Jane Friedman

It was a small party on Steve Rubin's roof last night, not a big party. Just two "civilians" there, as Jane Friedman, the guest of honor, put it—everyone else was either a publishing executive, an editor, a high-powered literary agent, or a member of her family.

Bob Miller, head of the Harper Studio imprint at the publishing house Ms. Friedman ran until a few months ago, said that if you bombed the terrace, "you'd lose the entire industry."

For Ms. Friedman, it was really just about friendship. Almost everyone who came, she said, except for the publicist Matthew Hiltzik, she'd known for over 20 years.  read more »

New York takes a swing at the Jane Friedman mystery at the top of this week's Intelligencer, reporting a possibly controversial decision that Ms. Friedman made in April at the London Book Fair when she moved a book party for Egyptian novelist Alaa Al Aswany out of the HarperCollins booth because she found him too anti-Israel.

That "because" is disputed by a source close to Ms. Friedman, who tells New York that the author's politics had nothing to do with Ms. Friedman's decision to move his party out of the HC booth. The same source says that Ms. Friedman's abrupt exit from the company was not related to any of this.

Leon Neyfakh looks at Jane Friedman's departure from HarperCollins and writes, "There are questions now about what really happened, and the official story does not seem to add up. How long had Ms. Friedman known she was being replaced? Had she really submitted her resignation, or did Mr. Murdoch fire her? If he did, then why?"

Spencer Morgan meets Liam McMullan, son of celebrity party photographer Patrick McMullan. "I’ve always wanted to do lots of things, like direct movies, and write things, and make art, all different types," says Mr. McMullan.

Plus: Richard Engel... Reporting from Baghdad... Cute fuzzy animals.

At 11 a.m. last Wednesday morning, Jane Friedman presided over a meeting with her publishers and some marketing people on the 15th floor of the HarperCollins building in midtown. The meeting was about digital outreach, and offered an occasion to discuss ideas for how the News Corp.-owned publishing house could use computers to sell more books. This meeting, a regular thing, was held once every two or three weeks as part of an initiative called Publishing+ that Ms. Friedman started a few years ago. Last Wednesday’s meeting was devoted to discussing a podcast for BlogTalkRadio.com, as well as an original video that the publicity department had managed to place on a bunch of blogs to promote a recently published memoir about life in a polygamist cult.  read more »

The Times and the Wall Street Journal have Day 2 stories on Jane Friedman’s abrupt exit from HarperCollins; both have interviews with Brian Murray, the new C.E.O., who says News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch, who has owned the publishing house for about 20 years, first summoned him about a promotion on Monday.

An unnamed Times source says Ms. Friedman didn’t discuss vacating her post with Mr. Murdoch until two days later, a couple of hours before Gawker.com floated a rumor that she’d been fired.

In the Journal, Mr. Murray reiterates what he told his staff at yesterday morning’s marketing meaning—that he talked to Mr. Murdoch and was assured that HarperCollins is not going up for sale.

"He told me that the company won't be sold, that HarperCollins is a content company and that News Corp. is a content company," Mr. Murray is quoted as saying.

Why this is all happening now is no clearer today than it was the other night when the news first broke.  read more »

HarperCollins staff are reeling today in the wake of last night's stunning announcement that their CEO of ten years, Jane Friedman, has been replaced by her 41-year-old deputy, Brian Murray. At the weekly marketing meeting held this morning in the central conference room on the second floor of the HarperCollins building, Ms. Friedman briefly addressed staff from all over publicity, marketing, sales and editorial, telling them that today would be her last day.

According to several people who were present, Ms. Friedman—who normally oversees the Thursday morning marketing meetings—spoke with sadness, and left the room to a standing ovation when she was done. Mr. Murray addressed the room of shell-shocked employees immediately afterward, reassuring them that while Ms. Friedman was irreplaceable, the future of the News Corp.-owned publishing house was in good hands.

In what might have been an attempt to quell rumors about the possibility of News Corp. putting HarperCollins up for sale, Mr. Murray said he had had a reassuring conversation with Rupert Murdoch during which the News Corp. chairman indicated that no drastic changes were imminent.  read more »

That's the big question today in the publishing world, which was collectively stunned last night when it was reported that Jane Friedman had resigned as the CEO of HarperCollins after 10 years on the job and handed the reins of the company over to her 41-year-old deputy.

Did Ms. Friedman, who is 61, see Peter Olson's recent resignation from Random House and subsequent appointment to the faculty of the Harvard Business School and think, 'Gosh, that sounds nice"? Or did she make her exit in anticipation of a terrible fourth quarter?

Right now nobody knows, and many are puzzling over Ms. Friedman's exuberant behavior over the weekend at the Book Expo convention in Los Angeles.  read more »

It's official: Jane Friedman has resigned as CEO of HarperCollins, and her number two, 41-year-old Brian Murray, is taking over "effective immediately."

The news came as a shock to Ms. Friedman's colleagues tonight, though a poor first quarter performance reported in November did inspire some rumblings among publishing insiders that a change in leadership was conceivable. As we noted earlier, at least two of the publishing division heads at HarperCollins were caught by surprise tonight, and indicated that they were given no advance warning of the change. Earlier tonight, when rumors of Ms. Friedman's departure surfaced on Gawker, one high-ranking person at HarperCollins said it was someone's idea of a joke, while another said, simply, "stunned here."  read more »

Jane Friedman, the CEO of HarperCollins, is stepping down after ten years on the job "pretty much right away," a source close to her said. Brian Murray, who has been serving as HarperCollins group president for about four years, will replace her at the helm of the News Corp-owned publishing house "in the next few days."

According to our source, Ms. Friedman made the decision to leave her post on her own, and had been involved in planning a transition for some time, though a post that appeared tonight on Gawker.com cited a rumor saying she had been fired. That rumor has apparently moved Ms. Friedman and News Corp to bump up their official announcement, which is said to be forthcoming.

At least two of the publishing division heads at HarperCollins were taken by surprise when news of Ms. Friedman's imminent departure leaked out tonight; both indicated that they had no advance warning that this was coming.

   read more »

The book world jumped a little in its seat last week when HarperCollins C.E.O. Jane Friedman announced that she’d hired Hyperion president Bob Miller to form an “innovative and creative” new publishing unit. It was shocking enough that Ms. Friedman had managed to hire Mr. Miller away from Hyperion after 17 years to run the new shop. But the business model the two of them had in mind?  read more »

The publishing world was stunned yesterday by two major resignations, as Rob Weisbach, founding president of Weinstein Books, and Bob Miller, founding president of Hyperion, both announced that they were vacating their positions to pursue other opportunities.

No word yet on what Mr. Weisbach's next move will be—he hasn't returned our calls, though a Weinstein spokesman told us he does have a job in publishing lined up—but Mr. Miller is heading to HarperCollins, where he will head a new, nontraditional publishing "studio" that will put out 25 short, low-priced hardcover titles per year. Mr. Miller will work with a small staff and report directly to company CEO Jane Friedman, with whom he has been friends for almost 30 years.  read more »

Last summer, HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman gathered her executive staff in a conference room on the 11th floor of the book publisher’s office and introduced a smiley, excitable fellow who had just been hired to make some big changes at the company.  read more »

Judith Regan, the book publisher who was fired from HarperCollins last December amidst controversy over her acquisition of O.J. Simpson’s If I Did It, was scheduled to file a libel and breach of contract lawsuit today against HarperCollins, its CEO Jane Friedman, and its parent company News Corporation, according to Ms. Regan’s lawyer Bertram Fields.

Mr. Fields, who is based in Los Angeles, said he is not representing Ms. Regan in the suit. He did work on the case "in the beginning," but has since handed the reins over to Brian Kerr of New York-based firm Dreier LLP. (Gawker posted an anonymous letter earlier this afternoon incorrectly stating that the firm Milberg Weiss is handling the case.)

Mr. Fields said Ms. Regan’s suit “was to be filed today” but could not confirm that it actually was.

News Corp. spokesman Andrew Butcher said News Corp. was not aware of the suit.

“We don’t have it,” he said. “We haven’t seen any suit.”  read more »