Unusual PGW Defection Has Star Heading to Rival

by Steven Zeitchik and Jim Milliot, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 4/13/2005

Anyone thinking the distribution wars are going from lukewarm to hot got a bit of confirmation yesterday, when it was announced that one of the indie world's biggest rep stars is going from PGW to rival NBN.

Patricia Kelly, a former PW rep of the year and one of publishing's best-known salespeople on the West Coast, is becoming senior director of sales as well as director of NBNKids. Kelly's position amounts to the No. 2 slot at the company's sales team; she'll supervise the entire force outside of national-account reps.

Kelly, who at PGW was director of sales for children's and special-markets, will remain based in the Bay Area and will report to v-p of sales Michael Sullivan.

NBN president Jed Lyons called the switch "a big hire." Indeed, the departure is a considerable loss for PGW; while the world's ins-and-outs remain out of sight to most large houses, Kelly's reputation in the indie bookselling world is stellar. Making the switch more dramatic is that the big players like NBN and PGW don't normally hire each other's reps.

Reached this morning, though, PGW president Rich Freese played down any larger significance, saying that the move was motivated by Kelly's desire for more responsibility and was not indicative of shifting winds at PGW or intensifying competition between longtime heavyweight PGW and the more upstart-ish NBN.

"It really was quite amicable," he said, noting that the company would be replacing Kelly. "Patricia was being given an opportunity to run a sales force and do something we weren't able to give her. We have a deeper bench than Jed [Lyons] does and I just couldn't offer that opportunity." More in next week's mag.--Steven Zeitchik and Jim Milliot