Jim Sutton, owner of Specialist Marketing International, died after suffering a heart attack at the Frankfurt Book Fair. He never regained consciousness and passed away in a German hospice a few weeks later.
Sutton was sales and marketing director at Naval Institute Press from 1978 to 1993 and helped launch The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy, the tiny press's first work of fiction, which went on to become a blockbuster and launch the techno-thriller genre. From 1993 to 1998, Sutton was publisher at Brassey and was responsible for the expansion of the British company in the U.S. Earlier he had worked at Williams and Wilkins, the medical publisher.
He was the co-author of Ballparks: A Panoramic History (Chartwell Books) and was a long-time marketing instructor in the publishing procedures course at George Washington University.
Sutton was an accessible mentor to a generation of marketing professionals, many of whom launched their careers in the Washington area before moving to New York. He was also known for his generous support of many small presses.
Mike Shatzkin, owner of the IdeaLogical Co., said that the "most outstanding about [Jim] was what a nice person he was, always taking everybody seriously and always willing to offer any help or suggestions he could in response to anybody's publishing challenge."
Julian Mannering, publisher of Seaforth Publishing in the U.K., said Sutton "was always such good company and so well read. When Canetti won the Nobel Prize in the early '80s, Jim was about the only person at Frankfurt who'd heard of him, let alone read him."
His wife is Ellen Loerke, director of business development at Books International, Dulles, Va.
A memorial service will held Saturday, December 5, at 2 p.m. at the Christ Lutheran Church, Baltimore, Md. For further information, contact Chris Kerr at 914-329-4961 or chriskerr@parsonweems.net.
