John Shableski, sales manager at Diamond Book Distributors, is leaving the company to start a new line of GNs for JeffCorwinConnect, PW reports.
In his three years at Diamond, Shableski had worked closely with book fairs, libraries, and indie booksellers to get more graphic novels on their radar. In his new position, he’ll join Animal Planet personality Corwin in starting a line of YA GNs for the trade and educational markets:
The newly formed publishing division will focus initially on graphic novels, launching with 6 titles in 2011 but will also publish works aimed at the prose trade and educational market. The first graphic novel title to be released is Black Tide and tells the story of the environmental impact of the Gulf Coast oil spill of 2010. The graphic book will be part of a line called the Corwin Adventure Series and is scheduled to be released at the first anniversary of the spill in April 2011.
Jeff Corwin said the mission of JeffCorwinConnect is to “build a global community of people who care about the future of our planet and seek to better the world for themselves and their children. With the growing acceptance and use of graphic novels in the education and the retail markets, we believe that we can highlight critical environmental issues through this exciting format.”
Big loss for Diamond here but a win-win for publishing. John knows this business and the business of how to sell graphic novels to the world better than anyone. At the Miami book fair we were lucky to pick his brains on a number of subjects and learned a ton.
Great news and a terrific guy.
Congrats John!
Awesome news for John who is hands down one of the best guys around in our world of comics. Can’t wait to see what great GNs he’ll get to shepherd into the world!
Congrats, man!
Rock on, John!
Lucky to have met John during my time with Radical. Nice guy who is passionate about the business. Pleasure to have met him and best of luck with his future work.
Congratulations, John.
Congrats, John! Sounds like you’ll be pushing the boundaries once again.
John leaves some really big shoes to fill! Hope someone out their can rise to the challenge. In the meantime, congrats to John on his new gig!
Thanks guys! As you can imagine, this is a gig of a lifetime. I had it really good at Diamond. They allowed me to follow my gut instincts and get a lot accomplished. Rarely do you get that kind of freedom in any profession. The opportunity with Jeff Corwin is seriously global. So now, it’s time to strap into this new star ship and see if I can pull off a few barrel rolls.
Before I bail off this, thank you for doing the great books you do. And thank you to the librarians who really helped to kick the doors open in the book trade. With out your books and their efforts, I wouldnt be enjoying this new rush.
More to come!
John
I’ve known John for a few years now and echo many of the sentiments already posted. John has always been able to look ahead of the curve to see the real world (something many in this industry don’t really want deal with) and the best way to get new people reading comics/graphic novels.
I don’t need to wish John good luck, he doesn’t need it. We do now he’s gone.
Me, I’m just looking forward to the books! And so are the kids in my school. I wish all the best for John. ^_^
But yeah, I have to wonder, who’ll do the work for the Miami Book Fair International’s School of Comics and all the other non-comics events? He worked so hard for these. John really is leaving big shoes to fill …
John’s gotten me onto panels in a number of locations and introduced me to a lot of great contacts. Like Kat, I’m looking forward to getting the books for my library. Good luck, John.
John has been a one-man comics tornado at events like ALA. Johnny, who’s gonna program all those events now? They’re going to have to come up with at least 2 or 3 people to fill your shoes!
But this is going to be way cool. Can’t wait to see what you do with it.