| According to the Romance Writers
of America, over 2100 romance books were published in 2001 in
the US. What you may not know is that less than a dozen major
conglomerates own the majority of these publishing companies.
What follows is a brief history of the major players in the US,
UK and Australia and their many imprints / subsidiaries.
Torstar
By far the largest romance publisher in the world, Torstar
release over 1000 books into the romance-buying market in any
given year. Their business is primarily newspaper and book
publishing: they wholly own the subsidiary company Harlequin
Enterprises Ltd.
Canadian publishing executive Richard
Bonnycastle founded Harlequin in 1949 and in 1957 began buying
rights from Mills & Boon, a British publisher of romance
fiction since 1909. Mary Bonnycastle, wife of the founder,
noticed the enormous popularity of "these nice little books
with happy endings," and suggested the company concentrate
on them. By 1964 Harlequin was publishing romance fiction
exclusively.
Their imprints are Silhouette (offices based in New
York and include the Desire, Special Edition, Intimate Moments,
Bombshell and Romance lines), Mills & Boon (London - and
include the Presents (aka Sexy), Tender (aka Sweet) and Medical
lines), Harlequin (Toronto - and include the Temptation, Blaze,
Flipside, Romance (aka M&B Tender/Sweet), Presents (aka
M&B Presents/Sexy), SuperRomance, Intrigue and American
lines), MIRA, Red Dress Ink, Luna (fantasy) and Steeple Hill.
They also publish westerns under the Golden Eagle imprint. Their
website is at http://www.eharlequin.com
AOL Time Warner
With interests in entertainment, media
and communications, this global
company is best known
for brands such as Time Magazine, America Online (AOL), Warner
Brothers Entertainment, Warner Music Group and New Line Cinema.
AOL Time Warner Book Group (formerly known as Time Warner Trade
Publishing) began when Time Inc. and Warner Communications
merged in 1990. In 1992 they acquired Macdonald & Co, a
publishing house in the UK, later to be renamed Time Warner
Books UK. Their imprints include Warner
Books, Little Brown and Company, Back Bay (trade
paperbacks), LB Childrens, Time Warner AudioBooks, Warner Faith
(inspirational), Orbit
(fantasy/paranormal) and Mysterious Press (mystery).
The Pearson Group
With its origins in the construction business during the
Industrial revolution, The
Pearson Group was lead by Weetman Pearson (later known as
Lord Cowdray) and became one of the world's largest building
contractors of that time. Today they are an international media
company with businesses in education, business information and
consumer publishing. Penguin
Putnam is the US affiliate of the internationally
renowned Penguin Group, the second largest English-language
trade book publisher in the world. Their imprints include
Penguin, Putnam, Berkley, Berkley Sensation, Prime Crime, Jove,
Signet, Signet Regency, Onyx, Dutton, NAL, Topaz, Viking, Roc
(fantasy) and Puffin (childrens). Pearson also own Dorling
Kindersley (information and reference books)
Bertelsmann AG
In 1835 the printer Carl Bertelsmann founded C
Bertelsmann Verlag with its own book printing plant in
Gütersloh, Germany. In 1979 they bought the Arista record
label, and in 1980 what was then the largest paperback publisher
in the world, Bantam Books in New York. Acquisition of RCA
Records and Doubleday Publishing followed in 1986. They then
consolidated the US publishers into Bantam Doubleday Dell and
the record companies into BMG. Now, as one of Germanyıs oldest
and largest companies, Bertelsmann
is also the largest book publisher in the world. As well as Random
House and Random
House Transworld in Australia, they own Ballantine,
Golden Books (Childrens), Delacorte, Ivy, Arrow, Bantam, Dell,
Delta, XYZ (Young Adult), Doubleday, Knopf, Fawcett, Waterbrook
and Vintage.
Holtzbrinck Publishers
Hotzbrinck is a large German-based company created in
1971. Their origins lie in the Stuttgarter Hausbucherei, a
library founded by law graduate Georg von Holtzbrinck in 1948.
They own Pan
Macmillan, one of the largest general book publishers in the
UK and includes the imprints of Macmillan, Pan, Picador, Boxtree,
Channel 4 Books, Sidgwick & Jackson, Macmillan Children's
Books, Young Picador and Campbell Books. On the US side, they
have St
Martins Press, Minotaur, Picador USA, Let's Go (travel
guides), Encarta, Palgrave Macmillan (reference), Stonewall Inn
(gay & lesbian), and the Tom Doherty LLC Group, consisting
of Tor /
Forge and Orb
Viacom
Viacom
is a global media company with positions in broadcast and cable
television, radio, outdoor advertising and online. Viacom's
well-known brands include CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, VH1, Paramount
Pictures, Showtime and Blockbuster. Simon
and Schuster is
their publishing arm and was founded in 1924 by Richard L Simon
and M Lincoln Schuster. Their initial project was a crossword
puzzle book, the first ever produced. S&S imprints are Atria
(hardback), Pocket Books, Pocket Star, Downtown Press (chick
lit), Scribner, Sonnet, Touchstone, MTV Books, Wall Street
Journal Books and Star Trek.
News Corporation
News Corp owns various entertainment and media companies
world-wide-TV, entertainment, newspapers and publishing (among
them Foxtel, Channel V, Twentieth Century Fox, New York Post,
News Limited, Harper Collins and the LA Dodgers). An
amalgamation in 1989 of Harper and Row (USA), William Collins
(UK) and Angus & Robertson Publishers (Australia) lead to
the company which is now known as HarperCollins Australia-and
also act as distributors to the UK publishers Pavilion Books,
Paper Tiger and Collins & Brown. News Corp's publishing
groups include
Kensington Publishing Corp.
According to their website Kensington is
"the last remaining independent US publisher of hardcover,
trade and mass market paperback books." Kensington now
accounts for about 7% of all mass market paperback sales in the
US. 2002 marked their 28th year in business. Their romance
imprints include Kensington, Pinnacle, Zebra, Zebra Regency,
Dafina (African-American), Bouquet (contemporary), Encanto
(Hispanic), Ballad (historical), Strapless (chick lit), Brava
(erotica) plus Citadel (non-fiction) and Twin Streams (personal
development and inner health).
Dorchester Publishing
Dorchester
Publishing has been
involved in the publishing of mass market books since 1971,
making it the oldest independent mass market publisher in
America. Their romance imprints are Leisure and Love Spell
(romantic futuristic, fantasy, time travel and paranormal,
created in 1994) and the new Young Adult line, Smooch, which debuted in
September 2003. They also publish horror and westerns.
W H Smith PLC
Best known for its book and stationery stores,
WH Smith
began in
1792 when Henry Walton Smith and his wife Anna opened a small
newsvendors in Little Grosvenor Street, London. Smith died a few
months later leaving Anna to run the business. In 1816, HW
Smith, trading now as newsagents and stationers, was passed to
Anna's two sons, Henry Edward and William Henry Smith. In 2001
they acquired the Blue Star Consumer Retailing Group (the
leading bookseller in Australia & New Zealand ) and today,
have interests in companies in the publishing, recruitment and
e-commerce fields.
Their primary publishing company is the Hodder
Headline group which include the imprints Hodder, Headline, Hodder &
Stoughton UK, Hodder Childrens and Hodder & Stoughton
Educational (which is one of the top three secondary school and
college publishers in the UK and includes the Teach Yourself
range).
Allen and Unwin
Australian publisher Allen
& Unwin
began in Australia in 1976 as part of the UK-based parent
company of the same name. In 1990 the company became fully
independent, owning the Allen & Unwin imprint throughout the
world. An independent publisher for ten years, A&U publish
around 250 titles, ranging from fiction and general non-fiction,
academic and childrens.
A&U are the Australian distributors
for the Orion Publishing Group and the Australian and New
Zealand distributors for Granta, Icon Books, Nicholas Brealey,
Open University Press, A&C Black, Bloomsbury, ABC Books and
Audio and BBC Audio, and Profile Books. They are represented
throughout the world by companies such as Orion UK (Adult Trade)
and Independent Publisher's Group US (Trade).
First printed in RWAustralia's newsletter,
Hearts Talk March 2003; İ Paula Roe. Visit Paula's website at http://www.paularoe.com
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