuing to report to Jaci Updike, will now oversee Cathy Calvert and Karen Hayes, both National Account Managers. Ruth Liebmann continues in her role of VP, Director, Account Marketing, now reporting to Jaci Updike.

Matt Shatz, VP Digital, is leaving the company to become Head of Strategic Content Relationships at Nokia.

Cyrus Kheradi has been named SVP, International Sales and Marketing, at Random House and has resigned from his position as VP, Group Director, International Sales at Simon & Schuster. The international sales team will report to EVP Sales & Marketing Michael Selleck until further notice. Beth Wareham, Director of Cookbook and Lifestyle Publishing at Scribner, has left the company. In other changes at Simon & Schuster, the company’s new telemarketing sales group will comprise Anna Carlino, who was most recently a national account manager; Karen Fink, currently in the marketing department after twenty years at Random House that included working as a telemarketing rep; Stuart Smith, currently on the Sales & Client Communications team; and Hilary Lowe, currently a customer-driven publishing sales coordinator in the Premium Group.

Disney Book Group publisher Jonathan Yaged is leaving the company to become Chief Operating Officer at House Party, a company that organizes brand-sponsored parties.

Marysue Rucci becomes Editorial Director at Putnam on March 15, reporting to President Ivan Held. Rucci was Executive Editor at Simon & Schuster for 13 years.

Ralph Munsen has joined Hachette Book Group as SVP, Chief Information Officer. He was most recently VP, Technology at Clear Channel. He will lead HBG’s technology group and will split his time between the company’s New York and Boston offices.

Bill Preston joins Sourcebooks in the new position of Senior Account Executive, Mass Market and New Business Development. He was most recently VP, North American Business Development for UK distributor Gardners Books and SVP of Retail Sales for Baker & Taylor.

Gail Kump has been named Director of the National Book Network and will work out of the company’s New York office. She was EVP, Director of Marketing at Midpoint Trade Books.

Howard W. Reeves, Publisher of Abrams Books for Young Readers and Amulet Books, will become Editor-at-Large for the company.

Holt Senior Editor David Patterson has left the company and may be reached at davidroystonpatterson [at] gmail dot com.

Nathaniel Marunas is returning to Sterling as Executive Editor.

Jane Fleming is leaving her job as Editor at Penguin Press to begin freelance editing.

Michael Campbell joins becker&mayer! in the new position of VP, Sales, Marketing, and New Business Development. Amy Levenson has been promoted to Group Manager, International Sales.

In the agency world: Mary Ann Naples, co-owner of The Creative Culture, has joined startup OpenSky as VP Development, representing authors and brands….Martha Guzman has joined the Maria Carvainis Agency as Contract/Subsidiary Rights Manager. She was previously Associate Manager, Domestic Rights at Random House….Don Fehr has joined Trident Media Group. He was most recently Editorial Director at Kaplan….Following Brendan Deneen’s move to Thomas Dunne Books as an editor, Pouya Shahbazian has joined FinePrint Literary Management as literary manager/producer, specializing in book-to-film and TV deals. He will also head FinePrint Productions, producing and packaging film and television projects….In the UK, Caroline Hardman has moved to the Christopher Little Literary Agency as an agent. She was at the Marsh Agency for six years….Janklow & Nesbit UK Director Tif Loehnis is leaving after 13 years. Claire Patterson will now oversee the office.

Robin Dennis has joined the UK’s Oneworld Publications as Senior Commissioning Editor for popular science, social science, psychology, and current affairs. Previously, she was a senior editor at Times Books.

Global brand and licensing operative Chorion is expanding its executive team with the appointment of Tamra Knepfer as EVP Brand Management and Marketing and Steve Cipolla as EVP Global Licensing and Sales. Most recently, Knepfer was SVP, Global Licensing and Business Development for Rodale, working on publishing brands including Men’s Health and Prevention, and Cipolla was VP and General Manager, ESPN Consumer Products.

Frankfurt Book Fair VP Marketing & Corporate Communications Thomas Minkus is relocating to New York but will continue to work for the show.

Aly Mostel has joined Rodale Books as Associate Director of Communications. She was Publicity Manager at Time.

Anna Crowe has joined Planned Television Arts as a senior publicist. She was at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Random House.

Elizabeth Gold, Managing Editor at Guideposts, has left the company and will be freelancing.

PROMOTIONS AND INTERNAL CHANGES

Chris Rogers has been promoted to Editorial Director at Yale University Press. He was most recently Acting Editorial Director, and previously Editor for History.

Pam Roman, VP, Director, Specialty Sales at Random House, has been promoted to VP, Director of Sales, Special Accounts, reporting to Joan DeMayo and succeeding Andrew Stanley, who has relocated to London.

Madeline McIntosh has returned to Random House in the newly created position of President, Sales, Operations, and Digital. Her direct reports include Andrew Weber, SVP, Ops & Technology; Jaci Updike, SVP, Director, Random House Adult Sales; Joan DeMayo, SVP, Director, Children’s Sales and Director, Special Markets Sales; and Bonnie Ammer, EVP, International Sales. In addition to her U.S. responsibilities, McIntosh joins the Random House International Executive Board.

Elisabeth Dyssegaard has left HarperCollins, where she oversaw Smithsonian Books, to become Editor-in-Chief at Hyperion, following Will Balliett’s move to Thames & Hudson.

Neal Goff will be leaving his position as President of the Weekly Reader Publishing Group/Readers Digest as of the end of January 2010. He may be reached at nealgoff [at] gmail.com.

Former William Morrow Publisher Lisa Gallagher has moved to Sanford J. Greenburger. Her new e-mail address is lgallagher [at] sjga.com.

Bloomberg LP announced that it is closing Bloomberg Press, and will try to place the Press’s eight staffers elsewhere in the company.

Jim Benjamin, who was VP Finance & Operations at Sterling, has left the company and may be reached at jabenjamin [at] verizon.net. Laura Swerdloff has joined as an editor. She was previously an associate editor at Broadway.

Former SparkNotes Publisher Dan Weiss has joined Macmillan as Publisher-at-Large for St. Martin’s, reporting to paperback publisher Matthew Shear. Weiss will develop and acquire both fiction and nonfiction properties targeted at “twenty-somethings, Gen Yers, and older young adult readers,” for St. Martin’s as well as other Macmillan imprints.

Dystel & Goderich Literary Management is opening an office in LA, to be run by Michael Bourret, who has been at DGLM for 10 years. He will continue to grow his own list of author clients while also “aggressively pursuing new film and TV opportunities for the agency.”

Don Fehr, who left Kaplan, where he was Editorial Director, as Kaplan reduces its trade presence in order to focus on “core business and audiences,” may be reached at dfehr2 [at] verizon.net.

NAL/Penguin has named Danielle Perez Executive Editor, effective January 4. Perez was Senior Editor at Bantam.

Angela James has been named Executive Editor at Harlequin’s Carina Press. She was Editorial Director at Quartet Press.

Josh Getzler is moving to Russell & Volkening as an agent. He has been at Writers House for the past three years (prior to which he was COO of the Staten Island Yankees). He anticipates building his list of literary and commercial fiction, with a particular bias toward suspense and crime novels.

PJ Mark is moving to Janklow & Nesbit as an agent. He was agent and international rights director at McCormick & Williams. Mark will be replaced by Susan Hobson, who was Co-Director of Foreign Rights at Inkwell Management.

Macmillan Audio has hired Robert Allen as Editorial Director. Most recently he was a co-founder of Brands-to-Books (with Kathleen Spinelli, now at Walter Foster), after serving as Publisher of Random House Audio.

Borders Group has appointed Bill Dandy SVP, Marketing. Art Keeney, who has served in that post since June, will transition to the position of SVP, Store Operations. Larry Norton will move from his current role as SVP, Merchandising and Distribution, to the position of SVP, Merchandising for Adult Trade and Children’s Books. Norton joined the company in August.

In children’s books: Thomas P. Burke has joined Scholastic as SVP, E-Commerce, reporting to EVP and President of Scholastic Book Clubs and E-Commerce Judy Newman. Burke has been at BN.com for the past five years, overseeing merchandising, online marketing, customer experience, design and editorial content. Meanwhile, Rachel Bader has left Scholastic Media, where she was Director of Licensing and Consumer Promotion, to become Licensing Director, Packaged Goods and Promotions, at Chorion. She reports to Robert Traub, SVP Licensing for The Americas at Chorion.

Christine Duplessis has joined Penguin Children’s as Associate Director of Paperback, Series and Mass Merchandise Marketing. She was Marketing Manager at Atria and Washington Square Press. . . . Harper Children’s Executive Editor Susan Rich has joined Little, Brown Children’s in the new position of Editor-at-Large, where she will edit a new series from Lemony Snicket (a.k.a Daniel Handler) and other titles. . . . Daniel Nayeri is joining Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s Clarion imprint as Editor. He has worked as a children’s librarian, a literary agent, and an in-house and freelance editor, and is the co-author of the YA novel Another Faust.

Michele Wetherbee is returning to HarperOne as Creative Director. She has held art/creative director positions at Harcourt, O’Reilly Media, and the University of California at Berkeley.

David Leach has been named Director of Book Sales at Greenleaf Book Group. He had been National Key Account Manager, Special Sales, at Thomas Nelson.

PROMOTIONS AND INTERNAL CHANGES

Jane von Mehren announced that Random House Trade Paperbacks’ Kerri Buckley has been promoted to editor. She joined the company in 2004. Caitlin Alexander is being promoted to Senior Editor and will acquire fiction and nonfiction in hardcover and trade paperback.

Kathy Schneider announced that Angie Lee has been promoted to VP of Marketing at Harper. Lee joined the company in 2005 as a Senior Marketing Director in the Collins division. Prior to joining HC, Lee was a Marketing Director at Teach for America and also held positions at News America Marketing, a promotional agency under the News Corp umbrella. . . . Peter London has been promoted to Director of Permissions, effective immediately.

At St. Martin’s, Alyse Diamond has been promoted to editor, continuing to report to Kathy Huck. She has been at SMP since 2005, focusing on nonfiction (though she also acquired a middle-grade fiction series.)

At Blake Friedmann in the UK, Oliver Munson has been promoted to full-time agent.

Shelf Awareness reports that Tyson Cornell’s job as Director of Marketing and Publicity at LA’s Book Soup has been eliminated. He may be reached at tyson.cornell [at] gmail.com. Vroman’s is in the process of buying Book Soup, whose founder and owner, Glenn Goldman, died early this year.

UPCOMING EVENTS

The Mark Logic Digital Publishing Summit will take place on December 10 at the Plaza Hotel in New York. Columnist and ex-Publisher of the Wall Street Journal Gordon Crovitz, Outsell’s David Worlock, and Shannon Holman of McGraw Hill Higher Education will speak at the free, day-long seminar.

BAM’s Eat, Drink & Be Literary brings major contemporary authors to Brooklyn’s BAMcafé for dinners, readings, and engaging discussions. Evenings begin at 6:30pm with a buffet and wine, accompanied by live music. Following dinner, authors read from and are interviewed about their work, take questions from the audience, and sign books. Speakers this season are Wallace Shawn (January 7, 2010), E. L. Doctorow (January 21), Lynn Nottage (February 11), Sam Lipsyte (March 11), Colm Tóibín (April 8), Joshua Ferris (April 22), Jayne Anne Phillips (May 6), and Sam Shepard (June 3).

On February 1, the New York Center for Independent Publishing (NYCIP) will present “The Next Chapter in Publishing,” an intensive one-day conference designed to meet the needs of independent publishers and writers by exploring the changing technologies of the publishing industry. Speakers include Jeff Rivera of GalleyCat, Chris Kenneally of the Copyright Clearance Center, and Mark Coker of Smashwords.

HarperCollins UK has announced that David Roth-Ey, formerly VP and Editorial Director of Harper Perennial and Harper Paperbacks in the US, has moved to the UK office as the new Director of Audio and E-books.

Cal Morgan, VP and Executive Editor at Harper, has been appointed VP, Editorial Director of Harper Perennial and Harper paperbacks.

With Quayside’s acquisition of Motor Books International (MBI), CEO Randy Roland has left the company, which will remain in St. Paul, Minnesota. Quayside CEO Ken Fund estimates that annual revenues will double, to about $75 million.

Dick Robinson announced that Beth Ford, who had been SVP, Global Operations and IT, is leaving Scholastic to become EVP and Chief Operating Officer at Hachette Book Group USA and Hachette’s press release, explained that “With the retirement of both Maureen Egen and Rick Hall earlier this year there was a clear need for HBGUSA to bring in a new chief operating officer, and in Beth we have found the right mix of skills and experience that that role demands.” She begins September 10 and reports to David Young.

Jennifer Bergstrom, VP and Publisher of Simon Spotlight Entertainment announced that Carl Raymond has been named Associate Publisher for SSE. Raymond was most recently consulting for Scholastic, and previously was Publishing Director for adult lifestyle titles at DK Publishing.

Leyah Jensen has joined Little Simon as Associate Art Director. Leyah was most recently at Scholastic.

Lisa Dolin has left Abrams, where she was Director of Special Sales, reporting to VP of Sales, Mary Wowk.

Julie Will has joined Rodale Books in their New York office as an editor. She was at Bantam Dell. David Kang has been named SVP and General Manager, online subscription services at Rodale. He had been SVP and COO, entertainment, at Major League Baseball Advanced Media.

Matthew Benjamin has left Collins to go to Workman as Senior Editor. Ben Loehnen is joining Collins Business as a Senior Editor in September. He’s been working as a freelance writer and editor, after working at Random House and Hyperion.

Anne Sullivan has joined The New Press as Publicity Director. She was Publicity Manager for Nation Books/Avalon for two years prior. . . . Andy Heidel has joined Houghton Mifflin as Assistant Director of Publicity. . . . Campbell Wharton has joined HarperCollins as Associate Director of Publicity. . . . Books & Such Literary Agency announced that Kathleen Y’Barbo has joined the agency as in-house Publicist.

After 22 years at Viking and six at Roaring Brook Press, Deborah Brodie is starting her own business as a freelance editor for children’s, teen, and adult books. She may be reached at Deborahbro@ aol.com or 212-932-9506.

The NYC offices of Hay House are up and running, with Patricia Gift as the Director of Acquisitions, Cheryl Woodruff as President of SmileyBooks, a joint venture between Hay House and Tavis Smiley, and Laura Koch as Associate Editor. Hay House is at 33 W. 19th Street, 4th floor New York, NY 10011; 646-619-1314.

Jennifer Daniels has been named VP General Counsel and Secretary of the Board of Directors of Barnes & Noble.

At Borders Group, Susan Harwood has joined the company as the new Chief Information Officer.

John Molish has joined Tantor Media as VP Sales & Marketing. He was formerly Executive Sales Director at Brighter Minds Media.

PROMOTIONS

Following his move into the Touchstone/ Fireside group of imprints, EVP Publisher John Howard now reports to Mark Gompertz, EVP and Publisher of Touchstone/Fireside. Howard will remain in West Monroe, Louisiana.

At Running Press, Director of Marketing and Publicity Craig Herman has been promoted to Associate Publisher. Jennifer Kasius has been promoted to Executive Editor.

And at sister company Basic Books, Lara Heimert has been promoted to VP and Editorial Director, responsible for overseeing the editorial staff, and Executive Editor William Frucht has been promoted to VP.

Tina Bennett and Eric Simonoff have both been promoted to Directors at
Janklow & Nesbit.

Jared Kieling has been promoted for Publisher at Bloomberg. He was Editorial Director, a position that Executive Editor Mary Ann McGuigan will now fill.

Andrea Sheehan has been promoted to the position of VP, Director of Online Sales and Merchandising at S&S, reporting directly to Larry Norton.

Watson Guptill has promoted Joy Aquilino to Executive Editor. She handles crafts titles and has two senior editors, Julie Mazur and Abigail Wilentz, reporting to her.

At the Hachette Book Group USA, Little, Brown Publisher Michael Pietsch and Warner publisher Jamie Raab were both promoted to EVPs, and Megan Tingley has been promoted to SVP. Maja Thomas has been promoted to SVP of Hachette Book Group USA Audio and Digital Publishing.

With the promotion of Gary Gentel as Interim President of Houghton Mifflin Trade & Reference, Maire Gorman has been promoted to VP, Director of Sales.

At Workman, Page Edmunds has been promoted to Associate Publisher. Edmunds, who has been Director of National Account sales, will continue to sell to Ingram and the warehouse clubs and will continue as in-house liaison with HighBridge Audio.

Julie Strauss-Gabel has been promoted to Associate Editorial Director of the Dutton Children’s Books.

Giuseppe Castellano has been promoted to Art Director for Simon Spotlight.

SEPTEMBER EVENTS

The French-American Foundation, German Book Office and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy have joined forces to organize three days (Sept. 16-18) of public, professional, and networking events in New York City “in an effort to strengthen ties between French, German and American publishers and to encourage interest in foreign literature and translation.” For further information contact Margaret Bensfield at 212.255.8455×214 or mbensfield@ groupsjr.com. Weekend events will be tied in with The Brooklyn Book Festival (see below). On September 17, a variety of discussions are scheduled, including a luncheon panel on “Publishing Trends,” with Harold Augenbraum, Executive Director, National Book Foundation, Rachel Deahl, Senior News Editor, Publishers Weekly, Peter Mayer, Publisher of Overlook, and Eric Banks, Editor-in-Chief, Bookforum. All events take place at Deutsches Haus, 42 Washington Mews.

The National Book Critics Circle is opening the fall season in New York with a week-long symposium, The Age of Infinite Margins: Book Critics Face the 21st Century. Panelists will include leading authors, publishers, and critics. The first three panels are being held at the Housing Works Bookstore Café, while the final event is being held at the Brooklyn Historical Society, in conjunction with the Brooklyn Book Festival (see below). For more information, please go to http://www.bookcritics.org/. For further information at the events listed above, please contact John Freeman at jfreeman4@nyc.rr.com (646-246-8565).

The National Book Foundation will once again participate in this year’s second annual Brooklyn Book Festival, to be held in downtown Brooklyn on Sunday, September 16, 2007 from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The festival will present National Book Award authors Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Paula Fox, Mary Gaitskill, Gloria Naylor, and Jacqueline Woodson. Other authors scheduled include Jim Carroll, Mike Farrell, Kimiko Hahn, Philip Lopate, Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, and Colson Whitehead. For more information on the festival, visit visitbrooklyn.org.

DULY NOTED
The Club for Unesco of the Department of Piraeus & Islands is organizing an International Poetry Competition. Greek and foreign citizens from all over the world can participate. Any language can be used for participating in the competition. The final evaluation of the 100 poems will be made by a special committee and the results will be published in the daily press. Each participant will take part with two poems from which one will be chosen. The selected participations will be subject of a special compound publication.

Submissions may be sent to Post Restant, Piraeus Central Post Office, 185 01 Piraeus, Greece by October 12, 2007. For further information, call: 210 4110212; 6977238764

Following the recent news of Houghton Mifflin‘s planned acquisition of Harcourt, Gary Gentel has been appointed Interim President of the Trade and Reference Division, effective immediately. HM Chairman, President and CEO Tony Lucki told employees that “Gary will lead the division’s strategic direction with the support of the Trade and Reference management team, who will report directly to him. He will also be an instrumental part of planning the integration of Harcourt Trade with Houghton Mifflin Trade and Reference.” Gentel has served as the division’s Corporate VP, Director of Sales for the past four years. Prior to joining HM, he was VP of Trade Sales at Scholastic, and had previously worked at Candlewick Press as President, and at DK and Random House.

Separately, it was announced that George Hodgman is moving to Houghton Mifflin Adult Trade as VP, Senior Executive Editor, starting in the New York office in early September and reporting to Publisher Janet Silver. He had previously been Executive Editor at Holt.

Will Balliett, former Publisher and Editorial Director of Carroll & Graf Publishers and Thunder’s Mouth Press, is joining Hyperion as Editorial Director, as of August 8 and reporting to SVP Editor in Chief Will Schwalbe. Meanwhile Katie Wainwright, Executive Director of Publicity and Associate Publisher of Trade Paperbacks at Hyperion, has joined Crown as VP, Executive Director of Publicity, reporting to Jenny Frost. She succeeds Tina Constable, who last month was named VP and Publisher for Crown Publishers, Crown Business, and Crown Forum.

After two months at Hilsinger-Mendelson, Brian Belfiglio is leaving to take Elizabeth Hayes‘ place as VP Publicity at Scribner. He starts in mid-August. Hayes – who had moved over from S&S to Scribner six months ago, is leaving to work in the film industry, as a producer.

Pamela Cannon will join Ballantine as Editor at Large on September 10, acquiring and editing lifestyle books, and reporting to Libby McGuire, SVP and Publisher. She will work from her office in Connecticut, where she previously ran Cannon Literary Services, specializing in editorial, publicity and marketing services for authors, agents and publishers including The New York Times and Bon Appétit.

Garrett P. Kiely, President of Palgrave Macmillan, has been named Director of the University of Chicago Press. He succeeds the retiring Paula Barker Duffy, who is moving to the East Coast. Kiely will begin on September 1; Deputy Director Chris Heiser is serving as interim director as of July 1.

Lots of movement in sales and marketing circles:

Greg Brandenburgh has become Sales and Marketing Director of Hampton Roads Publishing. Earlier he worked for Thorson/Element, Tuttle Publishing and HarperOne. . . . Unbridled Books has hired Steven Wallace as Sales Director. He was a field rep and then Divisional Director for Field Sales at Random House for more than 18 years. . . . Mike Rohrig has gone to Dalmatian Press in Atlanta, as Senior Director of Sales. Most recently he had been at Scholastic. Michelle Patterson has left Globe Pequot and is now Senior Director of Marketing at Kaplan Publishing. Yulia Borodyanskaya has also gone to Kaplan, as International Sales and Rights Manager. . . . Phaidon has hired Sharon Huerta as North American Sales Manager. She was Director of Field and International Sales at HNA/Abrams. Meanwhile, HNA has hired Julia Coblentz as Director of Marketing. She was at Broadway Books/Random where she was most recently Associate Marketing Director. Justin Nisbit has joined HNA as Director of Digital Initiatives and comes from Workman Publishing where he was Web Manager. Both report to VP of Sales, Mary Wowk who now officially takes on the responsibility for marketing in addition to sales. . . . At Harper, Campbell Wharton will join the company as Associate Director of Publicity. He had been at Publicity Manager for Crown Forum.

The Ingram Book Group has hired Skip Prichard as its COO. He was formerly president and CEO of ProQuest Information and Learning.

Following on the resignation of Ric Vanzura, EVP emerging business and technology, chief strategy officer, Teresa Wright was appointed VP, Merchandising, Paperchase U.S. Division and Myles Romero was named VP, Strategic Marketing and Entertainment Alliances.

Bill Nasshan, SVP of trade books at Borders Group, has left the company. Rob Gruen, EVP, merchandising and marketing, will assume his duties.

The Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd announced the appointment of Oliver Gadsby as Chief Executive of its worldwide publishing business. His previous role was as Director of Strategy & Acquisitions with Informa PLC, which includes Taylor & Francis and Routledge. Continuum also announced the appointment of Bob Marsh as Chief Financial Officer of the group reporting directly to the Gadsby. He had been the CFO of the North American business of Continuum and prior to that of Morehouse Publishing. Ed Suthon has left the company and may be reached at edsuthon@aol.com.

Helen Atsma has joined Holt as Editor, Adult Trade. She has been an associate editor at Little, Brown. . . . Counterpoint has hired both Sharon Donovan as Publishing Director, reporting to CEO and Publisher Charlie Winton, and Abbye Simkowitz as Publicity Manager. They will work from the company’s new Berkeley, CA office and be responsible for both the Counterpoint and Soft Skull imprints. Donovan was Publishing Manager at the Foundation for Deep Ecology and previously worked at Conari Press and Sierra Club Books. Simkowitz was a publicist at St. Martin’s.

In children’s books: Susan Yeager has been appointed Associate Director of Mass Merchandise sales for HarperCollins Children’s Books. For the past 15 years, she worked for Borders Group in inventory, category management and buying/merchandising. She will oversee Tim Synek and Mikki Plaskett. . . . Melanie Chang is joining Little, Brown Children‘s in the new position of Executive Director, Publicity and Communications, reporting to Associate Publisher, VP Marketing Andrew Smith, starting on August 20. Chang will both oversee the publicity team and direct the PR strategy and overall communications for the division. She has been Director of Publicity at Random House Children’s. . . . Meanwhile, Carl Raymond has completed his consulting assignment at Scholastic and may be reached at craymondny@aol.com. Anica Rissi has also left Scholastic for Simon Pulse, where she is an Editor.

Laurie Parkin, VP and Publisher of Kensington Publishing announced that Karen Auerbach joined the company as Director of Publicity and Public Relations. Previously Auerbach was the Senior Director of Publicity at Avalon Publishing Group.

PROMOTIONS
Following Jeannie Emanuel’s departure for Candlewick, Adams Media announced that Phil Sexton has been promoted to Sales Director.

Rica Allannic was promoted from Editor to Senior Editor at Clarkson Potter. Her promotion is effective immediately. She will continue to report to Doris Cooper.

At S&S, George Hedges has moved to the BGI sales team as a National Account Manager for Atria and Pocket.

At Random House Children’s Books, Erin Clarke has been promoted to Senior Editor, and Jack Lienke has been promoted to assistant editor.

Sean Yule, Domestic Rights Director at Knopf, announced that Thomas Dobrowolski has been promoted to Assistant Manager, Domestic Rights for the Knopf Publishing Group.

AUGUST EVENTS

Poets Billy Collins and Paul Violi will read from the works of Frank O’Hara (who was awarded the National Book Award for Poetry posthumously in 1972), as well as from their own works, on August 2nd at Madison Square Park. Poet and critic Craig Morgan Teicher will moderate. On August 9, dogs and their owners are invited to attend a reading and talk by Mark Doty, author of DOG YEARS: A MEMOIR (HarperCollins, 2007). Doggy treats will be provided.
For a complete listing of Mad. Sq. Reads events, visit www.madisonsquarepark.org.

DULY NOTED

Susan Naythons left PGW/AMS in 2005, and, as she now tells PT, “I went off to Italy and the rest is history,” or more accurately, her future job: Naythons launched eyeItalia.com last month to celebrate (and sell) all things Italian. “Some friends have teased me a bit about offering books on the site (“who are you kidding by trying to compete with Amazon?” etc.) , but to not offer books as a complement to the site would be anathema to me,” she writes from her house near Volterra.

Biographer James McGrath Morris (Rose Man of Sing Sing and the forthcoming Joseph Pulitzer) has recently launched a free monthly newsletter and website for writers and readers of biography that will serve as a great resource for publishers, authors, bookstores, librarians, and readers. It’s called The Biographer’s Craft, www.thebiographers craft.com.

The BISG offices are still not habitable, but the website is operational, and everyone can be reached on their regular emails: Michael@bisg.org, Angela@bisg.org, Sara@ bisg org.

MAZEL TOV

Mazel tov to the proud parents of William Francis Held born 7/16/07. Proud dad Ivan tells us that he joins Margaret, 2 and George, 4, who’s “declared him “cute,” which is accurate.”

Andy Martin has left Sterling for St. Martin‘s and the Minotaur imprint where he will be VP, Publisher, reporting to SMP President Sally Richardson. Martin had been Publishing Director at Sterling.

Raquel Jaramillo, longtime VP Creative Director at Holt, is moving to Workman as Director of Children’s Books reporting to Susan Bolotin.

Peter Ginna has left OUP to join Bloomsbury as Publisher and Editorial Director of a new and as yet unnamed imprint. He starts at Bloomsbury in September.

Ann Binkley is returning to Borders Group (and Ann Arbor) as Director of Public Relations, a position she held until 2003 when she moved to New York to work for New York Is Book Country and subsequently Quills Foundation. Beryl Needham is leaving Random House to re-join Binkley at Borders as Director of National Events and Field Marketing. She is replacing Tracy Egan. Both Binkley and Needham will report to Michael Tam, Chief Marketing Officer.

HarperCollins announced that Jamie Brickhouse, recently at Basic Books, has been named Director, HarperCollins Speakers Bureau. He reports to Debbie Stier, SVP, Group Publicity Director. Julie Elmuccio, who is currently with the Speakers Bureau, has been promoted to Speakers Bureau Coordinator. Jennifer Sheridan will join HC as a sales Representative for the New York region, reporting to Jeanette Zwart. She worked for Bookazine and managed the Children’s Department for Unabridged Books in Chicago. Mary Albi has joined HarperCollins Children’s Books as Director of Marketing, reporting to Diane Naughton. Elizabeth Fithian has left the company. And Carrie Bachman (carriebachman@gmail.com) and Roberto De Vicq are leaving Harper in a reorganization of the cookbook area. Harriet Bell will go to a three-day work week.

ReganMedia, a division of HC, announced Elena DeCoste has been appointed VP of Television Development, reporting to Judith Regan. DeCoste, who comes from CAA, will be based in Los Angeles. . . . Justin Loeber has decided not to go with the PR company he originally planned on moving to after he left ReganMedia. He may be reached at just.emailme@earthlink.nt or 646 416 3046.

Rich Johnson, longtime VP for Trade Sales at DC Comics, is leaving the company. No details on his departure were given. He joined DC Comics in 1997. He may be reached at rjhnzn@yahoo.com.

Andrea Glickson‘s job at Stewart, Tabori, & Chang has been eliminated. She has left the company and may be reached at jimglicks@rcn.com. She was Director of Marketing.

Jesse Cohen has left Atlas Editions and may be reached at 212 888 1052 or jcohen@jamesatlasbooks.com. . . . Greg Constante has left Acanthus Press to move back to LA. He may be reached at gconstante@adelphia.net

Kevin Haas has been named VP of North American sales at Ryland, Peters and Small. He was with Quayside Publishing Group.

Jofie Ferrari-Adler has left Viking, where he was an editor. He may be reached at jofiefa@gmail.com

Daniel Moreton has joined Scholastic as Executive Art Director, Licensed Books and Cartwheel, reporting to David Saylor, VP, Creative Director. Most recently, Moreton was Creative Director for Nickelodeon’s Entertainment Products Group. He also is the illustrator of several children’s books. Paul Banks has joined Scholastic as Art Director, Licensed Books. Banks had been doing freelance art direction for Scholastic and for Macmillan/McGraw Hill and had previously been Global Design Manager for Disney Publishing Worldwide. He reports to Moreton.

Lucille Rettino has been named Director of Marketing SSE and Simon Pulse. Rettino came to S&S from Henry Holt, where she was Executive Director of Advertising and Promotion. Earlier Renee Fountain was named Licensing and Brand Manager for Children’s. She had been Harcourt.

Harry Kirchner National Accounts Director for PGW has joined the National Accounts team for Ingram Publisher Services.

And last, but certainly not least, Siobhan O’Leary, erstwhile Associate Director of Market Partners International, before moving to Berlin to study German, has been named Foreign Subsidiary Rights Associate at Crown, reporting to Karin Schulze.

PROMOTIONS

At HC, Andrea Pappenheimer has been promoted to the title of SVP, Sales and Associate Publisher of HC Children’s Books. Brian Grogan has been promoted to SVP, Sales for General Books. He formerly was SVP, Director of Distributor Sales. David Sweeney has been promoted to Senior Director, Mail Order, Retail and Wholesale. He joined Harper in 1996. Marie Hergenroeder has been promoted to Senior Director, Premium, Proprietary and Display Marketing. She joined Harper in 2000. Doug Menake has been named VP, Director of Inventory Management for the Adult Trade division. He recently took over management of the Overstock Sales initiative for the company. David Toberisky has been named VP, Director of Inventory Management for the Children’s division. He also participates in the Children’s Executive Committee. Diane Naughton announced the promotion of Cristina Gilbert, to Senior Director of Marketing at HC.

James Kimball was promoted to Vice President, Sales Director, Knopf Publishing Group, by Jaci Updike. He has been at Knopf since 1998. Ruth Liebmann has also been promoted to VP and named Director, Retail Field Marketing and Merchandising. She had been Director, Independent Bookselling.

Hilary Redmon has been named Editor of Penguin Books. Most recently an Associate Editor, she joined the company as an editorial assistant in 2002 and became an assistant editor for Viking in 2003. Alessandra Lusardi has been named Associate Editor. Most recently an Assistant Editor, she joined Viking in 2002 as an assistant to Clare Ferraro. She was promoted to Assistant Editor in 2003.

JULY EVENTS

Pete Hamill, Molly O’Neill, Kevin Baker and others gather in July at Mad. Sq. Reads, the Madison Square Park Conservancy’s new free series of summer readings by notable authors. Each Thursday evening program will be devoted to a different aspect of New York life and history. The readings will be presented at the foot of Augustus Saint-Gauden‘s Farragut Monument, located mid-park at 25th Street. Each program lasts about one hour except as noted. For information call 212 538 6667. Books will be available for sale at each reading courtesy of Borders.

Project Gutenberg, will hold an annual World eBook Fair beginning July 4th and running through August, during which 300,000 e-books will be available for free download, together with some classical music scores, recordings and films. The vast majority of the books are in the public domain, and the rights holders to the remainder have granted their permission. Though 20,000 titles are already permanently available from the site, the rest will be loaned for the month of the Fair from other e-book libraries, some of which normally charge, and some of the loans will remain after the end of the Fair. Project Gutenberg plans to increase the number of titles available during the Fair to 1 million by 2009. Over 100 languages will be represented for worldwide readers and that total is expected to increase. Go to http://www.gutenberg.org for further information and downloading.

DULY NOTED

Intellectual property or real property? Mary Hall Mayer seems to be working at both: While recently selling world rights in a six-figure pre-empt to Dr. Nicholas Dodman‘s What Every Good Dog Owner Should Know to Houghton Mifflin‘s Susan Canavan, she has also – as a broker with Halstead Property – just concluded the sale of a Tribeca loft for over $1.5 million and a high end rental also in Tribeca.

An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore‘s new book, produced for Rodale by Melcher Media, is printed on paper that is 30% “post consumer waste,” (which Chelsea Green doesn’t consider, mmm, green enough). However, according to the description in the book, it is the first book produced to offset 100% of the CO2 emissions generated from production activities with renewable energy. “By supporting a new Native American wind farm and a new family farm methane energy project through NativeEnergy, this publication is carbon neutral.” For more information – “and to offset your own carbon footprint,” go to nativenergy.com. For information on RH and other industry publisher initiatives, go to greenpressinitiative.org/

IN MEMORIAM

Lyle Stuart, founder of the eponymous publisher and later, of Barricade Books, died on June 24th, at the age of 83.

Time was, you would call a guy like Gilbert Perlman a book distributor. The warehouse, the sales staff, the publishing clients, even the name on the door — Client Distribution Services — all fit the modus operandi of firms schlepping books from the presses to the masses. But times have changed. So has the nomenclature. “We don’t call ourselves a distributor,” Perlman explains, adding after a moment: “We kind of don’t know what to call ourselves.” Indeed, it seems book distribution companies have embarked on a bit of strategic soul-searching as they vie for what industry estimates place at a billion dollars worth of distributed independent publisher sales every year. “I wish I could think of a better word than ‘distributor’ because I hate that word,” Perlman says. “The word ‘partner’ is horribly overused, but we see ourselves as a partner to our client publishers.” And for CDS, partnership means a certain behind-the-scenes savvy. “Our goal is to be transparent to the process,” Perlman explains. “Do you see ads for Simon & Schuster’s sales department? No. And you’re not ever going to see an ad for CDS.”

Whether as distributors, partners, or the dreaded “total solutions providers,” distribution companies are emerging as the middlemen-turned-marquee players of the supply chain. “Our business with distributors grows every year,” affirms Phil Ollila, vp of merchandising for the Borders Group, “and it has grown faster than our business with traditional publishers.” It remains unclear, however, whether distributors are capturing a larger share of the pie in terms of absolute numbers. “Our business is not up significantly with major distributors,” says Ingram president Jim Chandler. And last year, along with the rest of the economy, the $100 million–plus distributor Publishers Group West turned in a soft fourth quarter, with flat growth for the year, according to president Charlie Winton. Still, Chandler says, “We too value consolidation of sources in terms of the efficiencies that it provides. Distributors are controlling larger numbers of small presses.”

The Full Meal Deal

Distributors got a boost when Random House jettisoned its client distribution business (see PT, 7/99), but their expanded presence in the market is nothing new. “When you look at distribution services, it runs the gamut from pick-and-pack to full-service,” says PGW’s Winton. “We feel we have defined the service standards on the high end of that scale — the full-blown partnership with a publisher.” Now at 115 clients (though Winton says the top 25 clients represent around 80% of PGW’s billings), the company has been selectively adding services to its menu for at least a decade, bringing it into the big leagues. “Most of our competitors nowadays are major publishers looking to fill a niche in their catalog, not other distribution companies,” says Winton. Increasingly, of course, e-capabilities have become part of the full meal distribution deal. On that count, PGW has partnered with iUniverse, which will provide client publishers with e-delivery in various formats, as well as print-on-demand options — and Winton looks forward to a minimum of 500 e-books by the end of the year, up from the 65 titles currently available.

Though you might think e-delivery would threaten distributors’ hold on the marketplace, no one’s too worried about job security yet. “The same reason that a distributor is viable in the printed world, a distributor will be viable in the electronic world,” says Rich Freese, senior vp for sales and marketing at National Book Network. The company has been growing at 30% per year for the last several years, Freese says, with sales jumping from $53 million to $72 million in the last year. Now with about 85 publishers, NBN is developing an “e-warehouse” as a central repository for electronic editions of clients’ books, with electronic initiatives overseen by e-commerce director Larry Fox. The company is still in conversations with various data conversion partners (Ken Brooks’ Publishing Dimensions was among the contenders), and has hired half a dozen employees to tackle Internet marketing and distribution.

Meanwhile, other distributors are focusing on expanding services not in the ether, but overseas. “The most exciting event for us in the last six months was opening up the London office,” says Consortium CEO Randall Beek. Managed by Katherine Bright-Holmes, the London outpost will have 11 UK publishers on board by June. “Overseas publishers need someone like us to teach them how this country works,” Beek says. As the market continues to globalize, Beek envisions a “Consortium International” division that would manage publicity and promotion for its foreign clients. He’s also looking at foreign language distribution, particularly in Spanish. Now at about 70 clients (Consortium picked up City Lights in January), 40% of the company’s business comes from nonprofit literary publishers. It has partnered with Small Press Distribution to coordinate coadvertising, linked websites, and perhaps a co-marketing campaign. And in the remote distance is the ultimate service expansion. “Maybe in our future is selling more directly to individuals,” says Beek. “I’m cautious about that because I don’t want to be perceived in competition with our booksellers. But a lot of bookstores don’t take a position on a lot of our books.”

‘It’s the Book, Stupid’

There’s a severe shortage of parking places at CDS’s 300,000 sq. ft. distribution facility in Jackson, Tennessee, indicating either scrimping on asphalt or a staff at capacity. “We’re experiencing a boom in independent publishing,” Perlman says by way of explanation. “Due to the superstores and the Internet, there is unprecedented access to the marketplace. And we see ourselves as the facilitator of that process.” Aiming to “provide all the noncreative services to publishers,” CDS has been fine-tuning its distribution facility (acquired from Random House), which Perlman says can ship 500,000 books a day; every order that comes in by noon goes out by business close.

With 12 active clients (another half dozen are due to be signed within the next six months), Perlman says the key differentiator is not efficiencies of scale — though CDS has them — but a certain bedrock passion for the products in question. “Everyone asks us what our volume requirement is,” he says. “But the truth is that we do business with some very small companies. We choose clients based on the books. I like to say, It’s the book, stupid. The book and its marketing program have got to be leading the way.”

Perlman notes that the trend toward full-service partnerships has been mirrored in other industries. For example, IBM’s revenue and profit growth has come from sales of services, not hardware. And major brokerage firms have gotten into the business of clearing trades for smaller brokerage firms. As financial and technology companies morph into “total solutions providers,” so distributors push for ever more expansive partnerships. Not to mention the fact that the infrastructure has become increasingly data-intensive, with EDI, purchase-order acknowledgement, and advance-ship notification mandated by the most powerful retailers.

Better, Not Bigger

There are contrarians, to be sure. Eric Kampmann, president of Midpoint Trade Books, says that instead of service expansion, his company took an opposite tack: “We got rid of the sales force. This office is made up of three people, and we talk to our publishers every day.” Now finishing its fifth year of business, Midpoint has topped $10 million in sales and attracted 150 client publishers (with 20 in the UK, which account for around 10% of the company’s sales) on the philosophy that a model needed to be developed that would not imitate the sales, distribution, and marketing functions of the biggest publishers. “That seems to be the mistake made by many distributors,” Kampmann says. “It escalated their costs while not insuring appropriate sales volumes.” Midpoint targets superstores, Internet retailers, and wholesalers. “We focus only on those types of accounts,” says Kampmann. “We did not hire a sales force, commission or otherwise, to call on every territory in the country. Instead, we reach every account through wholesalers. We encourage all our accounts, including B&N, to use wholesalers.” Kampmann now aims to persuade larger publishers that his model can work for them as well. “As we grow we think we’ll be a leader in bringing the cost for using a single source of sales and distribution down below what is now being charged,” he says. Midpoint sells on a monthly basis to accounts, deliverable from its 80,000 sq. ft. warehouse in Kansas City; select mass merchandise accounts may soon be added to the sales package.

As the industry continues to evolve, distributors and their clients alike may come to appreciate the value in remaining sharply focused on the essentials. “There are things we do better than publishers,” says Consortium’s Beek. “We ship books better. We bill better. We collect money better. These are still valuable services for the foreseeable future. They’re not sexy and they’re not earthshaking. But the infrastructure is very important.” And for publishers with lucrative client distribution contracts, the bottom line seems to be this: As distribution companies get better at delivering and servicing that infrastructure, publishers would be well advised to keep a close eye on their market share.