PEOPLE At Macmillan, Troy Williams has been appointed to the new position of VP & GM, New Ventures. Williams founded Questia Media, which he sold in 2007, and PeoplePad. Meanwhile, Dan Farley is leaving Macmillan, where he was President and Publisher of the Children’s Publishing Group, after 14 years of bicoastal commuting. Mark Polizzotti has…Continue Reading
Rarely a week goes by without a PW or Publishers Lunch announcement of a newly formed, merged or expanded literary agency. Larry Kirshbaum‘s well-publicized move from TWBG to form LJK Literary Management last fall drew attention to publishers-turned-agents, and both Gawker and MediaBistro consistently blog about who’s merging with whom to spawn the newest so-called…Continue Reading
PEOPLE Rich Freese has been named President of Publishers Group West, reporting to Kevan Lyon, EVP for Distribution and Publishing Services at AMS. Freese, who will relocate to the San Francisco area, succeeds Charlie Winton, founder and former President and CEO of PGW, and now Group Chairman and CEO of Avalon Publishing. Another publisher on…Continue Reading
People Latest dope on AOLTWP: with funding tight, Perseus is said to be out of the running, while Random, which raised some capital recently and is looking for a deal, is the likeliest purchaser. Meanwhile, in the latest reshufflings: RH Value Publishing’s President Lynn Bond has left the company, following in the wake of the…Continue Reading
PEOPLE Random House has offered a “Voluntary Retirement Window of Opportunity” to “most” employees who have been with the company at least five years, and are 50 years old or older. The email offer was made on March 19 and employees must notify HR by mid-May. Many people clicked the Delete button before reading the…Continue Reading
PEOPLE Lots happening in the sales and distribution world: The big — though not unexpected — news is that, following Kristina Peterson’s departure from Simon & Schuster, Rick Richter has been named President of the S&S Children’s Publishing Division, a position he held prior to Peterson’s arrival. He is currently President of the S&S Sales…Continue Reading
PEOPLE Simon & Schuster’s various imprints have been trimmed over the past few weeks: Rachel Klayman has been laid off from The Free Press, Jeff Neuman has left S&S (and may be reached at neudors@yahoo.com), and Rosemary Ahern (who arrived from Dutton less than two years ago), and Kim Kanner and an assistant have departed…Continue Reading
PEOPLE Change is the constant in publishing at the moment: Bookspan cut its staff by about a dozen people, including longtimers Norm Schneider, VP Marketing, and Nancy Whitin, who oversaw the Specialty Clubs, including The Good Cook, History, Crafters, Country Homes, Military, Stage & Screen, Mystery Guild, etc. Natalie Chapman has been named VP, Publisher,…Continue Reading
PEOPLE Heads rolling in and rolling out: Marco Ausenda, who comes from Touring Club Italia, will replace Antonio Polito as the head of Rizzoli US, reporting to Giulio Lattanzi. . . Jean-Marie Messier’s still running Vivendi, but of course major changes at Houghton Mifflin: Teri Kelly succeeds Wendy Strothman as SVP and head of trade…Continue Reading
PEOPLE Candy Lee, formerly CEO of Troll Communications, has joined iFormation Group as the MD of Sales & Marketing. Launched in June 2000, iFormation is a partnership of The Boston Consulting Group, General Atlantic Partners, and Goldman Sachs that partners with “the world’s leading companies by investing in and operating new technology businesses that leverage…Continue Reading
