Tag Archives: St. Martin’s

Of Jobs and Jump-Cuts

Every publishing career follows a narrative arc. For some, it’s the Proustian ebb of Swann’s Way. For others, it’s Finnegans Wake. And the most gripping career stories tend to be those that jump out of the genre altogether. As conversations with a dozen book-world veterans show, life after publishing does exist, and what’s more, there’s…Continue Reading

Book View, August 2001

PEOPLE HarperCollins has announced the long-awaited restructuring of its sales department: Josh Marwell has been named SVP Sales, with specific responsibility for Harper Trade Adult and overall corporate responsibility for special sales and sales operations (Business Manager Jeff Meltzer will report to him). Andrea Pappenheimer, SVP Sales, Children’s Publishing, and George Bick, VP Sales Morrow/Avon,…Continue Reading

It’s Your Party

Pass the Chips and Dip, Y’all. Now Buy Some Southern Living Books. You may not see any hot-rodding pink Cadillacs when more than 1,000 salespeople descend upon Birmingham this month to attend the first national convention for Southern Living at Home, the newly minted home sales division of the Southern Living publishing group. Those automotive…Continue Reading

Book View, July 2001

PEOPLE There’s much happening at 375 Hudson Street: Danny Gurr has resigned as CEO of DK’s US operations, as a result of the following organizational changes effective immediately: The US editorial department will report primarily to DK UK Publisher Christopher Davis. Sales and Marketing will report through Dick Heffernan, President, Director of Sales, Adult Hardcover…Continue Reading

Wake Up, Gotham

Vendor Survey 2001 As the old nursery rhyme has it: “Three wise men of Gotham / Went to sea in a bowl; / If the bowl had been stronger / My story had been longer.” The ever trenchant respondents to Publishing Trends’ annual survey on publisher services to wholesalers and retailers have cast publishers in…Continue Reading

All Crisis, All the Time

In an address to the Publishers Lunch Club last month, industry veteran Tom McCormack looked back on forty years in publishing, finding that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Here’s a condensed version of his remarks. When I first came down to New York, some folks asked me why I was…Continue Reading

Book View, December 2000

PEOPLE Two Random House appointments: Beryl Needham, previously Dir. of Marketing for Little, Brown, has been named VP Dir. of National Accts. Children’s Books. And Adene Corns has been named VP Dir. of clubs and AMS. She was previously at S&S. Corns comes to Random with her full team . . . After 21 years…Continue Reading

Poaching the Publicists

The Latest Truism: A Good Publicist Is Hard to Find Judging by reports of empty cubicles in publicity departments at several large publishing houses, it seems the latest truism in the book biz is this: a good publicist is hard to find. While entry-level publicity jobs have always had precipitous burn-out rates, it seems that…Continue Reading

International Fiction Bestsellers

Frankfurt Forecast St. Martin’s ‘Starting Over,’ Harcourt’s ‘Algorithm,’ Plus Hansel and Gretel in Germany When the Buchmesse opens its doors on October 18, what are Sub. Rights Directors planning to pull out of their book bags as they cozy up to editors from Europe and beyond? Herewith, a sampling from some of the major players:…Continue Reading

Digital Reference, En Garde!

“The one thing we know is that information is now ever-present and therefore, in a sense, valueless,” says Kemp Battle, partner in the investment and consulting firm Tucker Capital. And that explains in a nutshell the challenges currently wracking the boardrooms of the world’s reference publishers, who, with their multi-volume encyclopedias and high-price-point dictionaries, are…Continue Reading