Simon & Schuster's sales and marketing group has created a new telemarketing group that will operate from New York headquarters, serve more than 400 independent booksellers, distributors and educational wholesalers, and be in place by February 15. At the same time, the company is letting go about half of its field sales reps, and remaining reps will focus on regions where sales are strongest, "urban areas with a large base of key independent retail, wholesale and educational accounts."
In a memo outlining these and other changes, Michael Selleck, executive v-p, sales and marketing, called the effort necessary "to meet the challenges of today's changing marketplace."
The move reflects sales force cuts made by some other publishers in recent years.
The new telemarketing group will be directed by Frank Fochetta, v-p and director, field and special sales, and managed by Jonathan Earls, director, retail development.
The field sales organization will be supervised by Michael Croy, director, field sales. Under the new arrangement, reps "will now manage a more targeted account base, allowing them more time to meet with their buyers and concentrate not only on selling titles, but also on maximizing our opportunities for backlist, merchandising, and in-store events across all divisions of our company. Simultaneously, we will reduce the amount of time our reps spend travelling across large geographic regions so they can better serve the needs of our customers in a more timely and efficient way."
The seven remaining reps are John Muse, Tim Hepp, Leah Hays, Michael Smith, Amy Schoppert, Kelly Stidham and Laura Webb.
In other changes, Brian Kelleher will now manage educational wholesalers in Illinois, Missouri, Texas and Kansas, including Hertzberg, the Booksource and Southwest Book. He remains the children's and educational specialist for the field channel.
Bobbi Schlatter-Cable will continue to manage Ingram and is adding key CBA national accounts such as Family Christian and Lifeway. Lauren Rouleau will now manage the Revelation commission rep group that sells into the CBA field accounts as well as other commission sales groups.
In marketing, Wendy Sheanin, Lucille Rettino, Sarah Lieberman and the company's marketing teams will continue to provide marketing support for all personnel who serve this channel, including the field, telemarketing and telesales groups. (Telesales remains in Riverside, N.J.) They will continue to work closely with independent booksellers, the ABA, regional bookselling associations and the IndieBound program.
