Steve Rubin, former Doubleday Broadway President and Publisher, who began at Bantam Books in 1984 and was most recently Random House Publisher-at-Large, has been named President and Publisher of Henry Holt, reporting to Macmillan CEO John Sargent. Dan Farley will now focus exclusively on his other job as President and Publisher of the recently formed Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, also reporting to Sargent.

Paul Von Drasek has been named Trade Sales Manager of Capstone Publishers. He was Executive Director of Sales at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Mikyla Bruder has been named Associate Publisher at Timber Press, which was acquired by Workman in 2006. She was previously Executive Editor in the Gift division at Chronicle. Meanwhile, Chronicle announced that former Ten Speed Press Publisher Lorena Jones has taken over as Publishing Director. Jones will begin a digital food and drink publishing program and oversee Chronicle’s food and drink list as a whole. She left Ten Speed in November 2008, prior to Random House’s acquisition of the company.

Former Pantheon Publishing Director Janice Goldklang has joined Globe Pequot Press as Executive Director of Editorial, responsible for all trade programs. Steve Culpepper has the same title and is responsible for the regional travel and outdoor recreation programs.

Crown Executive Editor Heather Jackson announced that, having “thoroughly enjoyed nearly two decades in publishing,” she has resigned in order to “create and produce content in other media, as well as keep a hand on a few editorial projects each year.”

Brendan Cahill has moved to Jane Friedman’s Open Road Integrated Media as VP Publisher. He had been a Senior Editor at Gotham before attending Wharton, where he received his MBA. Most recently, he was at Boston Consulting Group.

Nick Trautwein has been hired as Senior Editor at the New Yorker, succeeding Emily Eakin. He was an editor at the Penguin Press.

Will Pesce, President and CEO, and Steve Smith, EVP and COO, of John Wiley announced the retirement dates and successors for Steve Kippur, EVP and President, Professional/Trade (retirement date July 31, 2010; successor Mark Allin); Eric A. Swanson, SVP, Scientific, Technical, Medical, and Scholarly (retirement date October 31, 2010; successor Steven Miron); and Bonnie Lieberman, SVP & General Manager, Higher Education (retirement date April 30, 2011; successor Joseph S. Heider). Heider will be promoted to the role of VP and COO of global effective May 1, 2010 and will continue to report to Lieberman.

Andrews McMeel has hired Linda Jones as SVP of its calendar and greeting card and Accord Publishing divisions, reporting to CEO Hugh Andrews. Jones was SVP Merchandising at Borders.

Abrams has hired Veronica Wasserman as License and Brand Manager for Children’s and Amulet Books. Wasserman previously worked in the Penguin Children’s licensing department.

Diane Bailey is joining HarperCollins as SVP of Human Resources, replacing Jim Young, who left earlier in the year. She will oversee all Human Resources functions for HarperCollins worldwide and sit on the executive committee. She was most recently at Heineken USA.

George Bick has joined the Doug Grad Literary Agency as an Associate Agent. He was most recently SVP, Director of Sales and Associate Publisher at HarperCollins.

Mary Grey James, a former book buyer for Ingram, has joined East/West Literary Agency as a partner agent. James serves as VP and President-elect of the Women’s National Book Association.

PROMOTIONS AND INTERNAL CHANGES

Simon & Schuster EVP, Operations Dennis Eulau has also been named CFO. Eulau takes over from David England, who has resigned. The company has hired David Byrnes in the new position of VP, Finance and Strategic Planning, reporting to Eulau. Elsewhere at Simon & Schuster, Kerri Kolen and Sarah Hochman have been promoted to the position of Senior Editor.

Ben Sevier has been promoted to Executive Editor at Dutton.

Julie Will has been promoted to Executive Editor at Rodale.

John Freeman, former president of the National Book Critics Circle, has officially been appointed Editor of Granta. He was appointed Acting Editor in May after the departure of Alex Clark and will be based in New York and London. His book The Tyranny of Email was published by Scribner in October.

Alison Donalty has been promoted to Executive Art Director in HarperCollins’s Children’s division. She began at HarperCollins in 1994 as an Assistant Designer.

At Dial Press, Noah Eker has been promoted to Editor.

DULY NOTED

Beginning in March 2010, American Vampire, a comic from Vertigo (DC Comics), will be released each month, including two stories: one by short story writer Scott Snyder and the other by Stephen King. King will write about Skinner Sweet, a bank-robbing, murderous cowboy of the 1880s who becomes a new breed of vampire. Snyder’s half will tell the story of a vampire in America during the 1920s. Both stories will be drawn by Rafael Albuquerque, who will continue the series with Snyder after King’s story ends.

UPCOMING EVENTS

The first Self-Publishing Book Expo will be held Saturday, November 7. The press release quotes Bowker figures claiming that the number of books self-published in 2008 increased 132% over the prior year. With a total of 285,394 titles, on-demand publishing surpassed traditionally published books for the first time. The Expo will feature panels and over 25 exhibitors, including authors, self- publishers, and POD companies, and was created by Diane Mancher and Karen Mender.

The Mercantile Library Center for Fiction honors Gerry Howard and announces the recipient of the First Novel Prize on November 9.

“The Wall in Our Heads,” the 2009 Words Without Borders fundraiser, also takes place on November 9. The evening features readings from the group’s new anthology, The Wall in My Head: Words and Images from the Fall of the Iron Curtain by Paul Auster, Siri Hustvedt, and Peter Schneider. You can buy tickets here.

“Reading in a Digital Age,” a panel discussion moderated by Bill Goldstein and featuring, among others, New York Magazine’s Adam Moss, the NYPL’s Ben Vershbow, and Fourth Story Media’s Lisa Holton, takes place November 11 at CUNY.

Sonny Mehta, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, has been named the 2009 winner of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop’s Lifetime Achievement Award. The Workshop will hold a cocktail reception and gala dinner in Mehta’s honor on November 13, at At Vermilion. Mehta will receive the award from the Sri Lankan-born Canadian novelist Michael Ondaatje. The dinner marks the beginning of Page Turner: The Inaugural Asian American Literary Festival, a two-day event showcasing award-winning authors reading together at the powerHouse Arena in Dumbo, Brooklyn.

The Independent Booksellers of New York City (IBNYC) unite to celebrate Independent Bookstore Week, “a citywide event highlighting the diverse cultural contributions made by indie bookshops across the five boroughs,” November 15–21. The week will kick off with a party at powerHouse Arena and will conclude on America Unchained Day. A special poster designed by New Yorker cartoonist Bruce McCall will be on display in participating shops and available for sale. The IBNYC is an alliance of booksellers working together to promote the cultural, literary and economic benefits of shopping at New York City’s over 60 independent bookstores.

Rodale President Karen Rinaldi announced that Colin Dickerman and Pam Krauss have been named VP, Publishing Directors. Dickerman will join effective September 2 and will be responsible for Rodale’s narrative nonfiction list. He was most recently Publisher of Bloomsbury USA. Krauss will join effective August 25 and will oversee the illustrated list, including cookbooks. She was most recently at Clarkson Potter. . . . Andrea Au Levitt is also joining as Projects Director, Prevention Books. She was most recently the Program Administrator for NYU’s Summer Publishing Institute. Previously, she was at Hatherleigh. . . . Courtney Conroy is rejoining the company as Editor. She was previously Associate Developmental Editor at Potter Craft. . . . Julie Will has been promoted to Senior Editor. . . . Meanwhile, Marya Dalrymple has resigned to become the Editorial Director for South Beach Diet LLC. She is reachable at marya.dalrymple [at] southbeachdietlp.com.

George Gibson has been named Publishing Director of Bloomsbury USA in the wake of Dickerman’s departure. Gibson will retain the title of Publisher of Walker & Company.

Six weeks after Jane Friedman’s departure and Brian Murray’s appointment as CEO of HarperCollins, it’s been announced that COO Glenn D’Agnes will leave the company in late August “to pursue other opportunities.” The COO position will be eliminated, but Larry Nevins has been promoted to VP Operations and CIO Rick Schwartz and SVP, Distribution Operations Joe Franceschelli will report to him. Reporting directly to Murray will be SVP and CFO Janet Gervasio; SVP and General Counsel Chris Goff; SVP, HR Jim Young; President of Sales Josh Marwell; and VP, Corporate Communications Erin Crum.

Reader’s Digest will cease publication of its line of condensed nonfiction books, Select Editions. As a result, several positions, including those of Laura Kelly and Barbara Clark, have been eliminated, although the condensed fiction line will continue. Laura Kelly can be reached at laurkell [at] yahoo.com and Barbara Clark at BarbaraKClark [at] yahoo.com.

Skip Dye has announced that Lane Jantzen has joined Random House as Imprint Sales Director, Random House Publisher Services. Lane, who fills the position that was vacated by Mary Dolan a few months ago, comes from Perseus Books Group (PBG), where he was the Director of National Accounts Marketing with primary responsibility for Barnes & Noble.

Baker & Taylor has named Thomas Morgan as Chairman and CEO. Most recently, he was CEO of Hughes Supply, a Florida-based distributor of construction. And James C. Melton, EVP and CFO, has decided to leave the company.

Michele Martin has joined Langenscheidt Publishing Group in the new position of Chief Sales & Marketing officer, reporting to President Marc Jennings. Most recently she was SVP for the Avalon Publishing Group (now part of Perseus). She can be reached at mmartin [at] americanmap.com.

New York Times Book Review editor and essayist Rachel Donadio announced via e-mail that she is leaving the Book Review to work as the Times’ bureau chief in Rome, starting this fall.

Helen Boomer joined HarperCollins Children’s Books as the Executive Director of Subsidiary Rights, replacing Jean Rosen. Boomer was previously at Viking and Puffin Children’s Books and started her career as a Subsidiary Rights Associate at William Morrow. . . . Laura Pillar Kaplan has gone to HarperCollins Children’s as Associate Director of Publicity. She had been at Goldberg McDuffie and, previously, Doubleday. Meanwhile, Cindy Tamasi has been promoted to Assistant Director of Publicity, and Melissa Dittmar has been promoted to Publicity Manager.

The Overlook Press announced that David Falk has been appointed Director of Sales & Marketing. Falk, who reports directly to Overlook Publisher Peter Mayer, will assist him in “numerous sales and publishing related activities.” Most recently, Falk was Director of National Accounts at Houghton Mifflin.

Geoffrey Stone has joined Running Press as an editor, focusing on cookbooks. He was previously Editor in Chief at Rutledge Hill/Thomas Nelson.

Daisy Hutton will join Thomas Nelson as VP of International Licensing in September. She was Rights Director at Harvard Business School Press.

Katie Henderson, who was previously at Bloomsbury, has become an Associate Editor at Doubleday.

Ethan Friedman has left Collins Business, where he was a Senior Editor.

Scholastic’s Director of Subsidiary Rights Linda Biagi has left the company. Scholastic’s Director of Spanish Publishing, Macarena Salas, has also resigned.

Rhalee Hughes has been named Executive Director of Publicity and Marketing at Octopus USA. She was previously Publicity Director at the Penguin Young Readers Group.

Marc Fierz has become Director of Strategic Partnerships at Waterfront Media, the company that builds Web sites in the diet, fitness, and health categories, including South Beach Diet and Duke Diet & Fitness. He was previously at Amazon.com. Debra Davidson has been named Senior Director of Research, and Amy Feng is Senior Director of Client Services. Davidson was at About.com, and Feng was most recently at CondéNet, where she managed client services.

Emma Parry has left the Fletcher & Parry Agency “to pursue new challenges” as of July 1. Christy Fletcher will take over Parry’s clients.

PROMOTIONS & INTERNAL CHANGES

With Abrams SVP President and Publisher Steve Tager, Charles Kochman is launching Abrams ComicArts. Kochman was recently promoted to Executive Editor at Abrams.

Lisa Gallagher announced that Jennifer Brehl has been promoted to SVP of Morrow. She was VP, Director of Editorial Development. She will continue to edit Terry Pratchett for the Harper list. . . . Jack Womack has been promoted to Associate Director of Publicity at Morrow, and Brianne Halverson and Jennifer Slattery have both been promoted to the title of Senior Publicity Manager.

At Atria, Peter Borland has been promoted to Editorial Director. Borland and Emily Bestler will both report to Publisher Judith Curr. The position of Associate Publisher is still open.

Candlewick is restructuring its Sales and Marketing operations, and adding a layer that will report to the newly created position (still to be filled) of SVP of Sales and Marketing, according to PW. As part of the restructuring, Susan Batcheller has been promoted to Executive Director, Marketing Services and Sales Ops. Charlie Schroder, VP of Marketing and Development, is moving over to rights, including digital rights. Schroder will be working on a contract basis out of New York. In response to changes in the production department at parent company Walker Books (UK), Candlewick former Sales and Marketing Services Director Kim Lanza has been named to the position of Executive Director of Production and Manufacturing, Allison D’Andrea has been named Director of Production and Manufacturing, and Sally Bratcher has been named Executive Managing Editor.

John Rudolph has been promoted to Executive Editor for Putnam Books for Young Readers. He was previously a Senior Editor and has been with Putnam since August 2001.

Erin C. Smith has been promoted to Publicity Manager at Beaufort Books. Smith joined the New York City–based publisher last year and, before that, worked for parent company Midpoint Trade Books.

Beth Parker has been promoted to Associate Publicity Director and Amanda Walker has been promoted to Publicity Manager in the Dutton and Gotham Publicity department.

DULY NOTED

Francisco Goldman has initiated the Aura Estrada Prize as a memorial to his late wife. It will be awarded every two years to a female writer of creative prose, aged thirty-five or younger, who writes in Spanish and lives in Mexico or the United States. The Aura Estrada Prize will be formally announced at the Guadalajara Book Fair in November 2008, and the first winner will be announced at the fair a year later. The Co-Chair Committee includes Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt, Salman Rushdie, Peter Carey and Frances Coady, Junot Díaz, Morgan Entrekin, Binky Urban and Ken Auletta, and others.

UPCOMING EVENTS

In celebration of its name change from McNally Robinson to McNally Jackson, the bookstore is holding an event on August 7 from 7 to 9 PM. Authors including Nathan Englander, Kate Christensen, Joseph O’Neill, and Colson Whitehead will both serve food and drinks and recommend books.

Claiming it is taking over the now-defunct New York Is Book Country, which ran as a nonprofit from 1979 until 2005, Nielsen Business Media is creating a new “festival” with the same name. It will take place on September 21 in Central Park. For more information, go to www.newyorkisbookcountry.com.

J. P. Leventhal, Publisher and Founder of Black Dog & Leventhal, has been named the honoree at the Goddard Riverside Benefit Gala on October 27. For more information, go to www.goddard.org.

HarperCollins announced a new management structure following Jane Friedman’s June 4 resignation and the appointment of Brian Murray as President and CEO HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide. Michael Morrison was also promoted to President and Publisher, U.S. General Books and Canada, and Victoria Barnsley has been promoted to CEO and Publisher HCUK and International, overseeing the UK, Australia, New Zealand, India, and South Africa.

Bob Miller, whose new publishing venture is called HarperStudio, has hired Debbie Stier from Morrow as SVP, Associate Publisher, though she will also be Director, Digital Marketing Development for General Books at HC. Julia Cheiffetz has been hired as Senior Editor. She was previously at Random House.

Steve Black has been named Director of Sales for Oxmoor House, in the New York office.

Matt Schwartz has joined Random House Publishing Group as Director, Digital Strategy and Business Development, reporting to Andrea Sheehan. He was most recently Director of Online Marketing for the Children’s Publishing division at Simon & Schuster. Meanwhile, Christina Pecorale has moved from Random House to S&S, where she’s the new Director of National Accounts.

Felicia Frazier has been named SVP, Director of Sales at the Penguin Young Readers Group. She had been VP, Sales Director for national accounts at Random House.

Tim Mak is returning to Random House. He will be joining the Academic Marketing Department as Marketing Coordinator on July 7. He was most recently at H20 Associates. Prior to that, he was at HarperCollins and Ballantine.

Karen Cooper is the new Publisher of Adams Media, having left the book division of parent company F+W.

Taline Najarian has been named Director of Special Sales for Scholastic.

Layoffs at HarperCollins Children’s Books: Anne Miller Attanas, Ruth Katcher, Melanie Donovan, Claire Hutton, Adriana Dominguez, and Mary Albi.

Tom Stewart has left Harvard Business School Press, where he was Editor of the Harvard Business Review.

John Nee, SVP of Business Development at DC Comics, is leaving the company. However, David Hyde, DC Comics VP of publicity, declined to confirm the report and said that DC Comics does not comment on personnel matters.

Leigh Haber has stepped down as VP Editorial Director at Rodale’s Modern Times imprint. As a result of Haber’s departure, Rodale will close the Modern Times imprint after publishing all the titles currently signed up under it.

Ann Campbell has left Broadway, where she was a Senior Editor. She plans to take on freelance editing and writing starting in September and can be reached at annwcampbell08 [at] gmail.com. The company is looking for her successor.

Joy de Menil has been named Executive Editor of Viking, reporting to Clare Ferraro. She joins the company from The Atlantic Monthly, where she was a senior editor, and will work from both Washington and New York.

Genoveva Llosa has joined Ten Speed Press as a Senior Editor acquiring business, career, mind-body-spirit, and parenting books. She was previously at Collins, Crown, and HBS Press.

Beryl Needham has left Borders, where she was mostly recently VP, Merchandising.

Emily Carleton has joined McGraw-Hill Professional as an editor in the Consumer group. She was an Associate Editor at Wiley.

Anne Savarese has been named Executive Editor of Princeton University Press.

Phoenix Books has hired Gray Peterson as VP Sales and Marketing. He headed special/mass market/trade sales for Scholastic and was most recently VP of sales at Dalmatian Press.

Until Labor Day, when she officially starts at Amazon.com in Luxembourg, Madeline McIntosh can be reached at madeline.mcintosh [at] gmail.com.

PROMOTIONS AND INTERNAL CHANGES

Bill Thomas, SVP, Editor-in-Chief, has been promoted to the additional position of Publisher, General Adult Books, Doubleday Publishing Group. Thomas named Stacy Creamer, Deputy Editorial Director, Broadway Books, as Editor-in-Chief, Broadway, and Charles Conrad, Broadway’s Editorial Director, Paperbacks, as the new Deputy Editorial Director for Doubleday.

Author Solutions, Inc. has appointed Diane Gedymin to the position of Executive Editorial Director. Gedymin will oversee editorial for all ASI’s author services brands, including AuthorHouse, iUniverse, and Wordclay. Gedymin had previously worked for iUniverse.

Katie Rose has been named VP Director of Marketing for adult books at Houghton Mifflin Trade & Reference. She was VP of Marketing for the college division.

Arthur A. Levine has been named VP Publisher, Arthur A. Levine Books. He was previously VP and Editorial Director of the imprint.

Grand Central Publishing Executive Editor Rick Wolff has added the title of Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the Business Plus imprint, while retaining his current position within GCP. Natalie Kaire is a newly named Senior Editor at Grand Central Publishing.

Paul Taunton has been promoted to to Editor at Random House. Paul will be focusing on ESPN Books in his new position.

Roger Labrie has been promoted to Senior Editor at S&S.

John Fagan has added another title. He is now Marketing Director of eBooks as well as VP and Director of Marketing for Penguin Books and Executive Director, Academic Marketing and Sales, Penguin Group.

Mike Spring, who joined John Wiley & Sons when Hungry Minds was acquired in 2001, is retiring as travel publisher but will become Director of Special Projects and work closely with Wiley’s travel publishing team. Ensley Eikenburg has been promoted to Associate Publisher/Associate Marketing Director of the travel program at Wiley. She has been Associate Marketing Director of travel and reference publishing. She continues to report to Claire Griffin.

Richard Rhorer is taking on the new position of Director of Digital Business development for Macmillan. He has been Director of Marketing for the Henry Holt adult imprints.

More HC news: Kathy Schneider has been promoted to SVP. Seale Ballenger has been promoted to VP, Group Publicity Director, for William Morrow, Morrow Cookbooks, HarperEntertainment, and Eos. Dee Dee De Bartlo has been promoted to Senior Director of Publicity and new initiatives for Morrow, HarperEntertainment, Eos, and Morrow Cookbooks. Richard Ljoenes has been promoted to Vice President, Senior Art Director at Collins.

Baker & Taylor has promoted David Cully to President, Retail Markets. He will add domestic and international retail book and entertainment sales to his merchandising, purchasing, and Baker & Taylor Marketing Services responsibilities. Bill Preston, SVP Books, and Frank Wolbert, SVP Entertainment, now report to Cully.

Michael Connor has been named senior editor of the Quality Paperback Book Club, and he will continue to have editorial responsibility for InsightOut Books. QPB executive editor Gary Jansen has left the company.

DULY NOTED

The American Bookseller Association’s marketing cooperative, Book Sense, has changed its name to IndieBound. Member stores no longer have to pay a separate fee to participate, but just have to be ABA members. Authors can be affiliates of the Book Sense/IndieBound website and earn similar affiliate fees as with Amazon or Powell’s.

The Chronicle of Higher Education notes that “540 press directors, editors, digital technologists, marketing and business specialists, and other interested parties, including representatives from Google and Amazon.com” attended the AAUP’s annual meeting in Montreal from June 26–29. Topics covered included the move toward open access, problems of over-publishing, Amazon and POD, and, of course, returns. Google Book Search seemed to be one of the few areas where (almost) everyone involved was happy to be so. The 2009 Annual Meeting will take place from June 18–21 in Philadelphia.

UPCOMING EVENTS

On July 31 at 6:30 PM, Mad. Sq. Reads, Madison Square Park Conservancy’s free series of summer readings, presents The Wisest, Kindest Voice: A Celebration of the Work and Life of William Maxwell, featuring Christopher Carduff, Benjamin Cheever, Edward Hirsch, Daniel Menaker, and Stewart O’Nan.

Susan Reich is re-joining PGW where she had worked as VP Marketing from 1990 to 1995, in the role of President. Most recently she served as the President and COO of Avalon Publishing Group, one of PGW’s clients. She reports to David Steinberger. Reporting directly to Reich are Kevin Votel, Eric Kettunen, Roaxanne Schwartz, Sean Shoemaker and Kim Wylie (who will also have a dotted line reporting relationship to Matty Goldberg). In an unrelated announcement, Charlie Winton’s new publishing venture, Winton, Shoemaker & Co., LLC has acquired Soft Skull Press. The company will be renamed Counterpoint, LLC when the Soft Skull and previously announced acquisition of Counterpoint close in June. Soft Skull’s Publisher Richard Nash will be an Executive Editor at Counterpoint and Editorial Director of the Soft Skull imprint. Nash will be based in New York City. Meanwhile, Trish Hoard, Co-founder and Associate Publisher of Shoemaker & Hoard which was acquired by the group earlier this year, will now join SkyHorse Publishing as Managing Editor.

Peter Clifton, currently President & CEO of Ingram Periodicals Inc, International, Ingram Library Services, and Tennessee Book Company and Senior VP of Ingram Book Group, is leaving the company at the end of June. He can be reached at 615-424-4645 (cell), or 615-352-8038. His email address after June 30 is pclif@comcast.net.

HarperCollins has appointed Brenda Bowen to the newly created position of VP Publisher of a yet to be named imprint at HC Children’s Books. Bowen will report to President and Publisher Susan Katz.

Brian Belfiglio has joined Hilsinger-Mendelson East as Publicity Director. Most recently he was Marketing Director at Workman.

Although Hachette’s U.K.-based Octopus Publishing Group has acquired selected assets of MQ Publications, MQP Founder and Publisher Zaro Weil, who owns the MQP name and logo, plans to move to MQP’s New York office. Carol Judy Leslie, a former Publisher of Bulfinch Press, will join her at MQP USA.

Among the 280 people made redundant at Bookspan after Bertelsmann took over and merged it into its BMG division (see PT April, May 2007), is Christine Zikas (christinezikas@ yahoo.com), Executive Editor of Madison Park Press. Prior to joining Bookspan, Zikas was a Senior Editor at Berkley.

Rebecca Oliver has joined Endeavor’s New York book division as a literary agent. She will oversee foreign and domestic subsidiary rights and work alongside Richard Abate. Oliver had been at Grand Central as Associate Director of Subsidiary Rights. . . . Emmanuelle Alspaugh has joined Wendy Sherman Associates as an agent. She was previously at The Creative Culture.

With the departure of Co-founder, Editor and Publisher, Shay Totten for Chelsea Green, The Vermont Guardian announced it had published its last edition.

Carol Roeder has been named Director of Publishing at Lucas Licensing. Previously she was VP, Consumer Products for VIZ Media, and prior to that she worked for S&S Children’s Publishing. . . Meanwhile Heidi North has accepted the position of Art Director for Simon Scribbles. She worked most recently at Sterling Publishing.

At Entertainment Rights, Deborah Dugan will have overall responsibility for the day-to-day running of the U.S. operations (including Canada), which encompasses Entertainment Rights U.S., Classic Media and Big Idea. Dugan was most recently at Disney.

Del Rey has hired Liz Scheier as Senior Editor. She was previously at NAL/Penguin. . . . . Holtzbrinck has hired Jaime Ariza as VP, Special Markets. He was most recently Director of Custom Publishing at S&S.

Simon Dessain, COO of Publishing Technology (formerly known as Vista) and former CEO of Ingenta, has announced his departure from the company, following the merger of the two companies earlier this year.

Mark Eastment has been named Publications Director at the V&A in London. He was Director of Sales and marketing for Antique Collectors’ Club in the UK and before that held a similar position with the Tate Gallery.

Zondervan announced its president and CEO, Doug Lockhart, has stepped down from his position effective June 1, 2007. Former long-time president and CEO, Bruce Ryskamp, who retired from Zondervan in 2005 but has remained in a consulting role, will return to serve as interim president and CEO.

Avalon Publicity Director Karen Auerbach is leaving at the end of June but will continue to freelance for Perseus through the end of the year. She can be reached at karenruthauerbach@ gmail.com.

Gary Krebs has joined Globe Pequot as Group Publisher, responsible for editorial functions across all imprints. He was brought in by former Adams Media colleague Scott Watrous.

Kathy Kiernan has left Black Dog & Leventhal. Judy Courtade recently went to BD&L as Sales Director. . . . Scott Haidle has joined Creative Publishing International as National Account Sales Manager in the home improvement channel.

Nicole Bond, previously at Random House, has been named Associate Director, Foreign Rights for Grand Central Publishing.

Liz Van Doren who left Harcourt during its recent cutbacks may now be reached at LEETS215@aol.com.

PROMOTIONS

Brian Murray has been promoted to the newly created position of President of HarperCollins Worldwide. In this new role he will work closely with Jane Friedman “identifying and directing the company’s worldwide growth.” Also at HarperCollins, Emily Takoudes, who came from S&S in May 2005, has been promoted to Senior Editor. She has edited for Ecco. Jennifer Brehl announced that Diana Gill has been promoted to Executive Editor for the Eos and William Morrow imprints. Christine Boyd, Director of Marketing for Harper, has been promoted to VP Marketing.

Sonny Mehta announced that Andrew Miller, Senior Editor at Vintage/Anchor, has been named Senior Editor at Knopf.

Tim Ditlow is giving up his position as VP and Publisher of Listening Library to become VP and publisher at large for Random House Audio Group, reporting to Madeline McIntosh. Amy Metsch has been promoted to the new role of Editorial Director for the Random House Audio Group.

At Free Press, Heidi Metcalfe has been promoted to Publicity Manager.

At S&S Children’s Brooke Linder has moved to Little Simon as Editor. Kimberly Lauber has been promoted to Marketing Associate, Education & Library. Greg Stadnyk has been promoted to Associate Art Director. Orli Zuravicky has been promoted to the position of Editor, Simon Spotlight.
Ashley Gordon at Lightning Source, Inc. will take on the role of Director of Channel Development, moving on from various positions in executive sales.
And at St. Martin’s, Nancy Trypuc has been promoted to Senior Director of Creative Services. Previously, she was Director of Advertising and Promotion.

JUNE EVENTS

The National Book Critics Circle has two events at BEA: Friday, June 1 in Room 1E06 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. “Ethics in Book Reviewing: The More Things Change…?” Carlin Romano moderates Christopher Hitchens, John Leonard, Francine Prose, Sam Tanenhaus, and David Ulin. On June 3 in Room 1E11 10:00 -11:00: “The Crisis in American Book Pages; Newspaper book reviews are in a state of change. Where are we going? Where have we been?” Also check out http://bookcriticscircle.blogspot.com/

DULY NOTED

Bloomsbury announces the launch of Bloomsbury Press, whose first list debuts in January 2008. Peter Ginna (who was previously at OUP), is its Publisher and Editorial Director, and its mission is to publish “the best serious nonfiction being written today.”
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The Small Press Center launched its new name and logo: “Our new name more accurately describes who we are,” said Lloyd J. Jassin, Chair of the New York Center for Independent Publishing (NYCIP) Executive Committee. Karin Taylor remains as Executive Director. Go to www. Nycip.org for details. Phone, fax and email will remain the same.

ON THE MOVE

As a result of WRC Media parent company’s acquisition of The Reader’s Digest Association, Weekly Reader and its sister companies have been merged into Reader’s Digest and its offices will be located at 1 Reader’s Digest Road, Pleasantville, NY 10570. . . . Book Industry Study Group, Inc. (BISG) has moved to 370 Lexington Ave. (between 40th and41st) Suite 900 New York, NY 10017. . . . Disney Publishing Worldwide is moving to White Plains. The publishing division, currently in offices at 114 Fifth Avenue in New York, is relocating 175 of the division’s 225 employees to the new location. Twenty editorial staffers from Disney Press, Hyperion Books for Children and Disney Editions will remain in Manhattan relocating to a “midtown location near Grand Central.” The move is scheduled to get underway in October and be completed by December. . . . Archipelago Books has moved to 232 Third Ave. #A111, Brooklyn NY 11215. The phone and fax will remain the same, Phone: (718) 852-6134, Fax: (718) 852-6135. .

Terminology and terms vary, but both publishers and literary agents are increasingly looking at coordinating and facilitating speaking engagements for their authors as a way to increase exposure, revenue, and most basically sell books.

As Sara Nelson commented in a recent PW editorial, any effort by publishers to expand audiences should be commended – but many are wondering how the endeavor will evolve.

“Unless publishers commit to staffing, they’re not going to be able to service their clients…It’s all about how much they’ll invest in it,” says George Greenfield (who was involved in the purchase of the Bantam Bureau after it was sold off in 1975) and current President of CreativeWell.

Publishers, however, are optimistic. “Ultimately for publishers to be successful in the 21st century, the more services they offer, the better off they’ll be,” Paul Bogaards, SVP Publicity at Knopf (which quietly started a speakers bureau separate from Random House earlier this year) said. “The truth is that publishers are third party to a lot of things: we don’t sell books, we don’t represent authors. It’s our job to create a community of readers, which involves finding niche markets that might present themselves through platforms like speaking. We’re just finding audiences.”

To the skeptics who cite a conflict of interest between publicity and paid engagements, as well as staffing concerns, Friedman said, “It’s all a bunch of malarkey. We’re doing this to work in concert with publicity and promotional campaigns, as well as provide authors more care and loving attention between books. Paid, not paid, we’re all working together to coordinate.”

Books and Bookings

Arlynn Greenbaum, who founded Authors Unlimited in 1991, says, “HarperCollins caused a huge hue and cry when they announced their plans last year.” After the announcement, there was a period in which speakers bureaux didn’t know if publishers would (re)claim their authors (they’re not, technically).

EVP PR at Random House, and liaison to partner agency the American Program Bureau, Carol Schneider emphasized the voluntary aspect of the relationship. “If they’re already with another lecture agency, and they’re happy, then that’s fine,” she said. “We’re just trying to give our authors an opportunity.” RH, recognizing that starting an in-house bureau would be “very labor intensive,” partnered with the APB so they wouldn’t have to take on all of the responsibilities of a full-fledged agency. “Our goal with this was not to start a new business,” Schneider said, “but to keep our authors visible.” As the APB has taken on more RH authors, un-repped authors have signed up, some have declined the invitation, and some, like Salman Rushdie, have made a switch.

Steven Barclay, President of the Barclay Agency, said that he has worked closely with nearly all of the major houses over the past 20 years, and that they’re all on a friendly basis. “We work closely with publishers to pepper author tours with venue engagements,” Barclay said. This fall, Barclay is arranging lectures for Zadie Smith, Frank Rich, Anne Lamott, Marjane Satrapi and Andrew McCall Smith all in conjunction with the release of books and in coordination with their various publishers. “It works out well since the authors can both get paid as well as work with local bookshops on their tour,” Barclay said. “And, it allows them to come into a city with larger audiences.”

The trend to book paid events around free publicity events is slowly reversing itself with publishers booking free publicity around paid engagements. CreativeWell recently partnered with Rick Frishman at Planned Television Arts to create the Writers Road Tour, a program that organizes author tours around college campuses, instead of bookstores, so that the publisher doesn’t have to foot the bill. CreativeWell also frequently hosts other events like writing workshops and clinics to increase exposure. “What’s really lacking (even from established agencies) is proactive marketing,” Greenfield said.

Publishers emphasized that their publicity departments are working closely with the in-house bureaux, to coordinate sponsors and book events. Regardless of new paid placement opportunities, Jamie Brickhouse, longtime publicist recently appointed to head Harper’s Speakers Bureau, confirmed that paid bookings will never take precedence over bookstore appearances for an author tour. He said that although in many cases HCSB gets bookstores to sell books at paid events, they would never set up paid events in bookstores. The new “HarperCollins Speakers Bureau Affiliate Program” encourages HC’s retail and wholesale partners to help them find paid speaking engagements for HC authors. “For those speaking engagements that booksellers have helped us set up, we reward them with 5% of the booking fee received, in the form of credit to the bookseller’s account,” Brickhouse said.

Similarly at Knopf, Bogaards said that the emphasis is on setting up book sales at events. “We’re making our retail partners part of the equation. It’s a win for everyone.” For larger events, bookings translate into major books sales. Last year, for example, the freshman class at the University of Alabama at Birmingham was assigned Anne Fadiman‘s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down as required reading. When Fadiman came to speak at the beginning of the year, FSG sold over 4,000 copies.
For the most part, bookings are highly individualized depending on both the speaker and the event with the average commission ranging between 10-35% of the speaker’s fee. (Fees can range anywhere from $1000 for less known authors to $100,000 for someone like Bill Clinton). Agencies tend to co-broker deals often, working outside of their own list of speakers to fulfill client requests.

In addition to publishers and established bureaux, some literary agents also function as lecture agencies for their authors. Susan Bergholz has been booking her own writers, such as Julia Alvarez and Sandra Cisneros, since she founded her agency 25 years ago, as has Anthony Arnove’s Roam Agency (Howard Zinn, Arundhati Roy, Noam Chomsky). Other agencies, like Folio Literary Management, are actively seeking staff to head internal speakers bureaux.

In the end, authors must decide which entity could best represent them. “I know that going with publishers is the absolute wrong decision for some authors,” Greenfield said. “But the sell to the author is that they can do everything under one roof. Frankly, there is no advantage to work within a house although it’s being pitched that way.”

As Marketing Guru, Author, and frequent lecturer Seth Godin (represented by Greater Talent Network) put it, “Speakers are bought, not sold. If people can find me by typing ‘Seth Godin’ into Google, why would I give [a publisher] a piece of my fee? Publishers must demonstrate that they are able to make the sale, and I think that as an author, I would be very wary of that.”

Jean Feiwel, Senior VP and Publisher is leaving Scholastic at the end of October after 22 years with the company. Trade Sales Director Jack Perry, who came to Scholastic from Sourcebooks last year, is also leaving. Ann Marie Resnick has been hired for the new position of VP, Marketing and Promotion in the book club division. She was VP, Marketing at Columbia House.

Gene Brissie has left Kensington, where he was Editor in Chief of Citadel Press, for The Lyons Press, where he is Associate Publisher. He may be reached at 203.458.4656 or Eugene.Brissie@globepequot.com.

Carlo de Vito has left Penguin where he founded Chamberlain Brothers, and may be reached at CDdeVito2@aol.com.

Garrett White has been hired as the new Programs Coordinator at the New York office of the American Academy in Rome. His responsibilities include managing Rome Prize Competition and the Publications Program, and overseeing the Academy website. White is the former Director of Publications at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

David Wilk, Senior VP of Client Services, has left CDS, following its purchase by the Perseus Books Group. He has been named VP of Strategic Business Development at Resolution, Inc. based in Vermont and will serve as Resolution’s liaison to the book industry.

Willa Perlman, who has left The Cheyenne Group, has announced the formation of a new firm, Ligature Partners, which will provide executive recruitment and consulting services.

The Collins McCormick Literary Agency is splitting up, with each principal going his or her separate ways. . . . Sophia Seidner has joined Judith Ehrlich Literary Management as an agent. She had worked for the erstwhile IMG Literary, and is the Managing Editor for Swink.

Martha Reddington has been named VP, Director of Sales & Marketing at Federal Street, a division of Merriam Webster. She has previously worked in special sales at HarperCollins and S&S, and most recently was a certified consultant for ACT!, a contact database management program.

BJ Gabriel has gone from S&S to Oxford U. Press as Director of Trade Sales, assuming the position vacated by Tom Willshire, who went to Continuum. Longtime Subsidiary Rights Manager Marjorie Mueller has left OUP and may be reached at Margie.mueller @gmail.com.

Bill Strachan has left Hyperion, where he was Executive Editor, and may be reached at 212.924.4885. Brenda Copeland has left Atria for Hyperion, taking the place of Mary Ellen O’Neill who went to Collins as Publisher of the Wellness and Lifestyle categories.

Elizabeth Viscott Sullivan will become Senior Editor for Collins Design, another Collins imprint, beginning October 24. She will report to Marta Schooler, VP and Publisher.

Lisa Herling, HarperCollins’ SVP of Communications, is leaving the company at the end of October, according to CEO Jane Friedman, who announced her resignation “with deep regret.” Herling has been at HC for seven years.

Rubin Pfeffer has joined Simon & Schuster as SVP and Publisher for Children’s. He was at Harcourt for 26 years and has been Chief Creative Officer at Pearson Education since 2001. Mara Anastas has moved to S&S Children’s as VP, Sales and Subsidiary Rights. She was Director of Sales at Harper Children’s, but has been at S&S previously. Both Pfeffer and Anastas report to Rick Richter. Also going to S&S Children’s from Harper at Mary McAveney, as VP Marketing, and Karin Paprocki, as Art Director at Aladdin.

Ileene Smith, formerly VP and Senior Editor at Random House, has been named Editor-At-Large at Yale University Press. . . . Amy Scheiber has left The Free Press for Counterpoint. . . . David Highfill joined Morrow as Executive Editor, reporting to Lisa Gallagher. He was previously at Putnam.

Daniel Slager has left Harcourt to become Editor in Chief of Milkweed Editions. He joins Managing Director Hilary Reeves at the nonprofit literary publisher. Before joining Harcourt, he was an editor at Grand Street.

UK packager Brown Reference has announced that Roe Hollander has joined the company as its US representative.. . . . The National Book Foundation has hired Leslie Shipman, previously Director of The Bronx Writers’ Center, as Senior Program Officer.

PROMOTIONS

Disney‘s Children’s Book Group has announced the following promotions: At Hyperion Books for Children, Executive Editor Donna Bray moves up to Editorial Director. The Disney Press and Disney Editions lines will be consolidated under Wendy Lefkon, now Editorial Director. And Victoria Saxon has been promoted to Executive Editor, overseeing feature animation and classic characters. All three will report to Disney Children’s Editor in Chief Brenda Bowen.

Following on Liz Perl‘s move to Rodale, Penguin announced that Craig Burke has been promoted from Director to VP of Publicity for the Berkley Publishing Group, NAL, Perigee/HPBooks, and Riverhead Trade Paperbacks, reporting to Rick Pascocello. Patrick Nolan has been named Marketing Director for Perigee/HP, PHP, Portfolio, and Sentinel, in addition to his current role as Director of trade paperback sales. And Rick Pascocello has been promoted to Marketing Director for Berkley/NAL and Riverhead Trade paperbacks. He was VP of advertising and promotion for Berkley/NAL.

Don Weisberg names Jaci Updike, a longtime, tremendously well-regarded Sales Group VP, the new Director, Random House Adult Sales, effective immediately.

Valerie Garfield has been promoted to Vice President Publisher, Simon Spotlight and Little Simon, with the oversight of the Simon Spotlight, Little Simon, Libros Para Niños, and Little Simon Inspirations imprints. She was formerly Vice President, Editorial Director of Little Simon & Little Simon Inspirations.

Warner Books has formed the Warner Wellness imprint and named Diana Baroni to head the unit as Editorial Director.

And at the NYTBR, longtime copy editor David Kelly has become a preview editor, working on some fiction and a wide range of nonfiction. Jennifer Schuessler will also join the group as a preview editor. She was at the Boston Globe, and will oversee the weekly back-page essay and cover such areas as philosophy, religion, economics, and fiction

NOVEMBER EVENTS

“Making Books Happen,” The American Book Producers Association conference, takes place on November 9 at the Players Club. This year’s MC and keynote is PW Editor Sara Nelson and speakers include Rodale’s Tami Booth Corwin, Perseus CEO David Steinberg, Chronicle‘s Jack Jensen and Scholastic’s Lisa Holton For information go to www.abpaonline.org.

The winner of the 2005 Thurber Prize will be announced in a ceremony at the Algonquin Hotel in New York on November 14. Finalists are Jon Stewart, Andy Borowitz and Firoozeh Dumas. For more information, contact Emily Swartzlander at Thurber House, eswartzlander@thurberhouse.org, 614.464.1032 X. 11

The National Book Awards take place on November 16 at the Marriott Marquis in New York.

DULY NOTED

Morehouse Publishing and Living The Good News, both previously owned by Continuum Publishing International, have been sold to Church Publishing Incorporated, the official publisher of worship materials for the Episcopal Church in the United States.

HarperCollins Children’s Books announced that Joanna Cotler Books, an imprint of the company, will celebrate its 10th anniversary with a silent auction and benefit on Tuesday, October 25, 2005 at Housing Works Used Book Café in New York City.

As Fall sets in, there are many jobs that are being vacated, created, and filled. Those leaving include Becky Cabaza, Editorial Director at Three Rivers/Crown, who is becoming a freelance editorial consultant. She can be reached at (973) 280-2429 and by e-mail at bcabaza@hotmail.com. … Susan Naythons, EVP Sales, is leaving PGW to spend more time with her family. There are no immediate plans to replace her. … Stephanie Fierman, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at Zagat, has left the company. She may be reached at sfierman@hotmail.com.

Jon Anderson, most recently at Penguin, has been named VP Creative Director at Running Press. … Allison Devlin, formerly of DK and most recently of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers has moved to Watson-Guptill as Marketing Director. … Jon Ackerman has been named Senior National Accounts Manager for Motorbooks. He was with Klutz Press.

Lisa Tomasello is stepping down as Director of Mass Merchandise Sales at S&S to follow her husband, who is relocating. However, she will take on the position of Retail Marketing Manager. Anne Zafian, VP Client Services at TW Books, will succeed her.

Publicity continues its volatility, with Seale Ballenger moving to Morrow-Avon as Director of Publicity. He held the same title at Atria Books. His former Associate Director at Atria, Ben Bruton, will follow him to Morrow. Bruton moved to Atria from Doubleday in March 2004. Meanwhile, Scribner has named Suzanne Balaban, who had been Morrow’s Assistant Director of Publicity, to the position of Director. Jennifer Slattery has joined Simon Spotlight as Publicist for the new imprint. She comes from Penguin.

As previously reported: Kristina Peterson has been named Workman’s Director of International Publishing. She was most recently at S&S, but consulted for Workman this summer.

Eileen Bertelli has gone to Barron’s Educational as Sales Manager. She was most recently at Avery/Penguin.

New York Observer publishing/media reporter Rachel Donadio is moving over to The NYTBR in mid-October. She will write and edit reported pieces, essays, and interviews covering the book publishing world, along with doing some review work.

Scholastic EVP and President of e-Scholastic Donna Iucolano has left to become CEO of International Masters Publishers (IMP) North America. Meanwhile, Jack Perry has moved to Scholastic as VP Trade Sales, reporting to Barbara Marcus. He was formerly at Soucebooks. Ken Wright has been promoted to VP, Associate Publisher and Jazan Higgins, who has been consulting with Scholastic, has been appointed to the newly created position of VP, Publishing Director. Both will report to SVP, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher Jean Feiwel.

Volker Neumann will be leaving the Frankfurt Book Fair at the end of December. The announcement came three weeks before the start of the fair.

Leigh Haber has joined Rodale full time as Executive editor in the NY office, and will also serve as a Contributing Editor to the company’s Men’s Health and Organic Style magazines. Haber had been working for Rodale as editor-at-large. Prior to that, she was at Hyperion.

George Rubich, former CFO at Henry Holt, is re-entering the publishing fray (more recently he’s been consulting for The Wildflower Group) with Innova Publishing (innovapublishing.com), which he defines as “extreme makeover for books.” CDS is handling distribution.

AuthorHouse, one of the “self-publishing services,” has hired a board member as its new CEO. Bryan Smith was in venture capital and had served as Chairman of the board for AuthorHouse.

Anne Garinger’s replacement as Project Coordinator of the AAP is Tracy Kaufman. She may be reached at (212) 255-0200 x262, or Tkaufman@publishers.org.

Midpoint has just set up a California office headed by John Teall, formerly of PGW. Another hire, Julie Hardison, Marketing Director, will work out of its Kansas City DC.

Promotions

Jim Chandler, Chief Commercial Officer of Ingram Book Group, was named President and CEO succeeding Mike Lovett, who moves to the parent company, Ingram Industries. Peter Clifton, President of Ingram International, will assume some of Chandler’s current responsibilities.

Franklin Electronic Publishers announced that Elizabeth Mackey has been promoted to the position of VP, Business Development, in addition to her role as VP, Content/Publisher Relations.

Rene Alegria has been promoted to Publisher and Editorial Director of the HarperCollins’ imprint, Rayo. The imprint will undergo a major expansion with the hiring of Raymond Garcia as Associate Publisher, Michelle Dominguez as Senior Publicist, Clara La Rosa as Editor, and the promotion of Andrea Montejo to Editor.

October Events

New York Is Book Country takes place October 2, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and October 3, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Washington Square Park and surrounding areas of New York University’s campus. Art Spiegelman, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jimmy Breslin, Gail Collins, the “Daily Show” writers, Harold Evans, Arnold Scaasi, Leslie Schnur, and many more authors will be speaking during the two day fair.

• AAP is sponsoring, “Introduction to Publishing” October 21-22 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at its New York Office. Speakers include Walker’s George Gibson, literary agent Henry Dunow, Random’s Ilene Smith and HarperCollins’ Jane Friedman. AAP member cost, $345; non-member cost, $395. For information, call (212) 255-0200 x262.

• The American Book Producers Association (ABPA) presents “Making Books Happen: Book Producing Today” on October 26 at The Players Club, 16 Gramercy Park South. Topics include “The Legal Picture,” “The Financial Picture,” and “The Expanded Role of Branding in Publishing.” Panelists include Walker Books’ George Gibson, publishing veteran Jason Epstein, B&N’s Alan Kahn, and the apparently ubiquitous Sam Tanenhaus. Email office@apbaonline.org for more info.

• The NYT’s Christopher Lehmann-Haupt begins his next season of interviews at the Small Press Center on October 28, with E. L. Doctorow. And this year the 17th Annual Independent and Small Press Book Fair will be held Saturday, December 4th from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday, December 5th, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., instead of its usual March date. All events take place at 20 West 44th Street. For more information, email the Center at info@smallpress.org or call 212.764.7021.

Duly Noted

DM News reports that the number of lifestyle magazines published 2003-04 grew to 264 from 206, citing the National Directory of Magazines published by Oxbridge Communications. Directory Editor Deborah Striplin attributed the 28% growth to a post-9/11 nesting trend.

Crafts is a booming category, with magazines in this niche up 25% to 129. Golf titles were up 24% to 135. And political science and politics magazines were up 23% to 128 titles. But management titles declined 25% to 95 this year, from 127 in 2003. News magazines dropped 24% to 57. History magazines fell 23% to 128 titles, from 166.

At 971 titles, college student and alumni publications was the largest magazine category in 2004, follwed by medicine, at 965 and religion/theology, at 724 titles. The number of Internet-only magazines grew to 168 from 124 last year. The directory lists a total 18,821 titles, of which 1,174 are new.

• At BISG’s annual meeting, Executive Director Jeff Abraham demonstrated that getting all segments of this industry — much given to internal squabbling — on the same page is not impossible. In the presence of representatives from the ABA, AAP, AAUP, PMA, Ingram, B&T, B&N, BGI, Levy, Amazon and any number of printers, publishers and other acronyms (i.e., pretty much the entire industry), he sought and gained approval for two of today’s most contentious issues: a US industrywide adoption of the Bookland EAN bar code by January 2007 (ultimately discarding the less than efficient or sufficient UPC code), and the conversion of ISBN’s from 10 to 13 digits. And during the same two years that he’s been on the job, he’s increased BISG’s membership by over 50%.

In Memoriam

A memorial service will be held for Sandy Richardson, former editor and husband of St. Martin’s Publisher Sally Richardson. The service will be held on Wednesday, October 13th at 6 p.m. at the Century Club, 7 West 43rd Street, New York. Friends and colleagues are welcome.

Publishers haven’t gotten the memo about summer doldrums, apparently, because this has been a record month for job changes:

Phaidon Press announced that Chris North has become MD, working out of its London headquarters. North was most recently at HarperCollins, first in New York and later in Toronto as COO of HarperCollins Canada.

Janet Harris has left Storey Books (part of Workman), where she was Publisher. She may be reached at janetharris2004@aol.com. . . . Michelle Lewy has been named Director of Client Services for Spier Inc. succeeding Michael Kazan, who went to Bennett Book Advertising earlier this year. She was mostly recently with Scholastic. . . . As noted elsewhere, Michele Martin has gone to Avalon as Publishing Director.

Diana Blough has left Random House Children’s, where she was Director of Marketing, for the same position at Bloomsbury. And Anne Merrow is leaving Broadway to go to Thomas Dunne Books as an editor.

Luke Dempsey has joined Crown working for Editor in Chief Kristin Kiser. He was most recently a Senior Editor at Atria Books. Last month Rick Horgan went from Warner to Crown as Executive Editor. Meanwhile, John Ahern has moved from Warner to McGraw-Hill, as Senior Editor reporting to Judith McCarthy. . . . STC has hired Debbie Yost as Senior Editor. She was most recently at Rodale and Prentice-Hall.

Wendy Broad Lazear has left the agency business and joined Houghton Mifflin as Executive Editor. Jennifer Haller has left HM for Harcourt, in the newly created position of VP of Sales, Children’s Books. She will begin there in September.

Cynthia Good, most recently President and Publisher of Penguin Canada, has been named Director of the Creative Publishing Program School for Creative and Performing Art at Humber College in Toronto.

Justin Schwartz has joined Wiley as Senior Editor. He just published his first book, Veg Out Vegetarian Guide to New York City (Gibbs-Smith) in June. Pamela Adler has left Wiley for Rodale, where she is an editor.

Publishers Group West announced that Kevin Votel, who was previously National Accounts Director for BGI, has been named VP Marketing. And Charles Roberts, who was let go from S&S after 40 years, the last 20 as VP Field Sales, will sell to accounts across the Southeast, Midwest and Southwest. Michelle Fischer has joined PGW as Mass Merchandise Sales Representative. Meanwhile Maureen Phelan, formerly Special Markets Manager, left PGW on July 9 to pursue other interests, and Peg O’ Donnell, PGW’s New England sales representative, is leaving to join NBN as a marketing manager in September. Chitra Bopardikar has been named VP International Sales — a new position —reporting to Rich Freese. She was with McGraw-Hill.

Susanna Phillips has joined Sesame Workshop as Director, International Publishing. Phillips’ focus will be on increasing the Workshop’s publishing activity outside of the U.S. Most recently, Phillips was Director, International and Domestic Special Sales at Reader’s Digest Children’s Books.

Following the closing of Thomson’s NY Business & Professional Publishing office, Myles Thompson, founder and publisher of Thomson-Texere, has left the company. He may be reached at (917) 969-2024, mylescthompson@yahoo.com. Lee Thompson will continue her consulting for Thomson and may be reached at liananthompson@yahoo.com, (212) 988-2580.

In Publicity: Everyone changed jobs this month. At Ballantine, Director of Publicity Kim Hovey was named to the new position of Director of Marketing. Sanyu Dillon joins the group Director of Marketing at Little Random. She was Assistant Director of Marketing at S&S. Both report to Associate Publisher Libby McGuire. Little Random Publicity Director Tom Perry is being promoted to Publicity Director for the entire RH Publishing Group, also reporting to McGuire. Sally Marvin has been promoted to Deputy Publicity Director for the Random imprint. Meanwhile, Seale Ballenger has left Atria and may be reached at shb6964@aol.com. Justin Loeber is Atria’s new Director of Publicity. Loeber has held the same title at the HarperCollins imprint. Jennifer Swihart has been promoted to Director of Publicity at HarperCollins.

Linda B. Keene will become EVP, Marketing at Scholastic, stepping down from the company’s board of directors in order to take the position. She succeeds Dick Spaulding, who remains as a consultant.

Bethany Patten has joined the Perseus Books Group as International Sales Manager. She was previously a manager of special markets at the Time Warner Book Group. Amie Munro joins the company in the “newly
defined position” of Domestic Rights Manager. She was most recently a Marketing Manager at Bulfinch. They report to Carolyn Savarese. . . .

John Loudon has resigned as executive editor at Harper SanFrancisco after 27 years at the company and will continue to work independently for the imprint as an Editor at Large, along with acquiring for other publishers and serving as a consultant.

Ron Davis has joined Sterling Publishing as VP, Special Sales. He was previously at S&S. Davis takes over from Martin Schamus, who has been named SVP, New Business Development. Chris Grimm has left S&S after four years, most recently as Director of Planning and Distribution in the Distributor Sales and Retail Marketing Division. Prior to moving to S&S, he spent 10 years in the BDD sales organization. He can be reached at Fchrisgrimm@aol.com and at (203) 829-2727.

Promotions

Roger Freet has been named a Senior Editor for Harper San Francisco. Kate Travers has been promoted to Editor of Harper Perennial.

At Simon & Schuster, Jen Bergstrom has been promoted to Publisher of the Simon Spotlight Entertainment and Simon Spotlight imprints, still reporting to Robin Corey for Spotlight and to Rick Richter for the entertainment line.

Duly Noted

Bowker-owned market research firm Simba held a webinar on July 15 to discuss its recent report on the book market, “Business of Consumer Book Publishing 2004” (available at www.simbanet.com). Among the trends discussed at the webinar were the increasing popularity of graphic novels. Included in this year’s report are four new categories: contemporary literary fiction; classic literary fiction; graphic novels; and politics/current events.

• PEN announces State of Emergency: Unconventional Readings, with Laurie Anderson, Paul Auster, Russell Banks, Michael Cunningham, Don DeLillo, Joan Didion, Ariel Dorfman, Jonathan Safran Foer, Barbara Goldsmith, A. M. Homes, A. E. Hotchner, Margo Jefferson, Edward P. Jones, Walter Dean Myers, Salman Rushdie, Monique Truong, Kurt Vonnegut, & Eve Ensler. It will be held Wednesday, Aug. 4, at 7 p.m., at The Great Hall at Cooper Union, 7 East 7th Street at Third Avenue. Admission is free. For more information, call (212) 334-1660 x107 or see www.pen.org.

• The Rona Jaffe Foundation will host its 10th Annual Writers’ Awards Sept. 30, at 6-8 p.m. at the Lotos Club.

Parties

The Overlook Press presented a Slide show and lecture at The Museum of Natural History to announce the publication of Christopher Ondaatje’s Hemingway in Africa: The Last Safari. It was followed on July 28 by a publication party hosted by Peter Mayer at his home. The guest list included Explorers Club members Jeff Stolzer and Nicci Young, HC’s Jane Friedman, Putnam’s Carole Baron, and super lawyer Martin Garbus.

Mazel Tov

Welcome to June Barrett Cook-Selman, the child that literary agent Ira Silverberg helped create, who was born on June 11, weighing in at 8 lbs. 5 ozs.

People

May was another busy month for publishers’ human resource directors: Michael Jacobs has gone to Abrams as CEO. He was most recently SVP of Scholastic’s trade division. In addition, Ron Longe has been named Director of Publicity for STC, also part of the Martinière Group. He was most recently at Routledge.

Michael Kazan, who recently left Spier NY, has joined Bennett Book Advertising as Managing Director. . . . Dave Nelson has gone to Zagat as General Manager, Trade Sales. He was most recently at Harcourt. … Lynn Grady has been named Director of Marketing at ReganBooks, replacing Carl Raymond, who went to DK. She was most recently at Kensington. . . . Dan Verdick has become Trade Sales Director at Motorbooks. He was previously Sales & Marketing Director at ABDO. . . . Marian Lizzi is leaving St. Martin’s after 14 years, to go to Perigee as Senior Editor. She replaces Sheila Curry Oakes, who recently left for — St. Martin’s.

As widely noted, Brian Murray is returning from Australia to become Group President of HarperCollins. He will officially begin on July 6. And US General Books President and Publisher, Cathy Hemming, has left the company.

In a move that had been anticipated, EVP Mark Ouimet has left PGW and his position is being filled by his long-time associate, Karen Cross. Also leaving is Phyllis Henrici, who worked for PGW’s parent company, AMS, as Director of Bargain Sales & Purchasing. Tracy Fortini has been hired as Senior Marketing Director. She was most recently at Discovery Channel Stores.

Carol Roeder, who left Intervisual earlier this year, has been named Director of Licensing for ShoPro Entertainment, a division of Japan’s Shogakukan Publishers. She and her husband Dudley Jahnke, who has resigned as Director of Sales for M.E. Sharpe, have relocated to the West Coast.

Larry Stone, Founder and Publisher of Rutledge Hill Press, which he sold to Thomas Nelson in 1999, is retiring. Pamela Clements, VP Publicity, has immediately been named Associate Publisher, and will be named Publisher at a future date.

John Griffin has been named to succeed Stephen Lacy (who will become President and COO of Meredith Corp. on July 1) as head of the publishing group, which includes the company’s book unit and the magazine division, which he has run since June 2003.

Elke Villa has joined S&S as Director of Children’s Marketing. Ryan Harbage has joined Simon Spotlight as Editor. Nancy Hancock is joining Touchstone Fireside as Senior Editor. She was previously an Executive Editor at McGraw-Hill. S&S Director of Publicity Aileen Boyle and National Accounts Director Deb Darrock will both be promoted to Associate Publisher following the departure of Associate Publisher Melissa Possick, who has left for Taunton Press. Also joining Taunton is Pam Hoenig, who will be starting a cookbook program. She left Harvard Common Press, where she was Executive Editor.

Vivian Antonangeli has been named COO of Brighter Child Interactive in Columbus, Ohio, where she will launch a publishing venture. . . . Formerly at Wiley, Jeff Golick has joined BBC Audiobooks America as Acquisitions Editor. Wendy Strothman, who was EVP of Houghton Mifflin’s trade and reference group until June 2002 and now runs a literary agency, has brought in Dan O’Connell as Senior Publicity Director, working with clients on the early positioning of their books. He worked with Strothman at HM and Beacon. Former Yale University Press Director John Ryden is an affiliate agent in the agency.

Promotions

Scholastic’s Ellie Berger is being promoted to the position of SVP, Trade, where she will be coordinating the daily activities of the Trade Division. Berger will also be responsible for demand planning and operations and will continue in her role as Publisher of Licensed Properties. She reports to Barbara Marcus. . . . Dan Menaker, SVP of Random House Group, was appointed to the newly created position of Executive Editor-in-Chief, reporting to President and Publisher Gina Centrello. Menaker will now oversee the editorial activities of the Group’s Ballantine imprints as well. Jon Karp, has been promoted to SVP, Editor-in-Chief, reporting to Menaker. He will now oversee the editorial departments of Random House, Villard, Modern Library, and Random House Trade Paperbacks.

Nancy Miller continues as SVP, Editor-in-Chief of the Ballantine imprints, and adds the title of Executive Editor, Random House Publishing Group, also reporting to Menaker. . . . At HarperCollins Deputy Publisher of Avon/Harper Torch Darlene Delillo has been promoted to SVP. . . . S&S’s Robb Pearlman has been promoted to Associate Director, Licensing & Brand Management. Tricia Boczkowski has been promoted to Executive Editor of Simon Spotlight. . . . Kathleen Keene, CFO and Acting Director of Johns Hopkins U. Press since December, when Jim Jordan left for Columbia U. Press, has been named Director.

Duly Noted

The May/June issue of Booktech Magazine lists the top-30 book manufacturers. Quebecor, for whom book manufacturing is 11% of its total revenue, comes in first, followed by Donnelley (14%), Von Hoffman (100%), Banta (20%) and Arvato/Bertelsmann ( 91%). Only four on the list have revenues in excess of a billion dollars, and another six have revenues exceeding one hundred million dollars. Although not up at press time, the list will be posted on www.booktechmag.com.

• R.R. Bowker released its analysis of books in print, based on its database of titles and publishers. There were 175,000 new titles and editions published in 2003, which includes 3,773 titles reported to Books In Print by the three “subsidy publishers,” including Xlibris, iUniverse and AuthorHouse, according to Andrew Grabois, Senior Director of publisher relations and content development. The number of new titles released by the 12 largest trade houses increased 2.4%, to 22,914, while total output for the top-55 university presses declined 2.2%, to 12,003. Since 1994, new titles have increased 50.8% for all U.S. publishers, 24.4% for the largest trade houses, and 14.4% for university presses. General adult fiction was one of only three categories to show a decline in 2003, dipping 1.6% to 17,021 new titles and editions. This was the first year since 1991 that fiction did not register an increase, declining 1.6% to 17,021. Output of new juvenile titles continued its upward trend, increasing 45.3% to 16,283. Biography, history and religion also recorded double-digit increases.

Parties

Elaine’s was the venue both for Carroll & Graf and Grove Press, where the exceedingly charming ambassador Joe Wilson and veteran writer Jim Harrison were feted by their publishers. Wilson’s turnout included Dan Rather, Lewis Lapham, and WNYC’s Brian Lehrer. Morgan Entrekin’s party for Harrison drew authors Tony Bourdain, Phil Caputo, Joe Kanon, and Jay McInerney, among others, and their newsguy was Tom Brokaw. Also present, former Mass guv Bill Weld gave 3-to-2 odds that Bush would win.

• HarperCollins, in conjunction with The New School, held a party for the publication of Truth and Beauty, Ann Patchett’s tribute to Lucy Grealy. Nestled among the HC crew were Knopf’s Vicky Wilson, agents Fred Hill and Ira Silverberg, the NY Post’s Sara Nelson, Penguin’s Rick Kot, and Dial Publisher Susan Kamil. CEO Jane Friedman and the New School’s Robert Polito delivered touching tributes to both Patchett and Grealy.

In Memoriam

Roger W. Straus Jr. died on May 25 at the age of 87. The Farrar, Straus & Giroux founder is survived by his wife and son, Roger Straus III, a photographer and erstwhile publisher at HC and FSG.

After 15 years at Reader’s Digest, most recently as VP Global Director, Global Books & Home Entertainment, Alfredo Santana will be leaving the company. He may be reached via email at siempre@attglobal.net or at (212) 781-0632. Santana tells PT that he will attend Frankfurt this year, his eighteenth.

Gerry Helferich, who recently left Wiley, and Teresa Nicholas, who resigned as VP Production at Crown, are moving to San Miguel de Allende in late September for a year’s sabbatical, while Helferich writes his book (see PT, 8/02). Kitt Allan, who had been Marketing Director and Associate Director of Editorial Development, is replacing Helferich as Publisher of Wiley General Books. . . Pat Strachan has been named Senior Editor at Little, Brown and will be starting there on Sept 9.

Ted Hill has been named SVP Business Development for Vista Computer Services. He had been at several dot-coms, including About.com, and was Publisher of Macmillan Digital Reference. . . As reported earlier, David Allender has gone to Workman as Senior Editor in charge of Children’s, starting after Labor Day. He was previously at BOMC. . . Ballantine’s Nancy Miller has hired Senior Editor Zack Schisgal, who was most recently at Warner/ipublish, to focus on a range of nonfiction. And Claire Tisne has been hired as Teri Henry’s replacement in the rights department. She comes via the BBC.

Mary Beth Guimaraes moves from Doubleday to HarperCollins as Rights Manager, replacing Chris McKerrow, who went to Reader’s Digest. And Pocket’s Annie Hughes has been named Senior Rights Associate at Harper, replacing Riky Stock, who left to head up the German Book Office (see PT, 8/02). Jeff Meltzer, Director of Finance and Business Operations, has left HarperCollins after four years, in a restructuring. . . Ken Brooks has added the title of President of Publishing & Media Group, a magazine and book consultancy he has taken over. He continues to run Publishing Dimensions, which digitizes and distributes ebooks and egalleys.

Deborah Sloan has been appointed by Trafalgar Square to the new position of Director of Marketing & Promotion, beginning September 17. She was previously at Candlewick Press for 11 years, most recently as Executive Director of Marketing. Prior to that she was Publicity & Advertising Director at Abbeville. She will be based in a satellite office in the Boston area.

PROMOTIONS

Peter Clifton, President of Ingram Periodicals, has taken over as head of international for Ingram Books. He was previously at PubEasy and is based in Tennessee.

Susan Weinberg announced the promotion of Alison Callahan to editor at HarperCollins and Perennial. She joined HarperCollins in August of 2000 to work for the late Robert Jones, who became Harper’s Editor-in-Chief. She will represent HarperCollins in selecting the annual winner of the Robert S. Jones Memorial Scholarship, established with the Columbia Publishing Course for a UK or Commonwealth student.

Josh Marwell announced that Kathy Smith has been promoted to VP, Sales Administration and Operations. She was Director of Sales Administration.

DULY NOTED

New York Is Book Country gears up at the end of September, with five days of events that culminate in the 24th annual Fifth Avenue fair on Sunday, Sept. 29. The first day, Sept. 25, is devoted to cookbooks, followed on Thursday by “Books Into Movies,” and “What They’re Reading in the Boroughs,” while the weekend is filled with readings, the NYT Literary Lunch and Literary Tea and, of course, the street fair itself. Meanwhile, all available booths have been taken at the fair, and an estimated 250,000-plus people are expected to attend. For further information, see NYisbookcountry.com.

• The second National Book Festival will be held Saturday, October 12 on the grounds of the US Capitol. Designed to encourage a lifelong love of reading, the festival will feature nationally-recognized authors and storytellers. The first National Book Festival, held at the Library of Congress on September 8, 2001, was attended by 30,000 “enthusiastic book-lovers.” This year’s festival, again organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress and hosted by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington and Laura Bush, will include author readings, book signings, musical performances by Squeeze Bayou, the Broadcreek Dixieland Band, Mariachi Los Amigos, and more. Go to www.loc.gov/bookfest.

• The Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival takes place Sept. 19-22 in the Village of Waterloo, NJ, and features the last five Poet Laureates, from Rita Dove to Billy Collins, Grace Paley, Amiri Baraka, Taha Muhammad Ali, and others. Go to www.grdodge.org/poetry1.

• Now that the sale of Abrams’ 50 textbook titles (including Janson’s History of Art) to Pearson Education has been confirmed, we thought an explanation might be in order. “Textbook publishing today requires tremendous capital outlays and an editorial and marketing infrastructure on a truly military scale,” explains Eric Himmel, Abrams VP and Publisher. The decision had to be made to expand or sell. The books were actually created by Abrams for P-H under license. Now they will become P-H’s property and they will take over the task of editing, designing, and producing — and Abrams will distribute to the trade and collect a distribution fee.

• Meanwhile, in another example of the big gulping down the small, The Bookseller reports that McGraw-Hill Education has acquired Open University Press, the independent social science and general academic publisher. Open UP publishes about 100 new titles a year, with a list totalling 800 books.

• Knowbetter.com and Electronic Book Web partnered to conduct a survey of ebooks and their readers, which will be periodically updated. The essentials haven’t changed much in the last year or two, but it is noteworthy that this survey found that teens “haven’t yet come to the ebook party. In fact, the vast majority (74%) of respondents are between 30 and 59 years of age, while only 14% are under 30.” Meanwhile, in looking at Barnes & Noble, Powells.com, the Gemstar eBookstore, and Palm Digital Media, to see just what titles were available for the younger audience, “Barnes & Noble lists over 37,000 paperback titles in their children’s category (which included young adult titles). Contrast that with the number of titles we found available in an electronic format. They ranged from a low of 129 (Palm Digital Media) to a high of 342 (MS Reader at B&N). In other words, ebooks in this segment account for less than 1% of the selection available in paper form.” Go to http://knowbetter.com/ebook/surveys/ 2002spring_results.asp.

• Bob Wyatt, legendary editor and publisher of eponymous imprint A Wyatt Book (which had been housed previously at St. Martin’s), returns to the fray, this time with Golden Notebook Press. The publisher tells us it happened this way: “Among the events of the first Woodstock Poetry Festival was a reading by Janice King, who I knew only as an affable bookseller at The Golden Notebook (a long-lived bookstore in the center of the village). I was spellbound by Janice’s poetry about her upbringing in rough-and-tumble Oregon and her later life here in the Hudson Valley. At a Billy Collins reading, Ellen Shapiro, who runs The Golden Notebook along with Barry Samuels, said, ‘All right, Wyatt, you think she’s so hot? Why don’t you co-publish a book of her poetry with Golden Notebook Press?’ Flush with continuing income from The Red Tent, the very last Wyatt Book in association with St. Martin’s Press, I instantly said, ‘Sure, why not?’ ” Taking Wing: Poems from the Oregon Outback to the Hudson Valley was published in July. The publisher’s next project: a history of the Coleman Theater, a landmark vaudeville theater in Miami, Oklahoma.

PARTIES & EVENTS

Newmarket Press celebrated its 20th anniversary with a garden party at the Amagansett home of founder and President Esther Margolis. Among the Hamptonites who attended the event, which included a house tour of Margolis and husband (and Newmarket author) Stan Fisher’s newly renovated weekend lair, were HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman, Columbia U’s Bill Strachan, there with wife and editor Pat Strachan (see People, above), BOMC’s Mel Parker, Scholastic’s Barbara Marcus, and author Anne Roiphe.