BTW News Briefs

HarperCollins Restructures Sales Department

This week, HarperCollins President of Sales Josh Marwell announced a significant restructuring of the company’s sales organization, which he said was aimed at helping the company “compete and thrive in this rapidly evolving marketplace.” Changes include a “more streamlined and flatter sales management team” and the movement of the company’s combined pricing, promotional, market insight, and sales analytics efforts to the sales department. As a result, effective July 20, Ken Berger, Mike Brennan, Mark Hillesheim, Kathy Smith, and Jeanette Zwart will be leaving the company, and Jeff Rogart is retiring.

Frank Albanese, current supply chain senior vice president, is joining the sales department as senior vice president, market insight, and sales operations and will have overall direction of day-to-day sales operations. Doug Jones will become senior vice president, group sales director for general books, and will be responsible for the overall sales strategy (both print and digital) and will be the main sales liaison with publishing and marketing for adult imprints.

The field sales force, telesales, and adult national retail accounts will report to Mary Beth Thomas in the newly created position of vice president, deputy director of sales; she in turn will report to Brian Grogan, senior vice president, sales. Children’s national retail accounts and the children’s merchandise reps will report to Kerry Moynagh, vice president, deputy director sales, who will report to Andrea Pappenheimer, senior vice president, children’s sales.

June Geiger will become director of the customer service department. Dan Holod and Gail Kunda will be retiring from the department effective July 13.

Marwell’s complete memo to HarperCollins staff regarding the changes can be read on GalleyCat.

Ingram Names COO

On Tuesday, John R. Ingram, chairman and CEO of the Ingram Content Group, announced the appointment of Shawn Morin as the company’s new chief operating officer. Morin has been Ingram’s chief information officer since 2009.

As COO, Morin will be in charge of managing the company’s commercial activities, systems, and operations. This includes leadership of Ingram’s divisions that serve publishers, libraries, booksellers, and educators worldwide, as well as the information technology systems that support Ingram’s services.

The company’s finance, legal, and human resources functions will continue to report to John Ingram.

Morin’s previous positions include CIO and vice president of information technology at Bass Pro Shops; CIO of Royal Numico, N.V., in The Netherlands; business analyst for Watkins Motor Lines; and lead engineer for Lockheed Space Operations Company at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Holtzbrinck Reorganizes

Beginning July 2, the von Holtzbrinck Group will be restructured into three major divisions — Global Trade, Global Science and Education, and Holtzbrinck Media — in place of its current configuration along geographic lines. Under the restructuring, announced this week, Macmillan U.S. CEO John Sargent will head Global Trade, which encompasses all Holtzbrinck consumer book publishing operations, including the U.S., U.K., German, and Australian houses, as reported by The Bookseller.  Annette Thomas, CEO of Macmillan U.K., will lead Global Science and Education, which includes Nature Publishing Group, Macmillan Education, Macmillan Higher Education and Palgrave Macmillan, as well as Digital Science, Digital Education, and Macmillan New Ventures.

Holtzbrinck head Stefan von Holtzbrinck said in a statement: “This reorganization will allow us to take even more advantage of the converging forces of digitization and globalization by providing us with increased focus and flexibility: There will be more opportunities for cooperation in exciting projects around the globe.”

 The company’s branding and executive board, including Sargent and Thomas, remains unchanged.

Free Speech Groups Defend Graphic Novel’s Place in Library

The National Coalition Against Censorship, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund have joined forces to defend Alan Moore’s Neocomicon (Avatar). The graphic novel is under challenge by the Greenville, South Carolina, public libraries in response to a parent’s complaint that it includes “sexually graphic” images.

In a letter this week to the Greenville Public Library Board of Trustees, the groups warned against the First Amendment implications of removing the book because of an individual’s complaint about its content and urged the library to keep the book on its shelves. Objections were raised by a patron after her teenage daughter checked out the book, which contains adult themes. It was correctly shelved in the adult section of the library and the teenager possessed an adult library card.

The groups called Alan Moore, author of Watchmen and V for Vendetta, “one of the most influential and acclaimed authors in both the graphic novel category and the larger literary culture” and said that Neonomicon, which is inspired by horror and fantasy writer H.P. Lovecraft’s works, is an “essential work by an author who is indisputably a master within his field.”

Rock Bottom Remainders on Final Tour

After 20 years, The Rock Bottom Remainders, whose first performance was at an ABA Convention, will call it quits when their final tour, “Past Our Bedtime,” comes to an end this week. The group, which has raised an estimated two million dollars for literacy efforts, is scheduled to perform on June 22 at Los Angeles’ El Rey Theatre and on the 23^rd at the American Library Association convention in Anaheim.

“The Rock Bottom Remainders, a contingent that has made it clear with every performance that literary giants like Amy Tan, Stephen King and Scott Turow really did make the right decision when they set aside their musical ambitions to write books, is calling it a career after two Southern California shows later this month,” said the Hollywood Reporter.

The group decided to wrap things up in part because of the death last month of the group’s founder, book publicist and lead singer Kathi Goldmark. “We sort of felt this would be a good time to end it because it just isn’t going to be the same without Kathi,” Dave Barry, the group’s lead guitarist, told the paper.

Among the well-known musicians who have played with the Remainders over the years are Bruce Springsteen, Warren Zevon, Judy Collins, Ronnie Spector, and the Byrds’ Roger McGuinn. McGuinn will be a special guest on the band’s final tour. It was Springsteen, Barry said, who told the group they weren’t that bad, but then offered this advice: “Don’t get any better or you’ll be just another lousy garage band.”

Scheduled to perform on the Past Our Bedtime tour are Stephen King (who hasn’t performed with the band since 2007), Amy Tan, Dave Barry, Mitch Albom, Scott Turow, Matt Groening, James McBride, Greg Iles, Ridley Pearson, Roy Blount Jr.,and Sam Barry.

Sacramento Record Store to Open Stand-Alone Bookstore

Dimple Records, a 38-year-old Sacramento-area chain, will open its first stand-alone bookstore this summer, according to the Modesto Bee.

Located across from Dimple’s music, DVD, and gaming center on Arden Way in Sacramento, the bookstore will feature a mix of new and used inventory, with an emphasis on customer trade-ins for cash or in-store credit. “Most Dimple locations began carrying graphic novels and novelty titles a few years ago, but limited the book display to a single table per store,” the Bee said. “In October, the chain began advertising for book trade-ins with an eye on expansion. The inventory is at 200,000 and growing, roughly 85 percent of it used.”