Publisher Imprint Report Card, Part I

It is not news that the publishing industry is in flux and in dire need of some new directions and definitions. It is not news that there will be more changes, more angst, more doom, more gloom, and so on and so forth. What might be news is that the teeth-gnashing starts and stops, gives way to cosmetic changes that seem to accomplish something or other, and then a year later when it doesn't, people forget or move on.

Which brings me to publishers as brands. Right now, common wisdom is that authors are brands and publishers are not - no matter how hard ex-HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman banged that proverbial gong. Common wisdom is nowhere near so black and white, otherwise why would certain small press outfits like Soft Skull, Akashic, Hard Case Crime and Tachyon have clear publishing goals recognized by those who read their books (Soft Skull: offbeat, underground. Akashic: crime anthologies, literary punk. Hard Case Crime: retro-pulp fiction reissues and originals. Tachyon: smart SF/F that's not always easy to classify.) Conglomerates could, and should, learn from their less financially mighty cousins, as they should from the larger splintering of mass media, that their imprints should mean something to the reader. Sometimes that means staying with the status quo; other times it means doing away with the imprint altogether.

So what follows, probably in four or five parts, is a highly subjective, data-free look at what publisher imprints mean to me and what they should mean to everyone else. First up, after the jump, are all the imprints under the corporate umbrella of Macmillan.

What's interesting about Macmillan US is that its name change is recent and yet old school - and far more accessible a name than was VHPS (for its German corporate overlords, Von Holtzbrinck Publishing Services.) But a name change and new snazzy website can't hide that underneath the shiny surface, their imprint management is a confusing mess. So let's go through it one by one:

Henry Holt has been in the news of late because they finally appointed a new editor-in-chief, former HarperCollins executive editor Marjorie Braman. Now, Braman's credentials are fine, but does she have the mandate and the balls to do what one publishing source recently told me, to "rip things up and start all over again"? Because they have to or else they should let the name go off and join Rinehart and Winston in the imprint graveyard. The easy thing would be to blame the fortunes of Jed Rubenfeld's THE INTERPRETATION OF MURDER, famously acquired at auction for $800,000 and a big money-loser, but I suspect the problems started before then.  I think of Holt and...I think of scattered ashes. They are woefully understaffed on the editorial side, especially with Sarah Knight's recent defection to Shaye Areheart Books to take over Sally Kim's job, which had to be a major blow because she was acquiring books that might have turned the imprint around. Jennifer Barth's earlier defection to Harper meant she took some of her authors (like Alafair Burke) with her. Paul Auster is a name, and his new book MAN IN THE DARK is getting a great deal of critical attention, but he and his wife Siri Hustvedt (also published by Holt) work with Frances Coady - publisher of Macmillan's paperback arm Picador (and more on them later). They have a couple of extra imprints they acquired from other houses, Metropolitan and Times Books, which add to the brand confusion because the former does some random fiction titles (why? Beyond editorial taste?) along with occasional blockbusters by Naomi Klein and the latter does...well they don't live up to their name and work exclusively with the New York Times anymore.

But back to Holt and my biggest beef with them: their recent expansion into paperbacks. I've asked people at the company and no one can explain why with any conviction, so I'll say it again: why bother? Sure, it's nice to publish Catherine O'Flynn's staggeringly good novel WHAT WAS LOST as an original, but Picador could have done that - and probably more effectively. Mary Swan's THE BOYS IN THE TREES was a good book, but again, Picador could have handled it fine. And after some fanfare when Knight acquired Paul Tremblay's THE LITTLE SLEEP, the winter catalog has it coming out from Holt as a PBO. Well, okay....but that doesn't signify confidence to me. It signifies confusion because the book's biggest advocate jumped ship. Picador has a fledgling crime line; Tremblay, too, would have been better off with them. 

Bottom line: Braman has an enormous task ahead in redefining Holt's purpose. I wish her well, but it doesn't look good at all.

So now, Picador. They've got it: quality paperbacks, literary fiction, memoir and narrative non-fiction, and their crime titles fit in with their literary sensibility, which is erudite but not totally stuffy. I think they could keep stumping for further brand authority, and would really love to see them make their mark with crime fiction, but the odds look pretty good on all fronts.

Then we move to Farrar, Straus & Giroux, always interesting because they are a little fiefdom off on their own (literally - their offices are on 18th Street, not in the Flatiron Building with every other Macmillan imprint) and the most literary house of the bunch. But they have some brand problems now that might be exacerbated with Mitzi Angel's recent appointment as editor-in-chief of Faber & Faber US. Before, Faber's American arm struggled until it finally figured itself out and concentrated on non-fiction, especially music and history titles. But now Angel wants to turn it into the equivalent of her last job, the UK imprint 4th Estate. So how does that affect competition with Sarah Crichton and her eponymous imprint for more commercial fiction and non-fiction titles, or FSG's Lorin Stein and Eric Chinski on the literary side? It's too soon to tell, but I foresee some interesting editorial meetings.

I do wish FSG would have clearer goals with their paperback arm. Are they strictly for classics or do they want to have their reprint and original cake and eat it too? I guess there are some titles they could do better than Picador, but that seems pretty rare.

Next up, the double-headed beast that is Tor/Forge. Tor, well, you know Tor: It's Science Fiction and Fantasy. They just redesigned their website. They are trying new things. They seem to be on the right track at face value (though toning down the garish retro-80s buzzkill covers would be nice.) Forge, on the other hand...oy. I think of them, I think of midlist authors in a career coma. Even the rare bestselling exceptions stir little excitement. I honestly do not know why this imprint exists anymore when you have St. Martin's Minotaur pretty much covering all the crime and thriller bases. Because they have always been there? Because they will publish thriller writers whose careers have stalled out? (well, so will Vanguard, and I'd argue authors have a better shot at making money with them than with Forge, even with the minimum-to-nil advances.) Even more than Holt, this is the Macmillan brand in dire need of a brand ultimatum: shape up or die.

Which brings us to St. Martin's Press, the company guided by a generalist principle from almost day one. Fortunately, they finally figured out that Minotaur was in desperate need of a brand rehaul, and I think the fruits of Andy Martin's labor are starting to pay off for them (Cain, Chelsea.) Minotaur's on the upswing but I think they need a really strong 2009, where some of their other big pushes pay off (Olen Steinhauer's THE TOURIST, certainly deserves to sell in huge quantities)  and some tasteful pruning of the lower end of the midlist that isn't making money, to make Minotaur's retooling real.

Something else that might help would be to take Thomas Dunne's name off of any minotaur titles they acquire, because I'm sorry, which imprint is it? Or is it St. Martin's? Way too much confusion, please pick one (which would be Minotaur, of course.) As for Thomas Dunne Books, um, well....I think of small titles that make money on the library market? To be fair, Dunne's been around publishing for something like 40 years and the "something for everybody" attitude worked in a world of single-digit television channels. Now, not so much. Will the name survive when Dunne retires? Somehow I doubt it.

The flagship imprint also has the generalist vibe - how could it not? - but at least there's a more commercial feel to it. Street lit, paranormal romance, big-ticket thrillers (Evanovich, Finder, Lisa Scottoline as of next year) self-help and business. Less non-fiction. So maybe that's the answer: put all the smart narrative non-fiction on the Thomas Dunne side, every other kind of non-fiction with the flagship, and even if it's happening already, delineate this far more clearly.

As for paperbacks, I wish St. Martin's had a separate name for the mass market line (so they could brand and break books out even more) and tightened Griffin's focus on the trade side. Street lit and edgy crime fiction, good. Tom Perrotta? He's too fluff for Picador, but where else can he go right now? And there are some Minotaur authors who seem better suited with Picador as their paperback publisher. Why not repackage Olen Steinhauer's first five books to coincide with the publication of THE TOURIST next year (or the year after, when its paperback edition hits?) If Brent Ghelfi can be a Picador author, so too can Steinhauer...

Last, but not least, is Bloomsbury (well, there's Palgrave, but that's reference and non-fiction and science. Low-key, but okay.) While only distributed by Macmillan and not owned by the company, its offices are housed in the Flatiron Building which is why I've lumped it in. This brand should work - smart literary - but because it can't make money, they are bleeding people, and they have this bizarre side step into humor books that aren't actually funny, it's not. Bloomsbury Press was a good idea as a serious non-fiction imprint, but no one seems to be paying much attention, so they need to work harder. And Walker had a hit with Kate Summerscale's THE SUSPICIONS OF DR. WHICHER, which should (I hope) translate to more sales when it is published in paperback.

Bottom line for Macmillan: some room for growth, some darlings to kill, lots of tightening.

Comments

[Steve Faul]

Thanks, Sarah. This is great insight for aspiring authors, a little bit like finding the Rosetta stone in your back yard. Keep up the good work.

[John Dishon]

Imprints are kind of silly. I mean, it's different with independent publishers like the ones you mention. They more of a niche market and in some cases you can submit to them directly.

But imprints are all the same company. And like you said, the author is the brand, not the publisher, so how important is an imprint to the consumer? While I know that Vintage, for example, publishes a lot of translated novels from Japan, which is something that interests me, when I go to the bookstore, I look for Japanese names, not the Vintage logo on the spine.

And even for authors, how important are imprints, or knowledge of them? You can't submit to them directly so you have to go through the agent. So it's the agent's job to know the differences (which isn't to say an author shouldn't know his business, but if you have to use an agent, they better have some amount of specialized knowledge).

I'm not saying we should do away with imprints, but there are an awful lot of them, and since they're all owned by I think five companies, the sheer volume of them seems ridiculous. I'd rather have 20 large indie publishers than 5 publishers with 20 imprints each.

[Stephanie Gayle]

Terrific work. Thanks for sharing. I often have a hard time remembering imprints.

[Elizabeth Foxwell]

Palgrave Macmillan has a number of solid works on crime fiction, such as the Crime Files series (ed. Clive Bloom). See:
http://www.palgrave-usa.com/series/serieslist.aspx?series=Crime%20Files&page=1

[I.J.Parker]

I still remember those green-backed, white and green Penguin mystery paperbacks from my youth. They stood for quality. You didn't have to be embarrassed reading a Penguin paperback in the days when the good books were all hard cover.

[I Love Dave White]

I surprised Forge books hasn't signed Jed Rubenfeld yet, not to mention Jillianne Hoffman and perhaps Andrew Davidson. They are all the Allan Folsoms of tomorrow, I think.

[Andy Peters]

So, if I get this: imprints are mostly meaningless to the average reader but they seem useful to the publisher because it helps them internally track where to shunt submissions?

[thanks, but no thanks.]

who asked for your opinion, Sara? you should shutup and continue to be a nobody.

[Sarah]

Hello, Flatiron Building! I do love the sound of a nerve ending being struck.

[.]

seems like you are the type of person that would.

[Sandra Ruttan]

Sarah, I seem to recall reading something (perhaps as much as a year ago) about some publishers eliminating imprints because of the extra costs associated with maintaining more than one label. I haven't read your second article yet, but I'm wondering if I've remembered correctly, and if so, if you plan to address that head-on. It seems the easy argument is to streamline expenses, but that approach lacks the long-term vision of creating a brand and using that as an approach to marketing.

[Evangeline]

Great post! I was thinking about the importance of publisher branding when a number of historical romance authors began moving from their original publishers to Avon/HarperCollins. Very strategic for Avon as the imprint is already associated with romance for many readers, but to acquire more and more historical romance authors, they are definitely angling to become the face of single title (historical) romance. When a reader goes to the bookstore to buy a historical romance, they automatically grab an Avon release because the branding is so strong. It's very important for a publisher and for a writer.

[Seagull]

As far as I know, Bloomsbury isn't an imprint of Macmillan. It's housed in the same building (and uses some of the office infrastructure Macmillan has set up), and is distributed by Macmillan, but it's a completely separate company. It's Bloomsbury, Bloomsbury Press, Walker and Company, Bloomsbury Children's Books, and Walker Books for Young Readers (though the last time I was down there it certainly seemed like the last two are essentially the same office, just publishing books under two imprints--I hate it when houses do that).

[Kaolin Fire]

Wow, that's a lot of information to take in all at once. Thank you, and I look forward to more. :)

[Sean P. Fodera]

Seagull is correct. Bloomsbury is not owned by, or an imprint of, Macmillan.

[Richard S. Wheeler]

I'm at a loss as to why you think Tom Doherty Associates (Tor/Forge) should shape up or quit. It has been among the most profitable publishers in the Macmillan Group, and continues to be one of the strongest assets of the group. Perhaps you don't like the Forge authors or list.

[Patrick Nielsen Hayden]

No comment on the Forge stuff -- I have almost nothing to do with that side of the house.

Two things, though.

First, Tor didn't "recently redesign [our] website". To the contrary, our corporate website is right where it was, at tor-forge.com. What we did was launch a new website at the old tor.com domain, featuring original fiction, a group blog, art stuff, social web2.0 stuff, and More To Come.

Second, here's the answer to John Dishon's question: "How important are imprints, or knowledge of them?" Answer here: People will stay late and put in hours of unpaid overtime for something called "Tor." They're less likely to do that for "Macmillan."

I'll bet the same is true of "Del Rey" versus "Bertelsmann." Or the imprint and conglomerate of your choice. Human beings are tribal, and tribal loyalty scales up only so far.

[Richard S. Wheeler]

I've been in touch with a couple of successful Forge authors who say: Sarah is right. Forge should shape up or fold. (They didn't offer reasons.)

Forge is a general tradebook publisher whose focus is simply popular fiction. There is some genre fiction in the mix, and the company maxim remains, "when you hear the word 'literary,' reach for your revolver."

[Jill Roberts / Tachyon Publications]

Sarah, thanks for the kind words about Tachyon (and sorry for my belated response). I particularly liked "smart SF/F that's hard to classify." I think that's exactly what we tend to publish. Unless you object, I think the phrase "smart SF/F" might just catch on around here...