BTW News Briefs

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Here’s what’s happening this week in the book industry:

Simon & Schuster has entered into a distribution agreement with Skyhorse Publishing. Starting January 1, 2019, S&S will handle distribution for all titles from the independent publisher in the U.S. and most markets worldwide.

An investment group headed by Richard Schottenfeld, who run Schottenfeld Management Corp. in New York City, has acquired a 5.68% stake in Barnes & Noble, according to a securities filing cited by the Wall Street Journal. Schottenfeld has also met with B&N’s senior management team to discuss how to improve the bookseller’s performance.

Erica Curtis has been named director of marketing strategy on Penguin Random House’s consumer marketing development team, which adds to her role there as vice president and director of campaigns and analytics. In addition, Max Minckler has moved to a company-wide position as senior director of consumer insights for PRH. He was previously director of consumer insights at the Random House Publishing Group.

At Random House, Susan Corcoran has been promoted to senior vice president and director of publicity, while Leigh Marchant has become senior vice president and director of marketing and business development.

Ingram Content Group (ICG) has announced a number of promotions and new staff: Leslie Jobson has been promoted to manager of sales and support for Ingram Publisher Services. Destiny Womack was promoted to customer success manager for Aerio, and Tori Cushman is joining ICG as a sales and support representative for the company’s mass merchandise group. In addition, Megan Smith is joining Ingram as a specialty retail manager.

Kristin Fassler will be joining the Atria Publishing Group in the newly created position of vice president and director of integrated marketing, overseeing a department that merges Atria’s publicity and marketing teams. As a result of this change, Paul Olsewski’ vice president and director of publicity for Atria, will be leaving the company.

The 2018 Man Booker Prize for Fiction longlist has been announced. Six of the winners hail from the U.K., three are from the U.S., two from Ireland, and two from Canada. The winners from the U.S. are Nick Drnaso for Sabrina (Granta Books), the first-ever graphic novel selected for the list; Rachel Kushner for The Mars Room (Jonathan Cape), a May 2018 Indie Next List pick; and Richard Powers for The Overstory (Willian Heinemann), an April 2018 Indie Next List pick.

The New England Independent Booksellers Association (NEIBA) has announced the recipients of the 2018 New England Book Awards. Winners included Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (Penguin Press) for fiction; Vacationland by John Hodgman (Penguin Books) for nonfiction; and Rescue and Jessica by Jessica Kensky and Patrick Downes, illustrated by Scott Magoon (Candlewick Press) for children’s books, ages birth-11. Winners will receive their awards on September 26 at a ceremony in Providence, Rhode Island.

The Romance Writers of America’s (RITA) announced the winners of the 2018 RITA Awards, which recognize outstanding published romance novels and novellas, at its 38th Annual Conference in Denver, Colorado.

Anne Charnock was named the winner of the 2018 Arthur C. Clarke Award for her novel Dreams Before the Start of Time (47North). The award is the most prestigious one for science fiction in Britain and is given annually for the best science fiction novel first published in the U.K. during the previous year.

Hilary Barrineau, events manager for Hooray for Books! in Alexandria, Virginia, has been named the winner of Chosen Payments’ $100 American Express Card drawing, which was held at this year’s Children’s Institute. To enter, contestants could drop one of their business cards at the Chosen Payments table at the Consultation Station. The company recently became ABA’s new affinity partner for credit card processing.

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