Publishers and Editors

If you’re looking for a new imprint (and, frankly, who isn’t?), might we suggest Morgan Road Books, headed by Amy Hertz and now an official addition to the Broadway Books family? Launching in 2005, the imprint will focus on the ever-popular health, fitness, spirituality, psychology, literary non-fiction niche. In other words, if it’s kind of true and touchy-feely, it fits. Broadway Books

Jon Riley is stepping down from his editor-in-chief position at Faber & Faber. Publisher’s Lunch suggests he’ll return at a future date to function as an editor…but we bet he’ll still get a seat of power during staff meetings. Faber & Faber Publisher’s Lunch

We’re going to be honest — we had high hopes for the Guardian article on the tensions at HarperCollins in Great Britain. Perhaps it was the use of the word “row”. We had visions of fisticuffs dancing in our head. Instead, we got rumor and innuendo. Nothing wrong with that, but it appears that the row is nothing more than a group of executives who don’t really like each other, have different styles, and, perhaps, the kind of poor judgment that comes with loose purse strings. At least we got a decent quote of the week out of it. Row

One of our flaws is our inability to target things (hence winning the most improved player in softball nine years running — if we actually threw to our cut-off person, it was considered a major victory). We cannot sit down and write with a line or, even, a market in mind. Sometimes we get lucky and things naturally fit in a particular area, but mostly, we’re punting. This is pretty much why we finally accepted that we’ll never write for Harlequin. Or not. We never know what will come out of our fingers next. We hear about so many writers

You know how hard we work for you — we get the news and then we start off researching to provide even more information. We want you to be well-armed as you fight your way through this industry. We do this despite the knowledge that publishing companies have really bad websites. There appears to be a lot of confusion as to who the target audiences are and how to best serve them. Just by way of example: authors (aspiring, etc) are target audiences. They seem to be forgotten or buried. Yeah, it’s possible this is highly intentional. But it’s also

Also from Publisher’s Lunch, Jo Ann Miller is now editorial director for Basic Books’ Basic, Basic Civitas, Counterpoint, and Westview Press ventures. Basic Books

Publisher’s Lunch tells us that Laurie Rippon of Harper Design International has added the title “publisher” to her resume. Because you never truly leave your old job behind (as we know far too well), she’ll keep on keeping on with her duties as SVP/Creative Director. Harper Design International

We hate to think bad thoughts (mostly), but we are getting concerned about the flood of manga publishers out there. Sure, we love the stuff, but is it possible that in jumping on a trend, the industry has, well, already hit the saturation level? We ask this in all sincerity as yet another manga publisher is established. We also ask this after our recent trip to a big ole bookstore filled with racks of manga…and we were the only person shopping in the section. Dallas Middaugh (Del Rey — he’ll be staying on with the company even as the venture

It took us a few tries, what with mornings not being our best time of day, but we think we have it: HarperCollins is changing the way it does business. Whew! All of those words for such a simple concept. If we have this straight (and there’s no way of knowing for sure), HC will be bringing more of the activities it traditionally outsourced, like ancillary rights, in house. This means these ventures have proven sufficiently profitable, mainstream, if you will, to merit the creation of internal infrastructure. For HC, this means they won’t be getting royalties from third parties

Now, don’t get us wrong — we support the concepts behind Simon Spotlight Entertainment. There is a dearth of books geared toward the, uh, hipper audience. Wow, we can’t even type that word without sort-of giggling. Maybe it’s because by the time there’s a book, the cool factor has frozen. That and we’re pretty sure Ashlee Simpson is a made-up celebrity. We do like the idea of a publisher who can respond quickly to modern culture — and one who is willing take risks (now, how willing the corporate parent will be is another question). MediaBistro’s interview with Jen Bergstrom