London Calling

Despite some disruptions from the war in Iran and other world affairs, this year’s London Book Fair started strong with Audible announcing plans for a global expansion and the show floor abuzz with speculation about Simon & Schuster’s new CEO, Greg Greeley. Speaking of which, Greeley spoke with PW about his plans for S&S, affirming that its owners at KKR remain focused on growing the publisher. In other big personnel news, Hachette Book Group’s COO of U.S. distribution Michael Shoults has been promoted to CEO of distribution. And Dover Publications is growing its frontlist operations under the banner of Midnight Rose, a romance fiction imprint that will launch this summer. Readers are expressing concern over Media Do’s development of an AI translation system after the Japanese company agreed to purchase English-language manga publisher Seven Seas earlier this month, per the Beat. In the U.K., thousands of writers—including Kazuo Ishiguro, Richard Osman, and Jeanette Winterson—have published an “empty book” which is being distributed to London Book Fair attendees in protest of AI firms’ book piracy, the Bookseller reports. In response to a boycott initiated by the French booksellers’ association Syndicat de la Librairie Française, Amazon has pulled out of sponsoring the Paris Book Fair, per the Guardian. And the New York Times talks with Mark Oppenheimer, whose new biography of Judy Blume is out today, about his complicated relationship with his subject.