Profile: Judith Curr

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Judith Curr is the founding president and publisher of Atria Publishing Group, one of the four major divisions of Simon & Schuster.

  • An Australian native based in New York City, she has led Atria since its inception in 2002, personally choosing its name for its meaning of “a house with many rooms.” Comprising eight imprints, Atria is highly eclectic. For example, while Curr has just released Isabel Allende’s latest book, The Japanese Lover, she also was a pre–Da Vinci Code publisher of Dan Brown: it was Atria that released Angels & Demons in 2003. The division’s major break came in 2006 and 2007 with Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret, based on her 2006 documentary film.
  • In an appearance this year at the Novelists Inc. conference’s First Word Day program in St. Pete Beach, Curr spoke of the importance of having ground teams in foreign markets for releases. A hallmark of Atria’s pattern in launching titles is to release them simultaneously, rather than in staged or staggered territorial releases. Consistency of presentation across territories, she says, is important: in the case of The Secret, for example, the title is exactly that, in English, on every language’s edition, with a translation of the title underneath. She says this helps build international brand recognition.
  • Curr is known, in part, for an avid interest in working with self-publishing authors. And this week, one of the first of those she chose to publish, Colleen Hoover, becomes the initial author on a new smartphone app from Atria, Crave. The app is designed to send small sections of a book to subscribers at regular intervals, each section replete with special visual and interactive elements. Using actor Tyler Weaks as the protagonist, Ben, Hoover’s new release November 9—already on the New York Times bestseller list—is presented with commentary, reader quick-votes, video of Ben, and more. (Here is more on the Crave development.)

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