Trade News from Publishers Lunch

Hachette Book Group filed suit against Stephen Baldwin in New York Supreme Court, seeking to recover a $110,000 advance against a nonfiction originally due in 2009 that they say he never delivered.

Harper UK is setting up a new fiction imprint, within their Harper Fiction division, called The Borough Press. Launching in 2014 -- and publishing their already-announced Austen Project that has well-known authors retelling Jane Austen's classics -- it is led by Katie Espiner.

As part of a reorganization that consolidates all of the Walker Books Group imprint sales department into a unified global management team, Caroline Muir has been promoted to group sales director for foreign rights and co-editions. UK sales and marketing director Ed Ripley will also handle all English-language export sales on behalf of the Walker Group. 
Among new hires, Fiona MacDonald has rejoined Walker Books Group as export sales director; previously she was a sales representative at Tate Publishing. David McMillan has been named group export product and sales manager, moving over from Templar, where he was senior US sales manager