Publishing's New Breed

What do Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower, Chang-rae Lee's Native Speaker, Elizabeth McCracken's The Giant's House, and Harold Bloom's Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human have in common? They all appeared within the last five to eight years. They all received both enthusiastic reviews and significant award attention. They all boasted admirable sales. And they were all published by small, upscale imprints within large, commercial houses.

Imprints have been around since the dawn of publishing. A generation ago, they tended to bear the name of an estimable senior editor, like Thomas Dunne or Nan Talese, who had the clout to publish what pleased him or her. Such imprints are still with us, of course, but they have been joined by a new breed: those created specifically to bring the houses fresh, new voices with a literary edge and give them the attention they need to flourish in the marketplace.

Take, for instance, BlueHen Books, an imprint established by Penguin Putnam in 2000, whose first list appeared just last summer. Its very name portrays its goal; a bluehen is a thoroughbred brood mare that repeatedly delivers winners. BlueHen came about when Phyllis Grann, then CEO and president of Penguin Putnam, invited McMurray & Beck's Frederick Ramey and Greg Michalson to make a home for themselves at her company.

The publisher and general fiction editor, respectively, at the small, Denver-based McMurray & Beck, Ramey and Michalson had worked hard to bring out literary gems like Susan Vreeland's Girl in Hyacinth Blue and Patricia Henley's Hummingbird House, a debut that became a National Book Award nominee. Alas, the owners lost interest despite the press's high performance, and the editorial team was cast adrift. (McMurray & Beck's backlist was bought by MacAdam/Cage.)

'We began talking to people,' recalls Ramey, 'and we found that we were talking to Phyllis Grann more than other folks. We were brought in to do the kind of publishing we were doing at McMurray & Beck-crossover fiction from writers of significance-that at the time wasn't being done at Putnam. Working with Phyllis, Greg and I had complete editorial control to acquire what we have the most faith in: books that are the strongest and most effective and most beautiful.' That situation continues today under current Penguin Putnam president Carole Baron.

The two editors are geographically far apart: Ramey lives in Denver, where he can stare out at snow-frothed mountains while contemplating his next editorial move, while Michalson raises horses (including, one hopes, a bluehen or two) on a farm in Columbia, MO. But they work in concert, jointly agreeing on what to add to their list and who should take the editorial lead-'so that the author doesn't have to deal with editing by committee,' explains Ramey.

At first, it may seem hard to define a BlueHen book: the debut list ranged from the sharp-edged social commentary of Debra Magpie Earling's Perma Red to Susann Cokal's Mirabilis, a luminous medieval fantasia, to the profound yet witty retake of Kafka's Metamorphosis offered by Marc Estrin in Insect Dreams.

But a pattern emerges. As Ramey avers, these books have 'certain qualities that don't fit easily beneath the rubric of sheer entertainment.' What qualities, for instance? 'Personal realism, beauty, empathy, and reflection,' he continues, 'and characters who are outsiders finding their way. All of this, however, must be hung on a story-that's where we get the crossover appeal.'

Michalson agrees that BlueHen is hunting for 'books that have a compelling voice but also some kind of commercial hook, so that we can imagine an audience for it-even a niche audience.' Therein lies the explanation for BlueHen's immediate success-and for the success of a number of similar imprints that have blazed up recently. Publishers have begun to realize that readers are looking beyond thrillers, chillers, and sex-and-shopping fluff to more substantive works that consider age-old questions of who we are and what we want.

These books aren't obviously experimental-indeed, they are accessible enough to grab a larger audience-but they do boast a perceptiveness and originality of voice that one can't hope to find in formulaic commercial fiction. From Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things and Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain to Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones and any number of Oprah picks, these books are often doing well enough to make it to the best sellers lists. This proves Michalson's claim that 'the highest quality literary standards and a relatively broad readership are not necessarily exclusive.'

For every Cold Mountain, however, there are scores of small but vital new works that could get lost in the stampede of glitzy new titles. They need careful editing to bring out what they have to offer and careful marketing to reach the right readers. Where can such lofty goals be achieved in the rough-and-tumble of today's bottom-line publishing? Imprints are the answer.

The advantages to both imprint and publisher are obvious. The house provides the large and knowledgeable sales and marketing teams needed to assure each book its best chance, so that the imprint 'can give the author a small-press experience and the book a big-press experience,' asserts Ramey. The imprint serves to attract interesting new talent that could, with a little prodding, rise to the top of the publishing firmament and bring the publisher new readers. As Baron notes, 'Imprints give us a way to highlight a certain kind of writer, particularly with so many books being published. Plus, if you put in the marketing savvy, you could get some successes.'

Even the disadvantages turn out to be advantages of sorts. Editors who have struggled to run independents find breaking a bit of a sweat to get a fair share of the resources almost a pleasure. 'You do have to fight for your piece of pie,' grins Michalson, 'but it's a much bigger pie.' Daniel Halpern, who moved his highly praised Ecco Press to HarperCollins in 1999 at the invitation of president and CEO Jane Friedman, agrees. 'A lot of people were worried that we would be consumed,' he says. 'But I've been there for three years and, for me, it's been absolute perfection. Sure, there are many more keystrokes, more hurdles, more presentations, but in a sense it allows me to revise and rethink. So it has been helpful to me as a publisher.'

Big houses often have several imprints that serve different purposes. Take the Perseus Books Group, whose president and CEO, Jack McKeown, describes the imprint as 'a fundamental part of our business model.' The Basic Books imprint publishes books designed to explain scholarly issues to the lay reader, Public Affairs stresses journalism and the media, Perseus (formerly Addison-Wesley) focuses on business and the hard sciences, and Counterpoint brings some fiction and belles-lettres to an otherwise formidable nonfiction mix. 'We finally agreed that publishing is best accomplished on the imprint level,' explains McKeown. 'The imprint structure gives us a convenient way to organize what would otherwise be an unwieldy selection of books and the ability to do some creative publishing.'

Thus, while a house's various imprints do have to compete against one another for resources, they don't often compete for books. An imprint usually has a distinct profile that recommends particular books to it-even when it lacks a dedicated editor, as is often the case. For instance, no one runs Theia, an imprint that serves to show that the aggressively commercial Hyperion 'has room for books of a literary lilt,' explains Publicity Director Katie Long. Hyperion editors use this imprint when they find a quirky or distinctive book, like Bharatai Mukherjee's Desirable Daughters, that they think will fit.

Elsewhere, a single editor may run an imprint but encourage suggestions from colleagues, and the editors of various imprints often trade books back and forth with aplomb. Rebecca Saletan is editorial director of Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux's North Point Press, but as she explains, 'I also edit books on the FSG list, and with a couple of exceptions all the other editors here have done some North Point books. So partly I lobby my colleagues to think of North Point for the books they get.'

An independent with a strong environmental bent, North Point was purchased in 1991 by Farrar, which brought in Saletan six years later to spruce up the list and refocus it exclusively on literary nonfiction because 'Farrar has as much fiction as it needs,' she offers. North Point continues to focus on environmental issues, with side trips to travel, food, wine, science, and outdoor books, but more important than subject is the question of sensibility. 'Our books tend not to be so exhaustive but to go narrow and deep,' observes Saletan. 'They tend to be a little more personal and to be quirkier and more obsessive.'

A quick survey of North Point's recent successes reveal what a focused imprint can do to support creative publishing. Among its best books are Gregory Martin's Mountain City, a paean to the author's waning Nevada hometown; Dennis and Vicki Covington's spiky Cleaving, which probes marriage and addiction; and Peter Matthiessen's ethereal The Birds of Heaven. Coming this fall, Philippe Petit's To Reach the Clouds: My High Wire Walk Between the Twin Towers and William Langewiesche's American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center will offer different perspectives on the September 11 tragedy. Even if half of North Point's titles could fit comfortably on Farrar's larger list, as Saletan concedes, there's a good reason to publish them with North Point: 'It gives us an opportunity to showcase a book that on the larger FSG list might not be so prominent.'

The collegial give-and-take so evident at Farrar can be found a few blocks downtown at Penguin Putnam, which aside from BlueHen boasts a range of imprints that includes the smart, upscale Riverhead Books. Riverhead was begun in 1994 by Phyllis Grann, who even way back then knew that 'to make Putnam competitive, she needed literary fiction and upmarket nonfiction,' explains Cindy Spiegel. Spiegel is coeditorial director with Julie Grau, both of whom were brought in to help Susan Petersen Kennedy create the new imprint. (Kennedy is now president of Penguin Putnam and chair of Viking Penguin, Plume, and Studio Books, as well as publisher of Riverhead.)

Their goal at the time seems almost impossibly lofty; as Spiegel puts it, they aimed 'to publish books of literary value that would change the way we thought and expand the reader's sense of self.' Remarkably, they seem to have achieved what they wanted. Among their first publications was the debut by a young unknown named Chang-rae Lee, Native Speaker, which went on to win countless awards and is considered the first major novel by a Korean American.

Other landmarks followed: Junot Díaz's Drown, which opened up the world of Dominican Americans; James McBride's The Color of Water, a leading memoir on growing up biracial; Pearl Abraham's The Romance Reader, which gave voice to Hasidic women; Alex Garland's The Beach, which helped invent the backpacking fiction genre; and Iain Pears's An Instance of the Fingerpost, which finally netted a best seller for this author of literate thrillers. In addition, Riverhead's editors are interested in spiritual quest, and the imprint has been responsible for major works by the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, Robert Thurman, and Kathleen Norris. This tendency toward soul searching explains why Riverhead published a seemingly anomalous work called Shakespeare by leading critic Harold Bloom. The subtitle, as Spiegel points out, is The Invention of the Human, which made it an exemplary Riverhead book. It's not that Riverhead's editors will elect to publish a work simply because it is cutting edge or first of a kind. They expect their books to have more lasting value. 'I remember when we were presenting Junot to sales and marketing,' recalls Grau, 'and it was so important that he not be ghettoized. These are writers who are broadening the definition of American literature, and they should be judged with stalwarts like Philip Roth.'

But, as Spiegel argues, 'People need to hear new, younger voices and new experiences. And the strongest voices are often those of outsiders, whose language has an energy and awareness that people growing up within a culture don't have.' Riverhead's interest in promoting the young and the culturally distinctive sets it apart from other Penguin Putnam imprints and permits a peaceful coexistence-for the time being. 'We do the same subjects but with a different angle,' observes Spiegel. 'Viking is known for its straightforward, serious approach and its women's fiction; our fiction is younger and edgier. BlueHen is more regional by contrast, and they find things in a different way. But in terms of competing, it's too early to tell.'

Inevitably, Riverhead's hunt for young writers leads to young readers-and another explanation for the current appeal of imprints among publishers: they are a means of finding new audiences. Take Mariner, Houghton Mifflin's paperback imprint, which was launched in 1997. 'Houghton Mifflin had never published paperback in any fashion,' says Susan Canavan, trade paperbacks manager, of the decision to launch the imprint. 'We had such great fiction and nonfiction, but we weren't capitalizing on it.' Currently, Mariner publishes a mix of reprints from Hough-ton's list, titles licensed from other houses, and original material-all 'mirroring the Houghton list,' insists Canavan, yet positioned to reach beyond Houghton's traditional readers.

Thus, Mariner scored a hit when it published British author Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower as a trade paperback original, bringing her to a larger American audience and earning her a National Book Critics Circle award as well. Other works are allowing Houghton 'to reach new markets,' notes Canavan. 'We are publishing story collections we might otherwise not do and reinventing books published in hardcover so that we can reach a younger audience.'

Imprints also allow publishers to reach groups that have not been well served by the mainstream publishing community. A prime example is Ballantine's One World, launched in 1991 to present works by and for a multicultural mix of Asian, Latin, Native, and African Americans. Newer initiatives include Strivers Row, actually an African American series within Villard, one of the dizzying number of houses-cum-imprints that comprise mighty Random House; Amistad, founded as an independent company by Charles Harris in 1986 to publish books on black culture and purchased by HarperCollins in 1999; and HarperCollins's Rayo.

Rayo was initiated in 2001 by René Alegria, then a managing editor at HarperCollins, who felt that 'the publishing industry didn't have a handle on the Latino market or what the consumer really wanted.' Presenting works by major authors like Isabel Allende, Victor Villaseñor, and Ilan Stavans, Rayo gives voice to the Latino experience-and it does so by publishing in two languages simultaneously. 'It's obviously important to publish in Spanish,' explains Alegria, 'but because of acculturation, English is the most viable vehicle.'

The most recent comer in this area is Harlem Moon, an imprint of Broadway Books, yet another member of the Random House family. A paperback imprint aimed at African Americans, Harlem Moon is offering its first list this fall, but its recent inception is no afterthought. 'We are not Johnny-come-latelys to this segment of publishing,' insists editorial director Janet Hill heatedly. '[Random House imprint] Doubleday started publishing books by African American authors with Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery in 1899, and in 1901 it did Charles Chestnut. Later, it did Lady Sings the Blues, Alex Haley's Roots, and authors like J. California Cooper. But we thought we needed a next phase and that phase would involve really trying to capture the paperback audience.' The publisher settled on paperback because so many African Americans are in book clubs, which generally prefer the cheaper format. Plans are to offer a wide range of titles in both fiction and nonfiction.

Common knowledge has it that in the last decade many authors of quality works have fled to the smaller presses, leaving mainstream publishing to the blockbusters. Nonsense, scoffs Susan Kamil, who became editorial director of Dial in 1993 when it was launched as a Dell imprint (it, too, is now part of Random House). 'Every publisher I know personally is bending over backwards to publish quality work. And what's literary fiction anyway? Books like Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones start out as literary fiction, which I think is an outmoded term, and end up as commercial fiction once they've sold enough copies.'

For many large houses, imprints are definitely a part of the drive toward quality, giving editors a little extra breathing room to nurture a fledgling author with promise-as Kamil should know. Two of her earliest authors, Elizabeth McCracken (The Giant's House) and Allegra Goodman (Kaaterskill Falls) received National Book Award nominations before they turned 30.

This is not to say that every work from a large house is a gem or that small presses aren't vital to the publication of distinctive new works. But in an increasingly tense economic environment, imprints are a good way to assure that quality works don't just survive but thrive. 'I just don't see how to run literary publishing profitably,' acknowledges Ecco's Halpern. 'The imprint is a model that provides the best of both worlds.'