Leaver Succeeds Nurnberg

Charlie Nurnberg resigned as publisher and CEO of Sterling Publishing last week and was replaced by Marcus Leaver, who was named president. Leaver had been executive v-p and COO. Jason Prince, associate publisher, has been promoted to publisher.

Saletan, Others Named at HMH

Becky Saletan has been appointed senior v-p and publisher of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt adult trade books, a unit of the HMH Trade & Reference division. Janet Silver, who had headed the adult publishing program for HM, is leaving the company. In her expanded role, Saletan will direct all Houghton and Harcourt Adult Trade publishing from New York.

On the sales side in that division, Maire Gorman has been named v-p, director of sales; John Mendelson has been named director of national accounts; Paul Von Drasek has been made director of field sales; and Colleen Murphy is now director of special markets.

Caldecott, Newbery Winners

Brian Selznick won the 2008 Randolph Caldecott Medal for The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Scholastic Press). It's the first time that a novel has won the country's top prize for illustration, and it's also Scholastic's first Caldecott Award. Laura Amy Schlitz won the 2008 Newbery Medal for Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village, illustrated by Robert Byrd (Candlewick). Schlitz is a school librarian in Baltimore.

Schwalbe Leaving Hyperion

Hyperion editor-in-chief Will Schwalbe will leave the company at the end of the week. Schwalbe, who had been at Hyperion for 11 years, is leaving to pursue “some ideas he has for the next chapter in his career,” said Bob Miller in a memo to staff.

Painton Joining S&S

Time editor Priscilla Painton has been named editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster's flagship imprint. Painton will start March 3 and is taking over a title that was most recently held by Michael Korda, who is now the imprint's editor-in-chief emeritus. Painton has held a number of posts at Time, which she joined in 1989.

AtlasBooks Buys Biblio

AtlasBooks, the distribution arm of BookMasters in Ashland, Ohio, has acquired Biblio Distribution, the small press sister company of National Book Network. The purchase adds 500 more clients to AtlasBooks, which already represented close to 900 publishers. BookMasters COO Dave Wurster anticipates that the transition of books and electronic data will be complete by the end of the month and that AtlasBooks will be ready to take new orders by February 1. Late last year, AtlasBooks took on about 70 publishers from the bankrupt BookWorld.

Scholastic Sets Green Targets

Scholastic announced that by 2012 it will boost the use of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)—certified paper to 30% of total output and will up its use of recycled paper from 11% in fiscal 2007 to 25% in five years. In fiscal 2007, 4% of its paper was FSC certified.

Down Quarter For Courier

At Courier Corp., slower-than-expected growth in its educational printing segment and a 24% decline in sales at Creative Homeowner resulted in a 2% decline in revenue and a 65% drop in profits in the first quarter ended December 29. Sales in the manufacturing segment fell 1%, to $49.7 million, due to a 7% decline in sales to the trade market. In publishing, in addition to weakness at Creative Homeowner, sales at Dover were also down, falling 2%, while revenue at Research & Education Association rose 19%. Total revenue in the publishing unit was down 9%, to $15.3 million.

Meredith Cuts Book Unit

Meredith Corp. is combining its special-interest magazine and media and newsstand business divisions with its Meredith Books division, creating a new unit to be called Meredith Retail. Thirty-five positions have been eliminated as a result of this restructuring, with 20 employees leaving Meredith and 15 others transferred elsewhere within the company. Most of the jobs eliminated were at Meredith Books, including editorial, graphics and sales positions.

Correction

In the article “Curbstone Carries On” (Jan. 14), Curbstone board member George Gibson was erroneously described as the former publisher of Walker & Co. He remains publisher there.