Publishers

The publisher of the Hollywood Reporter said Tuesday that he was leaving after less than a year on the job to return to work for a technology publisher. Tony Uphoff will be replaced by Billboard Publisher John Kilcullen. Billboard is a sister publication of the Hollywood Reporter under Dutch media conglomerate VNU. Uphoff said he was offered "a significantly larger opportunity" as president of a division of CMP Technology in Irvine.

The publisher of San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group said Tuesday that he was resigning to become chief executive of an economic development coalition. Ron L. Wood's resignation takes effect Jan. 1. He will then take over as president and CEO of the San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership. "I was ready for a new challenge when this opportunity presented itself," Wood said. A replacement has not been named.

The Assn. of American Publishers is offering financial assistance for U.S. publishers interested in releasing English- language editions of three Iranian novels, to help open up a tight market for books in translation. The association said it would give $10,000 each to publishers who would release "The Drowned" by Moniru Ravanipur, "The Empty Palace of Soluch" by Mahmoud Dawlatabadi and "Christine and Kid" by Houshang Golshiri.

The San Francisco Chronicle is switching publishers for the second time in 20 months, bringing in a hard-nosed executive who presided over a contentious newspaper labor strike in Detroit. Steven Falk left as the San Francisco paper's publisher Friday. He will be replaced Jan. 1 by Frank Vega, who runs the company that oversees the shared business operations of the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News. Falk, 50, took over as Chronicle publisher in March 2003. Hearst Corp.

As one who is paid to read vast quantities of contemporary prose published in the so-called "quality" paperback format, I sometimes despair over the apparent fate of Western civilization, or at least of American letters.

Mary Matalin, the Republican pundit and strategist also known as the wife/sparring partner of Democratic consultant James Carville, will run a new conservative publishing imprint at Simon & Schuster. The imprint, currently unnamed, is expected to release six to 10 books a year, beginning in 2006. The market for conservative books has become increasingly competitive. Penguin Group USA and Random House Inc.

The Washington Post named Katharine Weymouth its publisher Thursday, restoring a member of the Graham family to the position after a seven-year hiatus. The newspaper also said it would offer voluntary buyouts to employees next month, the third such round since 2003 and the latest sign of contraction in the newspaper industry. Weymouth, 41, vice president of advertising since 2005, is the granddaughter of Katharine Graham, publisher during the Post's famed investigation of the Watergate scandal.

Los Angeles Times Publisher David D. Hiller resigned Monday after a 21-month tenure that encompassed the departures of two Times editors and plans for the sharpest staff and production cuts in the newspaper's history amid a continuing slide in advertising revenue. Tribune Co. -- which owns The Times and other media assets, including the Chicago Tribune and KTLA-TV Channel 5, as well as the Chicago Cubs baseball team -- named no successor to Hiller.

Google Inc. said it was making concessions to publishers outside the U.S. to allay worries over its books project. The company plans to sell to U.S. customers digital versions of out-of-print books that are still under U.S. copyright. Under a settlement with U.S. authors and publishers, this will cover all books unless the copyright holders object. Google said it would add two representatives of foreign authors and publishers to the nonprofit board set up to manage U.S. copyrights and wouldn't display without consent books that are out of print in the U.S. but available elsewhere.

Greed, sex, illegitimacy, drugs, betrayal, murder and money are the elements the publishers talk about in their capsule descriptions of "The Serpent's Tooth," "Blood Relations," "Money to Burn" and "For Love of Money." All four, out this spring and fall, concern the 1985 murder of tobacco heiress Margaret Benson and her adopted son Scott by 35-year-old Steven Benson, Margaret Benson's older son.