Crown Publishing Group is reorganizing its imprints within three major editorial areas: "general
interest nonfiction and fiction; branded/category books; and four-color
and lifestyle, encompassing our cookbook, design, style, and crafts and
visual arts titles." In a memo to Random House staff, Crown's president and publisher Maya Mavjee outlined the resulting changes:
Crown and Broadway Books will be united under a single head, who will to be determined after a search currently underway. The Shaye Areheart imprint has been discontinued and Areheart is stepping down from her current position, but will continue to work with her authors under the new title editor-at-large. Leaving the company are Diane Salvatore, v-p, publisher, Broadway Books; and senior editor Lorraine Glennon.
Tina Constable will now lead Crown Archetype, Harmony Books, Crown Forum and Crown Business--an imprint created by the merging of Crown and Broadway Business.
Philip Patrick has been appointed v-p, digital and marketing strategy, publisher, Crown Group Digital.
Effective June 7, Tina Pohlman will become v-p, publisher, Three Rivers Press and Broadway Paperbacks.
David Drake has been named senior v-p, executive director, publicity, heading up a newly combined publicity department. Katie Wainwright will leave the company now that her position has been eliminated as v-p, executive director, publicity, Crown Publishers, Harmony, Shaye Areheart Books, Clarkson Potter, Potter Craft, Potter Style and Watson-Guptill.
---
Amazon has continued its recent practice of selling some titles at e-book price points (Shelf Awareness, April 23, 2010). The Wall Street Journal reported the online retailer is "selling a number of new hardcover books published this month by Pearson PLC's Penguin Group (USA) for only $9.99 amid a dispute between the two companies over electronic books."
Penguin is the lone holdout among the five major publishing houses that reached agreements with Apple to reach an agreement with Amazon on the agency pricing model, and has not provided digital editions of new titles to Amazon since April 1, though they are available through numerous other retail outlets.
The books involved include The End of Wall Street by Roger Lowenstein, This Is Just Exactly Like You by Drew Perry, The Line by Olga Grushin, Imperfect Birds by Anne Lamott and Lucid Intervals by Stuart Woods, the Journal noted.
--- 
Bookselling This Week showcased the display space created by "a wall of windows that stretches the length of the storefront" at Skylight Books, Los Angeles, Calif., where owner Kerry Slattery maximizes the high-visibility facade by partnering with local businesses "to create attention-grabbing displays."
"We've done displays with a clothing shop, record shop, print shop, and art supply store, all different kinds of businesses," she said. "They're thrilled because they don't have as prime a spot as we do."
Skylight also adds books to the presentations. "We always pick related books to be part of the display," Slattery said. "And we do sell a lot of books out of the window.... There are all kinds of ways for businesses to work together. And customers really appreciate learning about new businesses in the community. They say, 'It's so great you're doing this for the neighborhood!' "
---
Going local is also key for Time Enough Books, Ilwaco, Wash., which is celebrating
its 10th anniversary. "We would not survive without the support of our locals," co-owner Karla Nelson
told BTW.
"We always planned for a storefront and the opportunity arose to be on
the ground floor of a revitalization of an area that had been primarily a
fishing port," she said. "We took a giant leap of faith and have watched this area
blossom."
---
Winning the Pulitzer has breathed substantial life into the sales figures for Paul Harding's Tinkers, which hit USA Today's bestseller list this week at number 64. Bellevue Literary Press has reprinted 80,000 copies of the paperback, with the phrase "Winner of the Pulitzer Prize" on the cover.
---
Hachette said that four of its books were among the top eight downloaded from Apple's iBookstore after the launch of the new iPad, AFP reported. The titles, published by Hachette U.S., are Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith, Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang by Chelsea Handler, Outliers by Malcom Gladwell and Worst Case by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge.
---
Inside bookselling. The Boswellians blog from Boswell Book Company, Milwaukee, Wis., offered 10 lessons learned by Greg since he switched from the sales floor to the shipping/receiving room, including "books are heavy" and "even the messiest individuals become rather organized when doing this job."
---
Author Tayari Jones canceled her upcoming appearance at the Pima Summer Writers Conference in Tucson this summer in protest of Arizona's new immigrant legislation, the Guardian reported.
"Yesterday, I spoke with a dear friend who is an American citizen of Mexican descent who said that he would not feel safe in Arizona, although he (like me) used to call the state home," she wrote in a letter to conference organizers. "That people should be legally required to show proof of citizenship is similar to the antebellum mandate that black people produce 'free papers' proving themselves not to be slaves. It recalls the pass system under South Africa's apartheid. Sadly, visiting Arizona for a conference or a vacation without fear has become an ostentatious display of privilege. As much as I was looking forward to participating in the Pima Writers Conference, travelling to Arizona would be tantamount [to] endorsing these draconian policies."
---
Random House has created an intricate and interactive website, Find Subject Zero, to promote Justin Cronin's The Passage, scheduled for June 8 release.
---
Jay Gatsby and P Diddy? Mr. Darcy and George Clooney? Flavorwire.com explored the possible combinations of "Literary Characters and Their Modern-Day Tabloid Counterparts."
---
Book trailer of the day: Feathers
of Hope: Pete Dubacher, the Berkshire Bird Paradise, and the Human
Connection with Birds by Barbara Chepaitis (SUNY Press).
---
After
43 years in the book industry, Tom Carney is retiring today. Carney
managed a bookstore in Denver for 22 years, then sold for John Wiley
& Sons's trade sales department throughout most of the western U.S
for 21 years. His new contact information is tcarney37@gmail.com or 303-423-4111.