BTW News Briefs

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

David Grogan, ABA’s director of ABFE, Advocacy, and Public Policy, was voted in as board chair of Media Coalition, beginning in 2019. ABFE is a member of the First Amendment advocacy group comprised of booksellers; publishers; librarians; film, recording, and video game producers; and home video and video game retailers in the U.S.

Rowman & Littlefield has acquired a varied selection of book trade imprints and trade titles from Hal Leonard Performing Arts Publishing Group, the leading independent publisher for the performing arts. The business was acquired from Hal Leonard LLC, which will continue its separate business publishing sheet music and music instructional materials.

Independent publisher Sourcebooks will acquire the majority of titles from mystery publisher Poisoned Pen Press and add its own titles to form Sourcebooks’ new Poisoned Pen Press imprint. Most employees will be retained and continue to work out of the publisher’s Scottsdale, Arizona, office; The Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale will remain under its current ownership.

Abrams will now provide sales and distribution for craft book publisher Lucky Spool Media for the North America, Australia, and New Zealand markets. The deal covers the entire catalog, including backlist, and will take effect January 1, 2019.

Nashville-based national retail distributor APG Sales & Distribution has signed an agreement to distribute most frontlist titles from Chalice Press/Christian Board of Publication to the trade, representing around 50 new and upcoming books.

Following the release of its 20th anniversary issue in June 2019, Tin House Magazine will shut down due to production costs, and co-founder Rob Spillman will leave the company. Tin House Books and Tin House Workshop will continue as they have been; new original writing will be published at tinhouse.com.

At Catapult, Jonathan Lee has been promoted to editor-in-chief starting January 1, stepping in for Pat Strachan, who moves to the position of vice president and executive editor.

Paige McInerney has been promoted to executive vice president and director of human resources at Penguin Random House U.S., a new position. She will join the U.S. board and report to PRH U.S. CEO Madeline McIntosh. McInerney has been with the company since 1991.

Jennifer Barth has been promoted to senior vice president at HarperCollins. She joined the company from Holt in 2007.

Lucille Rettino has been promoted to vice president, associate publisher, director of marketing, and publicity for Tom Doherty Associates, including Tor, Forge, Tor Teen, Starscape, and Tor.com; this is a newly created position. Rettino joined Tom Doherty in 2017 as vice president of marketing and publicity.

At Scholastic, Brigid Martin has joined the company as sales associate; Holland Baker is now production editor for Branches, Acorn, and Graphix; and Nicole Surman has joined Scholastic as graphic designer for trade creative services. In addition, Katherine Forester is now assistant brand marketing manager; Caroline Flanagan has joined the company as production editor for trade paperbacks; and Vicky Kopidakis has become advertising coordinator.

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