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MUMBAI:
: Harper Collins Publishers Worldwide CEO Jane Friedman is
resigning. The departure was announced by parent company News
Corp.
Friedman
will be the second publishing executive to quit in recent
weeks citing financial pressure on the industry. Recently
Bertelsmann AG announced the departure of Random House CEO
Peter Olson.
Friedman's
decision to leave the organisation is not known as yet. She
will be replaced by Harper Collins Worldwide president Brian
Murray.
News
Corp Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch said in a statement, "Jane
has been a terrific leader who succeeded in attracting some
of the world's most brilliant authors while, at the same time,
delivering record-breaking profits. We are enormously grateful
for her contributions over the past 10 years and understand
her desire to seek new challenges at this point in her career."
Book
publishers and print media owners are facing financial pressures
because more and more people are spending time online rather
than with newspaper, books and similar media. And thus book
publishers have been implementing recent electronic book reading
devices, including ones made by Sony Corp and Amazon.com,
to cater to the new tech-savy audiences.
Friedman's
tenure at Harper Collins is a decade long, and she has presided
over the publisher's advances into the digital arena. She
also got Harper Collins best-selling authors like Barbara
Kingsolver, Michael Crichton, Jeffrey Archer and Paulo Coelho.
But
during her tenure she was dragged into a controversy. In 2006
a Harper Collins imprint run by Judith Regan was planning
to publish a book by O.J. Simpson called "If I Did It."
The former football star's book about the controversy surrounding
the murder of his late wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend
caused public controversy, and the title was canceled.
Regan
was consequently fired. And later she sued News Corp for wrongful
termination and sought $100 million in damages.
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