Allen said he's excited about his new job, which will allow him to shuttle between his home in Maine and the association's policy shop in D.C. The group, based in New York City, represents most of the major commercial publishers in the United States, as well as non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies.

"The industry right now is facing all sorts of complicated issues related to copyright and digitization, education, free speech, all of which are very important to the publishers," he told National Journal.