Corporate: FSG Moves to Raincoast In Canada; OverDrive Announces Australian Office; Gompertz to Hearst Magazines

PublishersLunch

Farrar, Straus will adopt the distribution model in Canada already followed by the rest of Macmillan: As of January 2013, Raincoast Book Distribution will handle FSG and Graywolf titles sold to independent and college bookstores, Costco, library wholesalers, and special markets. FSG has been distributed in Canada by Douglas & McIntyre since 1997. Raincoast and Macmillan will begin selling the FSG winter 2013 list in August 2012.

OverDrive has announced the opening of a new office in Melbourne, Australia "to deepen its relationships with library, publisher and bookseller partners in Australia, New Zealand and throughout the Asia Pacific region." They acquired Australia's Booki.sh earlier this year. Peter Haasz manages business development for OverDrive Australia.

Former evp, digital publishing at Simon & Schuster and digital consultant Mark Gompertz has joined Hearst Magazines as creative director, content extensions, reporting to John Loughlin. In his new role, Gompertz will focus on developing and executing compelling and substantive content for the company’s print and digital brands, which include 20 magazines, 28 websites, and Hearst Books, which will now become part of the company's content extension initiative, with publisher Jacqueline Deval reporting to Gompertz.

"Mark has deep experience in the areas of e-publishing, multimedia experimentation and finding new revenue streams for great content—all of which translate remarkably well to content extension opportunities for our brands at Hearst," Loughlin said in a statement. "We have a number of exciting projects in the works and I''m confident that Mark will not only execute on those brilliantly but also bring an abundance of new ideas to the table."

BEA Moves Up 2013 Dates By A Week, Will Now Run Between May 29 and June 1

Book Expo America announced Monday afternoon that the book fair will take place a week earlier than planned, with the conference to run on Wednesday, May 29 and the show floor set to open between Thursday, May 30 and Saturday, June 1. (The Book Blogger Conference will also take place on the 29th, with Saturday, June 1 open to the public.) BEA officials had wanted to move the date for some time "as it is expected to drive down hotel prices by 10% - 20% depending on the property," and received the "surprise" go-ahead from Javits earlier Monday. There will be no changes in price.

"I am incredibly happy that we have been able to come to this arrangement with Javits," show manager Steve Rosato said in a statement. "This shift addresses the #1 issue that was out of BEA's control which was the hotel prices in New York City. This works to everyone's advantage -- most notably, for our attendees, especially the ABA for whom hotel costs are a top priority. We are pleased to deliver this better alternative which will unequivocally deliver significant savings to all our participants in 2013. Simply put, BEA can provide more lodging at a lower rate and we are able to secure larger blocks in the most popular hotels with these dates."

The original BEA dates also conflicted with the June 3, 2013 scheduled start of a trial in the Department of Justice's ebook price fixing suit against Apple, Penguin and Macmillan, but a spokesman for the fair told us the conflict and date change was "entirely coincidental."