Crown Publishing Group

Crown Publishing Group

Parent company	Bertelsmann
Status	Active
Founded	1933
Founder	Nat Wartels & Bob Simon
Country of origin	United States
Distribution	Worldwide
Official website	www.randomhouse.com/crown

The Crown Publishing Group is a subsidiary of Random House, the world's largest book publisher, and publishes across several categories including fiction, non-fiction, biography, autobiography and memoir, cooking, health, business, and lifestyle. Its imprints include Crown, Crown Archetype, Crown Business, Crown Forum, Three Rivers Press, Clarkson Potter, Potter Craft, Potter Style, Broadway Books, Broadway Paperbacks, Doubleday Religion, WaterBrook/Multnomah, Harmony Books, Watson-Guptill, Amphoto Books, and Ten Speed Press. Formerly, the company also used the Bell Tower Press, Orion Books (unconnected to Orion Publishing in the United Kingdom), and related imprints, although these have now either been discontinued or transferred to other Random House units.

Crown authors^[1] include Jean Auel, Max Brooks, George W. Bush, Deepak Chopra, Ann Coulter, Ina Garten, Giada De Laurentiis, Barack Obama, Martha Stewart, Rebecca Skloot, Theresa Rebeck and many others.

History

Outlet Book Company

The company was founded in 1933 as the Outlet Book Company by Nat Wartels and Bob Simon.^[2][3] 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 best-selling fiction and non-fiction, and eventually into original titles.

Under the direction of Wartels,^[2] Alan Mirken,^[4] Joseph Reiner^[5] and others, Crown 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.

Random House

The Outlet Book Company's Crown Books remained an independent company until 1988^[4][6] when it was purchased by Random House.

References

1. ^ "Crown Publishing Group: Authors". RandomHouse.com. http://www.randomhouse.com/crown/authors.html. 
2. ^ ^{a b} Diane Cyr (January 1988). "Ten inducted into Publishing Hall of Fame". Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3065/is_n1_v17/ai_6244119. "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." 
3. ^ "History". RandomHouse.com. http://www.randomhouse.com/valuepublishing/about_us.html. "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." 
4. ^ ^{a b} Susan Heller Anderson (January 13, 1990). "Chronicle". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE5D8133CF930A25752C0A966958260. "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." 
5. ^ "Joseph H. Reiner Dead at 71; Crown Publishers Executive". The New York Times. October 6, 1983. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D05E5DC173BF935A35753C1A965948260. "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." 
6. ^ "Random House: The Scoop". Company Profile on the iWon website. http://www1.iwon.com/home/careers/company_profile/0,15623,175,00.html. 

External links

• Crown Publishing Group website