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Crown Publishing Group

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Not to be confused with Crown Books or Crown Media Holdings.

Crown Publishing Group
Parent companyRandom House (Penguin Random House)
StatusActive
Founded1933
Founders
  • Nat Wartels
  • Bob Simon
Country of originUnited States
Headquarters locationNew York City, U.S.
DistributionWorldwide
Official websitewww.crownpublishing.com

The Crown Publishing Group is a subsidiary of Penguin Random House that publishes across several fiction and non-fiction categories. Originally founded in 1933 as a remaindered books wholesaler called Outlet Book Company, the firm expanded into publishing original content in 1936 under the Crown name, and was acquired by Random House in 1988. Under Random House's ownership, the Crown Publishing Group was operated as an independent division until 2018, when it was merged with the rest of Random House's adult programs.

Crown authors[1] include Jean Auel, Max Brooks, George W. Bush, Eitan Bernath,[2] Deepak Chopra, Ann Coulter, Andrew Cuomo,[3] Giada De Laurentiis, Will Ferrell (as fictional character Ron Burgundy), Gillian Flynn, Jim Gaffigan, Ina Garten, Greg Gutfeld, Mindy Kaling, Rachel Maddow, Jillian Michaels, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Theresa Rebeck, Mark Brennan Rosenberg, Judith Rossner, Rebecca Skloot, Suzanne Somers, Martha Stewart, Jonah Goldberg, Michael Jackson and many others.

History

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Outlet Book Company

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The company was founded in 1933 as the Outlet Book Company by Nat Wartels and Bob Simon.[4][5] Outlet Book Company began by featuring overstock and remaindered books, but soon moved into reprints of backlist, out-of-print, largely non-fiction titles, then into reprints of bestselling fiction and non-fiction, and eventually into original titles. It was under the Crown name that they began to publish original content in 1936.[6]

Crown acquired bankrupt publishers such as Covici-Friede, Henkle-Yewdale, and Robert M. McBride in the 1940s.[7] Other publishers acquired by Crown include Arcadia House; Howell, Soskin; and Julian Press.[7][8][9] Clarkson Potter became affiliated with Crown in 1963.[10]

Under the direction of Wartels,[4] Alan Mirken,[11] Joseph Reiner[12] and others, Crown Books became one of the Outlet Book Company's lead imprints for original publishing which included such landmark fiction and non-fiction as Judith Krantz's Princess Daisy, Jean M. Auel's The Clan of the Cave Bear and Alex Comfort's The Joy of Sex in its early high-profile years.

Crown Publishing Group had its headquarters at 225 Park Avenue South in Midtown Manhattan,[13][14] occupying 80,000 square feet (7,400 m2) of space. Random House received the space when it acquired the company. In 1990 Random House signaled intentions to sublease the space.[15]

Random House

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The Outlet Book Company's Crown Books remained an independent company until 1988[11][16] when it was purchased by Random House.

In 2008, the Doubleday Business/Currency, Doubleday Religion, and WaterBrook Multnomah divisions were moved from Doubleday to Crown when Doubleday was merged with Knopf.[17] Doubleday Religion was replaced with the Catholic imprint Image in 2011.[18]

In 2018, Crown was combined with the main Random House Publishing Group.[19]

Imprints

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Following the 2018 reorganization, the imprints that constitute Crown Publishing continued to be tied together into three imprint groups within Random House. The "trade" group includes the imprints Crown, Crown Archetype, Broadway Books, Hogarth, Three Rivers Press, and Tim Duggan Books. An illustrated and prescriptive nonfiction group comprises Clarkson Potter, Harmony Books, Rodale Books, and Ten Speed Press (which includes sub-imprints Lorena Jones Books and Watson-Guptill). A third group collects the business, conservative politics, and Christianity imprints Currency (formerly Doubleday/Crown Business), Crown Forum, Convergent, Image (formerly Doubleday Religion), Multnomah, and WaterBrook.[19]

Former imprints of the Crown Publishing Group included Amphoto Books, Bell Tower Press, Orion Books (unconnected to Orion Publishing), Shaye Areheart, and some related subsidiaries like Gramercy Publishing Company. These have either been discontinued or transferred to other Random House units.

References

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  1. ^ "Crown Publishing Group: Authors". RandomHouse.com.
  2. ^ "Eitan Eats the World by Eitan Bernath: 9780593235362 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved May 19, 2022.
  3. ^ Jesse McKinley, Danny Hakim, and Alexandra Alter (March 31, 2021). "As Cuomo Sought $4 Million Book Deal, Aides Hid Damaging Death Toll". The New York Times. Retrieved April 4, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ a b Cyr, Diane (January 1988). "Ten inducted into Publishing Hall of Fame". Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management. Archived from the original on June 23, 2006. Nat Wartels, founder, Crown Publishers, inducted for outstanding contributions to book publishing. Wartels' philosophy has been "to perceive what people in the marketplace want, and find the right author, art director and whoever else is needed to shape the book for the audience." With that, Wartels organized the bankrupt Outlet Book Company—which he bought for a few hundred dollars during the Depression—into highly successful Crown Publishing.
  5. ^ "History". RandomHouse.com. In 1933, inspired entrepreneurs Nat Wartels and Bob Simon founded a book company named Outlet Book Company. With the goal of providing quality books at inexpensive prices, Wartels and Simon used innovative techniques to create new markets for the books, bringing Outlet to the forefront of bargain book publishing. Outlet Book Company also introduced the concept of reprinting bestselling books to sell at bargain prices.
  6. ^ McDowell, Edwin (February 8, 1990). "Nat Wartels, 88, the Chairman Of the Crown Publishing Empire". The New York Times. Retrieved May 27, 2018.
  7. ^ a b Pryor, Elizabeth Scott (1986). "Crown Publishers". In Dzwonkoski, Peter (ed.). American literary publishing houses, 1900-1980. Dictionary of literary biography. Vol. 46. Detroit, Mich.: Gale Research Company. pp. 101–102. ISBN 0-8103-1724-9.
  8. ^ Tollers, Vincent L (1986). "Howell, Soskin and Company". In Peter Dzwonkoski (ed.). American literary publishing houses, 1900-1980. Trade and paperback. Dictionary of literary biography. Detroit, Mich: Gale Research Co. pp. 193–194. ISBN 978-0-8103-1724-6.
  9. ^ Dzwonkoski, Peter (1986). "Arcadia House". In Dzwonkoski, Peter (ed.). American literary publishing houses, 1900-1980. Trade and paperback. Dictionary of literary biography. Detroit, Mich: Gale Research Co. ISBN 978-0-8103-1724-6.
  10. ^ "Pamela Howard Wed to Clarkson N. Potter". The New York Times. November 27, 1973.
  11. ^ a b Susan Heller Anderson (January 13, 1990). "Chronicle". The New York Times. Mr. Mirken joined Crown in 1951. He developed Publishers Central Bureau, a leading mail-order book and video distributor, and the Outlet Book Company, which markets promotional books. Crown also publishes trade books, including those of the best-selling authors Judith Krantz, Jean Auel and William J. Caunitz.
  12. ^ "Joseph H. Reiner Dead at 71; Crown Publishers Executive". The New York Times. October 6, 1983. Mr. Reiner originated the Bonanza division of Outlet, which brought books back into print in quality hardcover editions. These included Bruce Catton's American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War, the original water-color paintings by John James Audubon and works by such authors as Frank Lloyd Wright and P. G. Wodehouse.
  13. ^ The Illustrated Gospels: According to St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke & St. John. Crown Publishers, 1985. ISBN 0517559250, 9780517559253. p. 4. "Published in the United States in 1985 by Crown Publishers, Inc. , 225 Park Avenue South, New York, New York, 10003"
  14. ^ School Library Journal: SLJ., Volume 36, Issues 7-12. R.R. Bowker Company, Xerox Company, 1990. p. 27. See image: "The Crown Publishing Group 225 Park Ave. South, New York, NY 10003 A Random House Company"
  15. ^ Dunlap, David W. (December 2, 1990). "Commercial Property: Book Publishers; Random House Elects to Stay in Its Midtown Tower". The New York Times. Retrieved January 6, 2019.
  16. ^ "Random House: The Scoop". Company Profile on the iWon website. Archived from the original on August 14, 2007.
  17. ^ Rich, Motoko (December 3, 2008). "Major Reorganization at Random House". ArtsBeat. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
  18. ^ "Crown Reorganizes Religion Program". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
  19. ^ a b Milliot, Jim. "Centrello Details Crown Reorg". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved August 2, 2022.
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