BTW News Briefs

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

Later this year, Ingram Content Group will open a new 96,000-square-foot distribution center in Milton Keynes, England. Ingram’s Lightning Source print-on-demand facility in Plymouth will move to the new facility, which will also house distribution operations for NBNi, Ingram’s global physical and digital book distributor. Early next year, Ingram will also move Ingram Publisher Services International into the same location.

According to a new BookBrowse report titled “The Inner Lives of Book Clubs,” 84 percent of private book clubs and 90 percent of public book clubs spend at least 40 minutes per meeting discussing the book, which contradicts the common stereotype that book clubs often serve merely as an excuse to gossip and drink wine. Based on more than 5,500 responses, the report also found that book club members are happier with the book club the longer the club discusses the book.

Starting this spring, The MIT Press will distribute no place press, a new arts and culture publisher located in San Francisco and New York, handling worldwide marketing, sales, and fulfillment for all titles. The company was formed in 2017 by Rachel Churner, Jordan Kantor, and Geoff Kaplan to publish “intrepid titles in art and culture.”

Erin Simpson has been named director of the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau. Simpson joins the bureau from the Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau, where she most recently served as agent director. Her appointment coincides with the transition of S&S’ Speakers Bureau to an in-house operation effective April 1. 

Effective March 25, Wibke Grütjen is joining Hachette Book Group as senior vice president and chief marketing officer. Grütjen was previously vice president of digital marketing at Macmillan. She will report to CEO Michael Pietsch, and has been named to the executive management board. 

Todd Berman has become vice president, imprint sales director at the Random House Sales Group. There, he will be responsible for the Crown Trade, Crown Forum, Currency, WaterBrook, Multnomah, Image, and Convergent imprints. Berman was formerly vice president of business development and publishing strategy at Penguin Random House Publisher Services.

At Chronicle BooksAllison Weiner has been promoted to design manager, art, and Neil Egan has been promoted to design manager, entertainment. In addition, Lisa Bach has been promoted to director of special sales; Vanessa Navarrete to sales manager, independent specialty; and Emily Malter to sales coordinator, independent specialty.

At Riverhead Books, May-Zhee Lim has been promoted to associate publicist. 

At the Association of American Publishers (AAP), Kelly L. Denson has joined as senior director for education policy and programs, where she will lead policy and program initiatives for the higher education and preK-12 learning sectors. Previously, Denison spent nearly eight years at Discovery Communications, most recently as director of education policy and government affairs.

PEN America honored the 2019 PEN America Literary Awards winners at a ceremony at the NYU Skirball Center in New York City on Tuesday, February 26. Winners included the Ghanian writer Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, who received the $75,000 Jean Stein Book Award for Friday Black, his debut collection of stories published by Mariner Books.

The finalists were announced for the 2018 Nebula Awards, which are sponsored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The awards will be presented during the SFWA Nebula Conference, to take place May 16–19 in Los Angeles.

The shortlists were announced for the Lukas Prizes, which honor “the best in American nonfiction writing.” Winners of the prizes, which are sponsored by the Columbia Journalism School and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, will be announced on March 20 and honored at a ceremony on May 7.

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