Jason Rekulak has been promoted to publisher of Quirk Books. In addition, Brett Cohen has been promoted to president at Quirk Books and David Borgenicht will take the role of Quirk Productions CEO.

Rekulak acquired and edited many of the house’s bestsellers including the mash-up title Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and the young adult novel Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.

A number of other publishing organizations have also announced promotions this week…

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Penguin International president Andrew Phillips has been named the next CEO of Author Solutions, the self-publishing business purchased by Penguin.

He will start in July. Current CEO Kevin Weiss “will leave to take up a new position which will be announced separately next week.”

A number of publishing promotions were also announced this week…

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Grand Central Publishing will nearly double the releases from its romance imprint Forever and its eBook-only counterpart Forever Yours this year.

The Hachette imprint expects to grow from last year’s list of 64 titles to an estimated 120 titles this year and more than 190 titles in 2014. They will also add editorial and marketing staff at these imprints. Forever currently publishes established writers like Jill Shalvis or Larissa Ione and has acquired books by self-published bestsellers like Jessica Sorensen and J.A. Redmerski.

Forever’s founding editor Beth de Guzman had this comment in the release: “With the romance audience more robust and diverse than at any other time, we are thrilled to expand our program to match the insatiable demand in the marketplace for romance books in every format available.”

Reagan Arthur, the editorial director of Little, Brown’s Reagan Arthur Books imprint, will be the next publisher and senior VP of Little, Brown. She will assume her new role on April 1st as Michael Pietsch becomes the new CEO of Hachette Book Group.

The release included this news: “In stepping into the role of Publisher, Arthur will retire the Reagan Arthur Books imprint she has led for three years.”

Arthur has worked at Little, Brown since 2001, earning her own imprint in 2008. She has edited Tina Fey, Joshua Ferris, Kate Atkinson, George Pelecanos and Ian Rankin.

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In a recent earnings report, one major publisher noted rising eBook sales are diminishing net sales.

AppNewser has more details:

The Hachette Book Group reported today that the company’s net sales for the fourth quarter 2012 were down 5.7 percent. The company’s net sales dropped 3.4 percent for the entire year of 2012. The increase in eBook sales drove net sales down, as eBooks bring in less revenue, the company explained in a press release. Despite the drop in net sales, volume sales were up 1.2 percent for the year. HBG’s net sales from eBooks and audio products totaled 26 percent of overall revenue in 2012, up from 23 percent in 2011. The publisher also had seventy-one titles reach the New York Times eBook bestseller chart last year.

Hachette Book Group, Penguin and Simon & Schuster have launched Bookish, nearly two years after the site was first announced in May 2011.

The site will recommend books and let readers shop for books. It also shares book excerpts and features essays from its editors and authors (we’ve included some excerpts below).

According to Digital Book World sources, the publishers have invested “about $16 million” in the new venture. Bookish also counted the participation of 16 other major publishers, including Random House, Inc., Scholastic, HarperCollins Publishers and Perseus Books Group.

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A number of publishing professionals at Hachette’s Little, Brown & Company imprint were promoted this week.

Within the marketing/publicity department, four staff members have received promotions. Heather Fain has been named vice president, associate publisher and marketing director. Nicole Dewey has will now serve as vice president and executive director of publicity.

Sabrina Callahan‘s new title is now director of publicity for James Patterson. Theresa Giacopasi has moved up to online publicity manager.

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The Lagardère Group, the corporate parent of Hachette, reported its third quarter earnings this week.

AppNewser has the full report:

According to the financial report, Lagardère’s net sales were approximately $795 million, up 4.2 percent on a reported basis during Q3. Hachette’s net sales were up 6 percent during the quarter, but were still below the prior year. Digital book sales at Hachette have remained a steady business and continue to represent 20 percent of all book sales from the group in the U.S. and the U.K., the same as last year. Digital accounted for 6.4 percent of total net sales for all of Hachette Livre, which includes international sales.

The Hachette Book Group has restructured its sales force, bringing the print and digital sales teams together and integrating research and analytics into the company’s overall strategy.

The company said that the changes will not include layoffs, but they added new departments and made a number of promotions. Chris Murphy has been promoted to senior vice president of the newly formed retail sales department. HBG has also hired David Bowers away from Oxford University Press to serve as SVP of sales strategy and operations, another newly formed department.

Additional promotions include Rick Cobban, who has been named vice president of national accounts. Mike Heuer will be promoted to executive director of the National Field Force, and will lead the ID and field sales teams. Karen Torres has been promoted to VP account marketing and retail operations.

Three publishers will drop the agency model that kept eBook prices the same across all marketplaces, and the eBook price wars have already commenced. PaidContent confirmed yesterday that HarperCollins prices have already started to change.

Last week, a federal judge approved a settlement between between Hachette Book Group, Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins and the Department of Justice. Soon eBook marketplaces can sell some digital books at a discount, reigniting the eBook price wars.

Prices on Hachette and Simon & Schuster digital books still contain the “This price was set by the publisher” tag on Amazon, but their price restrictions will also be lifted as part of the agreement. In the meantime, we took a look at the most expensive books from these publishers–a way to track the changes in agency model books.

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