It’s been an active fall for the Big Five announcing new imprints, some celebrity driven. (For better or worse, we’ve rounded up celebrity imprints once already this year.) Here’s a summary of the latest initiatives, indicating continuing interest and strength in the YA market.
Sarah Jessica Parker now has an imprint called SJP at Crown Publishing Group, releasing three to four novels per year. Learn more at the New York Times.
St. Martin’s Press is launching Wednesday Books, with its first books to release in fall 2017. It’s being described as a crossover, coming-of-age imprint, “in and beyond the YA category.” Going forward, the imprint will include all YA titles at SMP, including authors Rainbow Rowell, Courtney Summers, and Roshani Chokshi. The press release said it’s the first new imprint at SMP in 16 years.
Penguin Random House Canada also announced a new YA imprint, this one called Penguin Teen. As at SMP, the line brings already-published YA titles into a combined list. The first list will appear in summer 2017.
And in even more YA news, Macmillan’s crowdsourced imprint, Swoon Reads, is expanding from teen romance titles to titles in all YA genres. Swoon Reads invites submissions at its website, where the member community reads and critiques each other’s manuscripts. Swoon Reads staff participates, offering writing tips. When a manuscript is acquired, the community votes on covers and continues to engage with the author. About 50 titles have been acquired so far, and another 10 are set to be acquired by the end of the year. For more about Swoon Reads, see this sponsored content over at Shelf Awareness.
A new Abrams imprint will focus on narrative nonfiction and release between 12 and 15 books annually. The new effort is led by Jamison Stoltz, previously at Grove Atlantic, and will cover categories such as popular culture, film, art, design, general-interest science, nature, food topics, and more.
Finally, Harlequin has a new women’s fiction imprint, Graydon House, “dedicated to novels about relationships—family, friends, lovers—and all their joys and complexities…. Stories will range in tone from lighthearted humor to emotional tearjerkers and edgier drama.” The first titles will appear in September 2017. Read more in the press release.
Earlier this week, the YA publisher Jolly Fish Press (established in 2011) announced it was folding. All rights will revert to authors by the end of the month.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
