Ginee Seo, who served as executive publishing director at Chronicle Books children’s group for 12 years, has joined Crown Publishing Group’s Ten Speed Press in the newly created position of v-p and editorial director of children's publishing. “What most excites me is that I’ll get to do a little bit of everything” at a small division within Penguin Random House, Seo told PW. Seo has held leadership roles at HarperCollins and Atheneum, and this will be her first position at PRH.
Aaron Wehner, executive v-p of Crown Publishing and publisher of Ten Speed Press and Clarkson Potter, announced Seo’s hire on November 13. In a statement, Wehner said that Seo will cultivate “distinctive projects from diverse voices” with “crossover appeal to different age ranges as well as to gift and specialty accounts.”
“The past few years have shown us that it’s more important than ever to raise up diverse voices,” Seo said. “I will be looking to work with diverse talent, for sure.”
Books with crossover potential, and authors crossing categories, are of interest at Ten Speed. In his statement, Wehner said Seo’s input would “open up new creative possibilities and publishing synergies across Crown Publishing Group’s roster of adult book authors.”
Seo confirmed that “there are definitely Crown authors on the adult side who are interested in writing children’s books,” notably picture books. Established Crown and PRH authors might find it “challenging to go outside to a completely new team or group,” she said, and Ten Speed could keep those creators within the company, where there is “already a base of familiarity.”
Ten Speed Press is based in Berkeley and has offices in Emeryville, Calif., not far from Seo’s home. After Seo left Chronicle in May, Wehner—who also lives in the Bay Area—got in touch with her about expanding Ten Speed’s children’s and YA program. (Random House acquired Ten Speed Press along with its children’s imprint, Tricycle Press, in 2009. Ten Speed became an imprint of Crown, and Random House Children’s Books closed Tricycle in 2010.)
Wehner “found recently, when he was doing a business review, that not only were there quite a few children’s books on Ten Speed’s list, but they were also doing really well,” Seo said. “One of the things we talked about was what I could contribute.” Ten Speed has been developing its licensed content, which includes the Dungeons & Dragons Young Adventurer’s Guides, along with successful series including the Women Who Make History books by Rachel Ignotofsky.
In addition to growing Ten Speed’s list of picture books and illustrated nonfiction, Seo will develop graphic novels for Ten Speed Graphic, an imprint formed last May. This fall, Ten Speed Graphic released an adaptation of Richard Adams’s Watership Down, written by James Sturm and illustrated by Joe Sutphin. In March, the imprint plans to publish Nothing Special: Volume One, the first of four in a series by webtoon creator Katie Cook.
Although she’s only just begun signing authors, Seo said she is open to “bringing in some younger titles” to Ten Speed Graphic, to appeal across age ranges, as well as mining PRH’s deep backlist for potential reboots. She and Wehner expect Ten Speed’s renewed children’s program to publish eight to 10 titles annually.
