Cornerstone's Geras joins Bookouture as part of 'significant' expansion

Jenny Geras, currently publishing director of Arrow at Cornerstone, has been appointed to build a new commercial fiction team at Bookouture.

The digital publisher said the "major" appointment of Geras as its publishing director would signal "significant expansion" for the company over the next 12 months.

Geras will start on 10th January 2017 and report to Claire Bord, who is being promoted to publisher and who will continue to oversee the existing team.

Bord said: "Jenny’s appointment is a major one for Bookouture and we are delighted to have someone of her calibre to establish and lead a new team. We’re very excited to see what we can achieve together and expect a very busy and successful 2017."

Geras moved from digital marketing to editorial at Pan Macmillan in 2008, where she was senior editor and then editorial director working on commercial women’s fiction. Her authors included Karen Swan, Lucy Diamond, and Vanessa Diffenbaugh. She joined Cornerstone as publishing director of Arrow in 2013, where, in addition to running the list, her own authors have included Dorothy Koomson, Donna Douglas, Debbie Macomber and Emma Kavanagh. She was also a part of the team that launched James Patterson’s Bookshots list earlier this year. 

Geras said: "I’ve loved my four years at Cornerstone and will miss all my authors and colleagues very much. But I’ve been hugely impressed with what Bookouture has achieved over the last few years, and the opportunity to join them and build a new team at this point was too exciting to resist."

Bookouture has also recruited Jessie Botterill, currently literary agent at Janklow and Nesbit, to acquire commercial fiction as commissioning editor. Botterill, who starts in her new role on 21st November 2016, was welcomed as a a "high potential candidate", who could become a leading light in the industry, praised by Bord for her "commercial instincts".

Oliver Rhodes, managing director of Bookouture said: "Moving into 2017 with Claire and Jenny heading up our publishing teams puts us right where we need to be – with two of the most commercially focused and talented publishers in the business. The current team have built an incredible stable of authors, publishing a constant stream of bestsellers and delivering extraordinary results. Starting a new team will build on that success in a very tangible way, and bringing in upcoming stars like Jessie makes Bookouture a very exciting place to work right now. We are just at the start of the next stage of our development, but are already confident about creating very significant growth over the next two years."

Last month, Bookouture hired Lauren Finger, managing editor at Atlantic Books, to the role of managing editor, and Abigail Fenton, to the role of commissioning editor from her job as senior editor and producer in the audio team at HarperCollins.

The three-year-old company also revealed it had achieved unit sales of 4.2m so far in 2016.