After departing from Grand Central Publishing earlier this year, Jamie Raab and Deb Futter have resurfaced at Macmillan, where they will launch a new division called Celadon Books. Raab will serve as president and publisher, with Futter as senior v-p and co-publisher.
The division launches on September 12, and will, Macmillan said in a statement, publish a list of 20 to 25 books a year in the fiction and nonfiction categories. The announcement was made by Don Weisberg, president of U.S. trade publishing for Macmillan, who added: “I’ve been a fan of Jamie’s from afar for a long time, and I’m thrilled to be working with Deb again.”
The new imprint follows departures that were a surprise for many in the industry; Raab had previously been with Grand Central, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, for 30 years. For 18 of those years, she was HBG's publisher. Futter was HBG's v-p, and the president of her own imprint, Twelve Books. Neither, Alexandra Alter reported for the New York Times in an exclusive scoop, had had a position lined up.
“I like the business too much,” Raab said. “I still have a lot to give.”
For Grand Central, Raab acquired or edited books by bestsellers including Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, Nicholas Sparks, Nelson Demille, Amy Sedaris, Jane Goodall, and Al Franken, among many other. Futter, for her part, acquired or edited books by writers including Noah Hawley, Scott Turow, Ellen DeGeneres, Carole King, Steve Martin.
At Celadon, the Times reported, Futter hopes to "publish novels that straddle the line between commercial and literary," while Raab will seek to acquire "idea-driven narratives and nonfiction books, and works about politics."
