Editors

GalleyCat contributor Jeff Rivera interviewed Grand Central publisher Jamie Raab for mediabistro.com’s So What Do You Do? feature today.

In the interview, Raab (pictured, via) defended her imprint’s standard practice of giving authors a 25% royalty rate for eBooks: “We have an infrastructure to support.” She outlined the values of what traditional publishers have to offer whether they are new in their writing career or established New York Times bestselling authors.

When asked on whether or not she fears big-name writers will take a less traditional publishing route, she replied: “I think about that a lot because I know it’s on authors’ minds. And I think it’s incumbent on every publisher to do a better job than they’ve ever done before — more creative on marketing and eBooks, working in partnership more closely with their authors, keeping them in the loop, publishing more strategically.”

Read more

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.

As writers carry out their new year’s resolutions to revise their manuscripts, they have to be wondering: what do editors want this year?

The Andrew Lownie Literary Agency, a London-based company, has decided to ask that question to twenty different editors. His list included HarperCollins associate publisher Myles Archibald, Random House publisher Trevor Dolby, Penguin Press/Particular Books editorial director Georgina Laycock, Little, Brown publisher David Shelley and Bantam Press/Doubleday publishing director Susanna Wadeson.

Here’s more from Archibald at HarperCollins: “Ideas or stories with a strong, interesting narrative structure is essential for all media and is what non-fiction now needs. It is also interesting that non-fiction works well with broad subjects, or very specific, illuminating stories. Finally, it is striking how stories that seem to have waned from people’s memories can have a massive resurgence – so perhaps new takes on old stories might be a vein to mine.”

Joy Peskin has been named vice president and editorial director of Farrar, Straus and Giroux Books for Young Readers.

Peskin established her children’s publishing career while working at Penguin Books for Young Readers and Scholastic. Prior to this move, she served as associate publisher at Viking Children’s Books. At Penguin, she worked with Speak author Laurie Halse Anderson, After author Amy Efaw and Looks author Madeleine George.

FSG Books for Young Readers publisher Simon Boughton had this statement at Publishers Weekly: “At a time of great change, success is still built on a fundamental love of and ability to find and publish great stories—and Joy is both a savvy businesswoman and an editor with a great love of the book. Her outlook and vision are an ideal match for FSG; she’ll bring new authors and new vitality to a great program. I’m very excited for the imprint’s future under her direction.”

Alethea Spiridon-Hopson has been named Entangled Publishing’s new managing editor and an acquiring senior editor.

In her new role, Spiridon-Hopson will oversee the company’s new romance genre line (headed by editorial director Lori Wilde) called “Indulgence.”

Wilde gave this statement in the release: “Indulgence will focus on alpha heroes and storylines similar to those found in Harlequin’s very successful Desire line.  Our category romances will emphasize young, fresh voices within the traditional tropes.”

Spiridon-Hopson is looking for “flirty voices,” good humor and strong characters. Prior to this appointment, she served as an editor at Harlequin for almost seven years and worked as a freelance editor. In the past, she has worked with authors Bobby Hutchinson, Roberta Gellis and Lori Foster.

Yesterday Hachette Book Group USA announced two promotions at the Little, Brown and Company imprint.

Geoff Shandler has been named vice president and editorial director. Shandler will oversee the expansion in the imprint’s nonfiction program. Some of the authors he has worked with include The Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell, former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

Judy Clain has been named vice president and editor-in-chief. In her new role, Clain will chair the imprint’s editorial board, manage the editorial team, and serve as the lead ambassador to literary agents. Some of the authors she has worked with include Julie & Julia memoir author Julie Powell and Room novelist Emma Donoghue.

Bloomberg Businessweek recently profiled the literary development company, Paper Lantern Lit.

Founded by author Lauren Oliver and former HarperCollins children’s books editor Lexa Hillyer, Paper Lantern Lit has sold twenty young-adult novels to publishers and landed a “first look” deal with Fox 2000 Pictures.

Here’s more from Businessweek: “Schechter and Hillyer come up with ideas—or ‘sparks,’ as they like to call them—and sell the finished product to publishers. The writers, whom they find through friends or sites such as Craigslist, get a flat fee and bonuses based on sales. The publisher’s book deal is with Paper Lantern, which guarantees that the work will be done on time.”

Read more

Anne Alexander has been named senior vice president and editorial director of National Geographic’s Books division.

In her new role, Alexander will manage the editorial development for the division’s general trade, direct response and digital books. She reports directly to chief creative officer Melina Gerosa Bellows.

Here’s more from the release: “Alexander had been an editorial consultant for National Geographic’s publishing group since October 2010 and was responsible for developing the special issue of National Geographic’s Exploring History magazine. She has extensive experience in the publishing business, having held senior editorial positions at Prevention and Natural Health and having worked internationally at AOL in the United Kingdom and with a major European publisher. While at Rodale, publisher of Prevention magazine, she led the Healthy Living Book Group, producing 30 books a year and managing a staff of more than 50 employees.”

Authors Ann Van­der­Meer and Jeff Van­der­Meer just opened Weird Fiction Review, an online journal dedicated to “an ongo­ing explo­ration into all facets of the weird, in all of its many forms.” In August, Ann VanderMeer and her staff were cut at Weird Tales.

Weird Fiction Review launched with a Neil Gaiman interview about weird fiction, an episode of the “Reading The Weird” webcomic by Leah Thomas, a translation of Thomas Owen‘s “Kavar the Rat,” and The art of New Orleans gallery by artist Myrtle Von Damitz III. While they don’t have the same editors, the journal will maintain “a sym­bi­otic rela­tion­ship” with S.T. Joshi’s print jour­nal, The Weird Fic­tion Review.

Here’s more about the site: “[It has] a kind of non-denominational approach that appre­ci­ates Love­craft but also Kafka, Angela Carter and Clark Ash­ton Smith, Shirley Jack­son and Fritz Leiber — along with the next gen­er­a­tion of weird writ­ers and inter­na­tional weird. The empha­sis will be on non­fic­tion on writ­ers and par­tic­u­lar books, but we will also run fea­tures on weird art, music, and film, as well as occa­sional fiction. Angela Slat­ter cur­rently serves as our man­ag­ing edi­tor, Luis Rodrigues cre­ated the site, and Larry Nolen and Paul Smith will be among the reg­u­lar colum­nists.”

Ethan Nosowsky has been named the new editorial director at McSweeney’s. He currently serves as editor-at-large at Graywolf Press and will begin in his new position starting Monday, October 31st.

As editorial director, Nosowsky will acquire and edit manuscripts in both the fiction and nonfiction genres. He will also manage the development of McSweeney’s other publications.

Nosowsky gave this statement in the release: “In little more than a decade McSweeney’s has established a unique place for itself in the national publishing landscape. I’m delighted to be given a chance to contribute to such an innovative publishing program, and to be able to do so in my hometown is icing on the cake.”

Barbara Jones has been named executive editor at Henry Holt & Company. She will report to editor-in-chief Gillian Blake.

Here’s more from the release: “[Jones] was most recently editorial director of Hyperion Books and Voice, where she acquired Jane Lynch‘s Happy Accidents and edited the forthcoming novels Arcadia by Lauren Groff and The Red Book by Deborah Copaken Kogan, as well as the city of Houston’s current selection for the ‘One City, One Book’ program, One Amazing Thing by Chitra Divakaruni.”

Jones (pictured) will acquire fiction, memoir and narrative nonfiction projects. She began her career in magazine publishing with editorial positions at Rodale, Inc. and Meredith Corporation. She started working in book publishing at Disney’s publishing division.