Bookend
Bookbuyer
Weidenfeld and Nicolson have not only moved to Clapham, an area which their promotion department wistfully refers to as Battersea, but have also made the most substantial changes to their editorial department since Tony Goodwin joined them many, many years ago. The move has been greeted with mixed feelings. It is debatable — pace Mr Leapman of the Times Diary — whether there are any good eating places in the area. But then unlike Curtis Brown, whose Chairman has issued a diktat in these days of falling revenue that all important clients are to be taken out to lunch as soon as possible, Weidenfeld's do enough for their authors not to worry about the quality of the food they push down their throats.
On the matter of editorial changes, Weidenfeld have done very well for themselves. Routledge are extremely sorry to lose Andrew Wheatcroft who had started to "fit in to the firm," as they say, and had begun to enliven the list as well. One mark of his success is that Routledge are asking, in their advertisement for a replacement, for someone not necessarily experienced in publishing, who will be free to develop his/her own list in any areas so long as they don't duplicate the existing editorial patterns. It will be a good job to go for, and there will be more elbow room than Routledge has provided in the past. Andrew Wheatcroft goes to Weid.enfeld to replace Julian Shuckburgh as editorial director in charge of the academic list.
The most important appointment is that of Robin Denniston over the head of Tony Goodwin as group deputy chairman and managing director of Arthur Barker. How he will sort himself out with Tony Goodwin remains to be seen. If Goodwin stays, as he now seems likely to do, he may well concentrate on the Weidenfeld fiction and leave Denniston in charge of the general list. Whether this will give Robin Denniston more scope than he had at Hodders as managing and editorial director, is open to doubt. And how will Michael Attenborough, yet another member of the family, make out as the new managing editor of Hodders — a job which requires more editorial work than he has had responsibility for in the past? To be continued by Bookbuyer next week.
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