Friday, March 10, 2017

Publishers Lunch


Today's Meal


Building permits flagged for the media Amazon's newest bookstore location, back home in Bellevue, WA, which was then confirmed by the company. They say they are now hiring personnel for the store, which is Amazon's tenth known bookstore so far. Further underscoring Amazon's ambition for these stores is the wording in this recently updated listing for a program manager, launch, for Amazon Books: "The books category team is hiring a Program Manager to develop and execute scalable launch plans to grow and improve our business. As the Program Manager, Launch, your job is to make it easier, faster, and more efficient to launch a store.... This is a key role in allowing our bookstore business to scale.

In the UK, after initial resistance, Amazon has
agreed to remove four holocaust denial books from sale.

In the US, the Washington Post
notes that the resurgence of interest in George Orwell's 1984 means that even Costco is carrying the paperback now.

Libro.fm has officially gone live with a digital audiobook subscription program that's available in over 280 indie bookstore locations. Their basic terms are comparable to Audible's -- the first audiobook is 99 cents (rather than free), and it's $14.99 a month thereafter, for one audiobook per month. The company's benefits chart also indicates that they "pay a fair rate to authors and publishers."


With George Coe moving up to chief operating office for Follett Corporation and Baker & Taylor, David Cully has been promoted to president of Baker & Taylor, reporting to Coe. He will "lead and manage the operations of the Baker & Taylor retail and public library businesses" and "play a key role in expanding Baker & Taylor's market presence and position as part of Follett's overall growth plan."

At Public Affairs, Kristina Fazzalaro has been promoted to publicist. Jane Robbins Mize moves up to assistant editor.

Stephanie Knapp has been promoted to senior editor at Seal Press.

The first Deborah Rogers Foundation bursary of £10,000 -- designed to support young talent and
given "to a publishing professional who has been working in either a literary agency or the rights department of a publishing house in the United Kingdom for two to six years" -- is going to Sam Coates at Vintage UK. He will get to spend 8 weeks at a selection of international publishers. Going forward, the award will be named the Deborah Rogers Foundation David Miller Bursary.

At Blake Friedmann, in addition to yesterday's announcements -- which formally confirmed decisions made by the firm many months ago -- note that
Isobel Dixon has been serving for some time now as head of the book department, also now officially announced.

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