Celadon Books's Dream Team

The Celadon Books team (from left to right): Ryan Doherty, Heather Graham, Anne Twomey, Cecily Van Buren-Freedman, Randi Kramer, Clay Smith, Alexis Neuville. (Missing from photo: Christine Mykityshyn)

Jamie Raab and Deb Futter have hired a strong staff, which is "marketing-heavy" to ensure that each book is published aggressively and creatively.

The team includes Celadon Books's first hire, Executive Editor Ryan Doherty, who had worked at Random House Publishing Group as an editor and then as a V-P at SONY, where he discovered books to turn into films. Raab and Futter comment: "His wonderful taste coupled with his unique knowledge of the business prompted us to lure him back into book publishing."

The next hire was Randi Kramer, who had been Don Weisberg's assistant but was eager to move into editorial. "She's been an invaluable member of our team, and kept us afloat during the chaotic first months," Raab and Futter say.

The latest editorial addition is Cecily Van Buren-Freedman, a recent graduate of the Columbia Publishing program who works as Ryan Doherty's editorial assistant.

On the marketing side, from the beginning the founders wanted to hire "a first-rate marketing department" that reflected their belief that "with the rapid change in the way books can be marketed, our marketing hires needed to have deep knowledge of our business but, most importantly, the ability to break out of the same old, same old patterns of promoting books." That led them to hire Rachel Chou, whom they call "the perfect marketing grand master." (More on her approach to marketing below.) Before joining Celadon Books, she was General Manager of Open Road Integrated Media and earlier was V-P, Online Product Development at HarperCollins and Director of Enterprise Website Services at Scholastic. "She has worked on all types of fiction and nonfiction and has been recognized as a thought leader in digital and traditional marketing," they add.

Chou's team includes Director of Publicity Christine Mykityshyn, who was most recently Publicity Manager at Random House Publishing Group; Director of Content Heather Graham, who was most recently V-P, Digital Operations at the Daily Gazette and previously was an editor at iVillage; and Marketing and Publicity Assistant Alexis Neuville, who was hired within days of graduating from the honors program at Pace.

In addition, Raab and Futter hired Anne Twomey, with whom they'd worked at Grand Central, as Creative Director. Already Twomey has created a distinct "Celadon look" and begun directing the creation of covers that, the founders say, are "knockouts and promise to become as iconic as her past award-winning designs have been."

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