BTW News Briefs

HarperCollins' Lennertz to Once Again Focus on Independents

On February 26, HarperCollins Publishers announced that Carl Lennertz, vice president of marketing for the HarperCollins imprints, was named to the newly created position of vice president, independent retailing, where he will be responsible for overseeing the company's relationship with independent booksellers. Among his new responsibilities, Lennertz will be responsible for managing HarperCollins' relationship with Book Sense. Lennertz will report to Josh Marwell, president of sales for HarperCollins Publishers.

In related changes, HarperCollins' sales field management has been restructured: Jeanette Zwart will become vice president, sales, Eastern region, which has been expanded to include Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee and the Southeast. She will also direct sales nationally for the college store channel and will continue in her role as BookSense.com liaison.

Kristin Bowers has been promoted to vice president, sales for the Western region. Her region is being expanded to include Southern California and the Southwest, including Texas. She will continue to supervise the HarperCollins sales effort at Amazon.com.

BlueHen Founders Open New Publishing House

According to Authorlink, Greg Michalson and Fred Ramey, founders of the Denver-based MacMurray & Beck, which grew into the now defunct BlueHen, an imprint of Penguin Putnam, procured private funding to establish a new publishing house called Unbridled Books. The company plans to release about a dozen books per year. Ramey is based in Denver and Michalson is based in Columbia, Missouri. They will have offices in both cities.

The new publishers will offer authors small advances with the hope of developing them into well-known names in the future. Unbridled Books will use commission sales people to represent their titles.

ibooks Launches New Children's Literature Imprint

On March 5, ibooks announced the launch of a new children's literature imprint, Milk and Cookies Press. Milk and Cookies Press will publish books of honored authors and illustrators; bring work from other fields, such as film and music into the world of children's books; and revive picture book classics in new editions.

Milk and Cookies' first title is Gonna Roll the Bones, an original book by David Wiesner, who won a Caldecott Medal for both The Three Pigs (Clarion) and Tuesday (Clarion). ibooks publishes books in traditional and Internet formats and is distributed by S&S.

Britannica and Sourcebooks Partner on Britannica Almanac

Encyclopedia Britannica and Sourcebooks recently announced an agreement in which Sourcebooks will handle manufacturing, marketing, and sales of the Encyclopedia Britannica Almanac 2005 in the U.S. and Canada. In a release, the companies said that the deal signals a strong level of commitment by both companies to Britannica's almanac, which was first published in 2003.

The Koret Jewish Book Award Winners

On Tuesday, March 2, the 2003-2004 Koret Jewish Book Award winners were announced. This is the sixth year that Koret Jewish Book Awards have been presented in cooperation with the National Foundation for Jewish Culture. Winning authors receive $10,000 and considerable recognition for their contributions to the growing collection of important Jewish books.

The winners were:

• A Love Made Out of Nothing and Zohara’s Journey by Barbara Honigmann, translated from German by John Barrett (David R. Godine), in the fiction category; and Foiglman by Aharon Megged, translated from Hebrew by Marganit Weinberger-Rotman (The Toby Press), in the fiction category;
  
• Marc Chagall and His Times: A Documentary Narrative by Benjamin Harshav (Stanford University Press), in the Biography/Autobiography/Literary Studies category;
  
• The Jewish Enlightenment by Shmuel Feiner, translated from Hebrew by Chaya Naor (University of Pennsylvania Press), in the History category;
  
• The Zohar, Pritzker Edition, Volumes I and II by Daniel C. Matt (Stanford University Press), in the Philosophy/Thought category; and
  
• Rachel Kadish in the Young Writer on Jewish Themes category.