By Drew Grant 4/15 2:26pm

Publishing

David Zinczenko, fitness guru. (Getty Images)

Why David Zinczenko Deserves That Multimillion Dollar Book Deal With Random House Along With His Own Imprint

David Zinczenko, former Rodale Executive and EIC of Men’s Health, just signed a deal with Random House which the publisher is calling “unprecedented in scope.”

Not only will Mr. Zinczenko, BFF of Dan Abrams and author of the hugely succesful series Eat This, Not That, be penning new titles for a Random House imprint under his new contract, but will be getting his own, separate imprint as well, along with a publishing partnership for his new company’s titles, and, oh yeah, a swoonworthy amount of cash. And guess what? He’s totally worth it. Read More

By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 12/06/12 4:49pm

Cash Money

bookpg_fsog_lg

Random House Employees Get Some 50 Shades of Grey Money

Book publishing may not be in the best shape right now, but Random House employees have something to celebrate this holiday season. CEO Markus Dohle announced at last night’s company holiday  that all employees will get a $5,000 bonus, the Times reports.

“Random House had its corporate Christmas party last night in New York and word is that Santa likes bondage. A lot,” the paper of record wrote. “Call it 5,000 shades of green.” Read More

By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 9/19/12 2:42pm

Publishing

(photo by Martha Kaplan)

Knopf Remembers Longtime Editor Ashbel Green

Last night, legendary Knopf editor Ashbel Green died while at dinner with his wife, Elizabeth Osha, and friends near their Stonington, Conn., home. He was 84.

Mr. Green, who was known as “Ash,” started working at the publishing house in 1964 and went on to edit over 500 books by a stable of well-known authors, political figures and journalists such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Vaclav Havel, George H.W. Bush and Walter Cronkite.

To many in the publishing world, Mr. Green was one of the last of the old-style gentleman editors.

“You could hear his typewriter from anywhere on the floor,” said Paul Bogaards, director of publicity at Knopf. “He was a classic editor with a red pencil.”

“He was an editor’s editor,” said Knopf editor Gary Fisketjon. “Those kind of people are rare in any generation. Read More

By Kat Stoeffel 2/15/12 11:54am

Changes

(image via Twitter)

Crown VP Tina Pohlman Named Publisher at Open Road

Jane Friedman announced today that Crown VP Tina Pohlman has been named publisher at Open Road Integrated Media. Ms. Pohlman will lead the e-book backlist specialist’s acquisition of new titles, expand into new verticals and oversee editorial services, according to Ms. Friedman, Open Road co-founder and CEO.

Ms. Pohlman is currently the publisher of Three Rivers Press and Broadway Books, brought in during the 2010 shake-up of Random House’s Crown Publishing Group. Prior to that, she was a senior editor at Spiegel & Grau.

She starts at Open Road on March 5. Read More

By Rex Reed 11/22/11 10:34am

theater

Rickman, center.

Alan Rickman Teaches the Texas Chainsaw Massacre of Writers Workshops in Seminar

I’ve never been a fan of Alan Rickman’s tight-lipped, prissy-mouthed acting style, but sometimes he picks a role that fits like a knee-high nylon sock, in a play that suits his nasal, slanty-eyed mannerisms with the sound of two hands clapping instead of one. The result in Theresa Rebeck’s Seminar, at the Golden, is a blessing. In fact, the entire cast of five is a marvel of well-oiled introspection, which is certainly a good thing, because without them, the enjoyable but often untidy and uneven play would be nothing more than a lot of clever one-liners. Read More

By Emily Witt 8/15/11 1:05am

Book Deals

Lin.

Tao Lin Announces Five-Figure Sale of Taipei, Taiwan to Vintage; Tim O’Connell, ‘Prolific Tweeter,’ to Edit

As the foremost chronicler of the young novelist Tao Lin’s every whim, The Observer was hoping we might break the story of Tao Lin’s next book deal, which he announced he was shopping a couple weeks back. Then, on a Sunday when our moods were already dampened by incessant rain and the looming prospect of Monday, Mr. Lin wrote to inform us that we had lost the story to Mike Vilensky at The Wall Street Journal. So he granted us an interview. Read More