Tesco’s Powerful Book Buyer Moves To HarperCollins

LONDON/03/10/06—Caroline Ridding, the powerful book buyer for Tesco, the UK supermarket chain, has joined HarperCollins, effective May 1. A replacement at Tesco has not yet been named. Her title at Harpercollins will be director of special publishing projects.

Ridding, who will be charged with boosting HarperCollins share of the market for general interest books, will report to Amanda Ridout, the managing director of general books at HarperCollins, UK, a unit of News Corp.

Ridding, who has been called the second most influential executive in UK publishing, has tripled Tesco’s book sales within the past five years in her management role. She trails only Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan, Britain’s popular TV hosts. The British supermarket industry accounted for about 12 percent of all books sold in Britain last year.

Audiobook Exec McNeely Joins New Audio Evolution

Joe McNeely has departed as acquisitions editor at Audio Renaissance after 15 years there. He joins Audio Evolution, a new independent company which will offer direct downloads of new nonfiction audiobooks as well as other audio titles.