Annie Stone is the international account manager at BookBub, where she works with publishers in the UK, Canada, and Australia to promote great books and get new authors discovered. Before BookBub, Annie worked as an editor at Alloy Entertainment, Harlequin TEEN, and HarperCollins, focusing on YA and children’s fiction. Some favorite books and authors she’s worked with include the Fancy Nancy series, The 100 series by Kass Morgan, new teen mysteries from Sara Shepard (of Pretty Little Liars fame), and the upcoming YA fantasy Mirage by Somaiya Daud.
Smitten with books from a young age, Annie was lucky to be able to indulge her obsession with children’s classics in her undergraduate career at Harvard College, culminating in a Comparative Literature thesis on images of daughterhood in CS Lewis’ Narnia. Annie currently lives in Cambridge, MA with her rambunctious cat and enormous pile of books.
What was the last book you read?
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, for my book club!
How did you buy it?
The old-fashioned way, in hardcover at a bookstore. Love my Kindle for travel, but when I’m at home there’s nothing like a physical book (see bio re: overflowing piles of books in my apartment).
Which is your favourite bookshop or e-bookstore and why?
Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I bought the above! The store is the perfect size – it has a great selection but still feels lovingly curated. The coffee shop up front provides the perfect excuse to linger a while. Best of all, it’s only a 10 minute walk from my apartment, making it all too easy to pop by for a quick book purchase!
What TV series are you obsessing over right now?
I’m late to the game, but I’m loving Unreal. Such a fantastic and brutal look at the entertainment industry and the relationship between creator, story, and consumer – in the most heightened setting possible.
Tell us what you do in 20 words
I work with English-language publishers around the world to help them reach millions of readers on BookBub’s platform.
What is the one thing about your company that we need to know?
We’re not just ebook deals – over the past several years BookBub has transformed to be a one-stop platform for book discovery through unbeatable deals, handpicked recommendations, and updates from your favourite authors.
What is the single biggest challenge facing the publishing industry right now?
Perhaps I’m biased by my job, but I’d say discoverability in the age of the superstore is a huge issue facing our industry. While I have the pleasure of being able to walk into my local indie and ask a knowledgeable bookseller for recommendations or peruse the tables up front for interesting debuts, many readers around the US and beyond are relying on superstores and online stores to meet their reading needs, which can make it tougher for them to discover new books by previously-unknown authors. That’s what makes services like BookBub so important!
What was your first job?
In true nerd fashion, I was a teenaged ticket-taker at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire. Yes, in costume, with accent and all!
And your first in the book industry?
Editorial Assistant at HarperCollins Children’s in New York. I worked for picture book greats Margaret Anastas and Maria Modugno, on properties both classic and new, such as Fancy Nancy, Goodnight Moon, Pinkalicious, Pete the Cat… I can’t imagine a better introduction to publishing.
What do you love about The London Book Fair?
Conferences and Fairs like London or BookExpo remind me how lucky we are to be in this industry, creating and promoting books for future generations of readers!
BookBub were sponsors of The London Book Fair Quantum Conference 2018.