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ISLR’s Stacy Mitchell Participates in Phoenix Books Panel on Amazon

On November 13, Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) Co-Director Stacy Mitchell took part in a panel at Phoenix Books’ Burlington, Vermont, location, where she and a colleague discussed Amazon’s deleterious effects on the local community.

Amazon panel at Phoenix Books
Left to right: Paul Bruhn, executive director, Preservation Trust of Vermont; Stacy Mitchell, co-director, ILSR; Renee Reiner, co-owner, Phoenix Books; Fran Stoddard, moderator; Mike DeSanto, co-owner, Phoenix Books; Olivia LaVecchia, Research Associate, ILSR; Ed Morrow, co-founder, Northshire Bookshop (photo courtesy of Beth Wagner)

More than 100 people gathered at the forum, titled “Amazon’s Stealth Invasion of Vermont”; it is the first of two community forums at Phoenix Books highlighting the online retailer’s threat to local communities, children’s book buyer Beth Wagner told Bookselling This Week.

The event featured a presentation from Mitchell and ILSR Research Associate Olivia LaVecchia, followed by a discussion moderated by Vermont media producer Fran Stoddard. Mitchell highlighted some of the ways Amazon is quietly altering the commercial landscape through its control of vital business infrastructure by way of intense online competition among tens of thousands of third-party vendors.

Mitchell and LaVecchia emphasized the importance of local business alliances and the power of community in combatting this dynamic. According to Wagner, Mitchell encouraged attendees to talk to others in the community and to elected officials about these issues, saying, “It’s going to be from the grassroots that is ultimately going to change things.”

On Saturday, November 18, Mitchell will also take part in a panel at the annual National League of Cities meeting, titled “Creating a City Where Small Businesses Thrive.”

Retirement of S&S’s Michael Selleck Prompts Sales Team Reorganization

Michael Selleck, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Simon & Schuster, is retiring at the end of the year, prompting the formation of a new leadership team for the company’s sales division.

In a letter to S&S staff, company President and CEO Carolyn K. Reidy wrote: “It is a vast understatement to say that, since joining Simon & Schuster in 1984, Michael has played an important role in the life of this company. During his time here, Michael has held a succession of positions of increasing responsibility in operations, sales, and adult marketing before taking on his latest role in 2007… Any company’s culture is created by its employees, but there are always a few who exemplify the most salient and best aspects of a company’s values. Michael has, over the years, helped build the Simon & Schuster culture we enjoy and most assuredly represents the best of it.”

With Selleck retiring, longtime sales executives Gary Urda and Colin Shields were promoted to senior vice president of sales and vice president and executive director of global digital and international sales, respectively. Effective immediately Michael Perlman will step down as vice president of client sales and services to become vice president and general manager of Simon & Schuster Publisher Services. He will report to COO and CFO Dennis Eulau.

Ralf Markmeier Appointed Managing Director, Publisher of HarperCollins Germany

HarperCollins has appointed Ralf Markmeier as the new managing director and publisher of HarperCollins Germany, effective January 15, 2018, financial news website Benzinga reported.

HarperCollins Germany was formed in 2015 out of the existing operations of Harlequin in Germany, which was started in 1986. In his new position, Markmeier will be responsible for the management of the company’s day-to-day operations, establishing strategic and publishing direction, and driving business expansion in Germany. He replaces Thomas Beckmann, who will retire in February after 18 years with Harlequin/HarperCollins Germany.

Markmeier joins HarperCollins Germany from Verlagsgruppe Random House.

PNBA Announces 2018 Book Awards Shortlist

The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association (PNBA) has announced the shortlist for its 2018 Book Awards, which were selected by a committee of independent booksellers from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska.

The committee chose the following 12 finalists, written by Northwest authors and published in 2017, from more than 400 nominations:

  • All’s Faire in Middle School by Victoria Jamieson (Portland, OR) (Penguin Random House/Dial Books for Young Readers)
  • American War: A Novel by Omar El Akkad (Portland, OR) (Penguin Random House/Alfred A. Knopf)
  • The Book of Mistakes by Corinna Luyken (Olympia, WA) (Penguin Random House/Dial Books for Young Readers)
  • Dead Feminists: Historic Heroines in Living Color by Chandler O’Leary and Jessica Spring (Tacoma, WA) (Penguin Random House/Sasquatch Books)
  • The Hope of Another Spring: Takuichi Fujii, Artist and Wartime Witness by Barbara Johns (Seattle, WA) (University of Washington Press)
  • Idaho: A Novel by Emily Ruskovich (Idaho City, ID) (Penguin Random House/Random House)
  • Little Blue Chair, illustrated by Madeline Kloepper (Prince George, BC) (Penguin Random House Canada/Tundra Books)
  • The Selected Short Fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin Boxed Set: The Found and the Lost; The Unreal and the Real by Ursula K. Le Guin (Portland, OR) (Simon & Schuster/Saga Press)
  • Speed of Life by J.M. Kelly (Gabriola Island, BC) (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers)
  • This Is How It Always Is: A Novel by Laurie Frankel (Seattle, WA) (Macmillan/Flatiron Books)
  • Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean by Jonathan White (Orcas Island, WA) (Trinity University Press)
  • You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir by Sherman Alexie (Seattle, WA) (Hachette Book Group/Little, Brown and Company)

PNBA will announce the six winners of the 2018 Pacific Northwest Book Awards in early January.

Janesville Wins 2017 Business Book of the Year Award

The Financial Times and McKinsey & Company have announced that Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Amy Goldstein is the winner of the 2017 Business Book of the Year Award for Janesville: An American Story (Simon & Schuster).

The book explores the human consequences of the General Motors assembly plant closure in Janesville, Wisconsin, in the midst of the Great Recession. Goldstein became the first female solo author to take the £30,000 top prize at this year’s awards, which were presented at a November 6 ceremony at the Lotte New York Palace.

Also at the ceremony, Mehran Gul was announced as the winner of the 2017 Bracken Bower Prize, which is designed to encourage young authors to tackle emerging business themes. Gul was awarded £15,000 for his book proposal, The New Geography of Innovation.