Crown Publishing Group

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The Crown Publishing Group is a subsidiary of Random House, the world's largest book publisher.

[edit] Outlet Book Company

The company was founded in 1933 as the Outlet Book Company by Nat Wartels and Bob Simon.[1][2]

Outlet 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,[1] Alan Mirken,[3] Joseph Reiner[4] 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 Auel's The Clan of the Cave Bear and Alex Comfort's The Joy of Sex in its early high-profile years.

[edit] Random House

The Outlet Book Company's Crown Books remained an independent company until 1988[3][5] when it was purchased by Random House.

Its imprints include Crown Books, Crown Business, Crown Forum, Three Rivers Press, Clarkson Potter, Harmony Books, Shaye Areheart, and Bell Tower Press. Formerly, the company also used the Prima Publishing, Orion Books, and related imprints, although these have now either been discontinued or transferred to other Random House units.

Crown authors[6] include Max Brooks, Deepak Chopra, Ann Coulter, Giada De Laurentiis, Barack Obama, Martha Stewart and many others.

Crown Publishing Group's website is randomhouse.com/crown

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Diane Cyr. Ten inducted into Publishing Hall of Fame (html). Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, January 1988 issue. “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.”
  2. ^ History (html). 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.”
  3. ^ a b Susan Heller Anderson (13 January 1990). Chronicle (html). 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.”
  4. ^ Joseph H. Reiner Dead at 71; Crown Publishers Executive (html). The New York Times (6 October 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.”
  5. ^ Random House: The Scoop (html). Company Profile on iWon website.
  6. ^ Crown Publishing Group: Authors (html). RandomHouse.com.


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