Children’s publishing start-up Egmont USA has “formed an alliance” with Laura Geringer Books. Geringer ran her imprint for 17 years at Harper Children’s until leaving the company last August. At the time, Susan Katz said in the memo announcing Geringer’s departure that she “looks forward to having more time to pursue her career as a writer, to devote her energies to the development of a new business with the capability of delivering story content on multiple platforms, and to channel more time into First Book.” Geringer will edit “a select group of titles” for Egmont starting with the fall 20l0 […]
New Imprints
Amazon Gets Closer to Publishing with "Encore" Program
Amazon has announced a new program in which they will harvest “information such as customer reviews on Amazon websites to identify exceptional, overlooked books and authors that show potential for greater sales.” Amazon then helpfully “partners” with the authors to reissue their books with “marketing support” and sales through Amazon, the Kindle store, and Audible but also–at least they hope–distribution to “national and independent bookstores via third-party wholesalers.” From the listing on the initial selection, 16-year-old Cayla Kluver’s self-published YA fantasy romance novel LEGACY, the “publisher” will be billed as Amazon Encore, which could be a nonstarter for many of […]
Experiment Launches, People, and More
Matthew Lore has announced the launch of The Experiment, a nonfiction trade publisher launching this fall and backed by Richard Gallen, focused on health, nutrition, fitness, psychology, relationships, self-help, parenting, sexuality, science, and the environment. Lore, who previously oversaw Marlowe & Company and then was executive editor at Da Capo Press/Lifelong after Avalon was sold to Perseus, says “we’re called The Experiment because every book is a test of new ideas and because the curiosity and clear-headed thinking that characterize scientific experimentation are more crucial in publishing now than ever before.” PGW will distribute the line, which starts with six […]
Just What Harper Needed–A New Imprint
When we created our cool linked tables of publishers’ imprints and divisions at PublishersMarketplace.com we were told Harper Entertainment didn’t exist anymore and now it’s clear why: the line is turning into a whole new imprint, It Books. The line is run by publisher Carrie Kania, with Mauro di Preta serving as associate publisher and Cal Morgan as editorial director. Kania and Morgan remain as publisher and editorial director of Harper Perennial, too. The line launches in September 2009 and is described as a “culture imprint dedicated to entertainment, music, fashion, design, and sports” (think SSE for Harper). The NYT […]
Weisbach Launches Management Company, and Much More
Rob Weisbach is starting a “new generation management company,” Rob Weisbach Creative Management, designed to “re-conceive the traditional literary agency as a cross-training development company–one that will work with new and established talent on all aspects of career building. Weisbach represented Norman Ollestad’s CRAZY FOR THE STORM last July. At the time he expressed little interest in serving as a full-time agent, but he explains that his new venture “is broader in scope and service, allowing me to take significant advantage of my range of experience as an editor, publisher, promoter, and entertainment executive. I’ll get to work with both […]
Vintage Broadens Spanish-Language Publishing
Vintage Español has announced a significant expansion through a co-publishing agreement with their parent company’s co-venture Random House Mondadori. Starting this fall, Vintage will reissue approximately 50 of RH Mondadori’s bestselling backlist titles, including all of the Spanish-language editions of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s work, along with works by such authors as Pablo Neruda, Federico GarcÃa Lorca, Ken Follett, John Grisham, Cormac McCarthy, and Mary Higgins Clark. Vintage will also publish 15 new frontlist titles in Spanish (mostly in paperback) annually as part of the initiative. The program is being directed by Vintage Espanol publishing director Milena Alberti and overseen by […]