Ballantine unit broken up, Black resigns
The long expected restructuring of the Random House sales force will take effect April 5, according to a memo sent to all Random employees last week by Don Weisberg, president of the Random House Inc. sales group. Under the realignment, Random will trim the number of its sales forces from four to three publisher-dedicated divisions, eliminating an unspecified number of sales positions in the process. The consolidation notwithstanding, Random will still have a sales force numbering more than 250, giving the company what it considers to be the largest trade sales group in the country.
Among the major changes that will take place is the breakup of the Ballantine sales force, which resulted in the resignation of Steve Black, who had been senior v-p, director of sales for the Ballantine Publishing Group. The Ballantine list will now be sold by a new sales division composed of Ballantine, Bantam, Broadway, Dell and Doubleday. Reps from this division will sell all adult frontlist and backlist titles from the unit's publishing operations and will be responsible for the sale of all mass market paperbacks.
David Lappin, formerly senior v-p, executive director of sales for BDD, has been named to a similar position at the new sales unit. Lappin will report to Weisberg. Reporting to Lappin will be George Fisher, who was appointed v-p, director of mass merchandise sales; he will oversee a new sales department that will bring together mass merchandise distribution, national accounts sales, distributor field sales, and retail chain and marketing and merchandising for all of the company's adult titles. Others reporting to Lappin will include Stanley Cohen, v-p, director of retail field sales; Marty McGrath, v-p, director of resupply distributors, Advanced Marketing Services and telemarketing; Janet Cooke, v-p, director of sales, Barnes &Noble; and Heide Sachner, v-p, director of sales, Borders and Books-A-Million.
Random's children's sales force has also undergone a major change. The unit will be significantly expanded and will sell titles from all of the company's children's publishing divisions to all traditional markets. In the past, the BDD units did not have a dedicated children's sales force. Jack St. Mary has been named v-p and director of sales for the group; he will also report to Weisberg.
The group least affected by the restructuring is the Random House trade sales division, which will continue to represent all Crown Publishing, Knopf Publishing, Random House Trade Publishing, Random House Information and Fodor's adult books, audios and large-print titles to all traditional channels of distribution except the mass merchandisers. Since the departure of Bruce Harris to Workman in February (News, Feb. 8), the Random sales group has reported directly to Weisberg, although Weisberg is reportedly looking to find a successor to Harris. RH's corporate sales department, online sales and special markets are not affected.
