Simon & Schuster has united the editorial and publicity teams of its Pocket Books and Simon Spotlight Entertainment into a new imprint called Gallery Books. The new group will be headed by Louise Burke who is now executive v-p and publisher of Gallery with Antony Ziccardi named v-p and deputy publisher. Jen Bergstrom, who had been publisher of SSE, will be editor-in-chief of Gallery overseeing all editorial operations. All hardcovers and trade paperbacks that had been published under the Pocket and SSE imprints will now be published under the Gallery name, likely beginning in spring 2010. The SSE name will be phased out and Pocket Books will return to its roots as strictly a publisher of mass market paperbacks, for both reprints and originals.
In her memo to the staff announcing the change, S&S CEO Carolyn Reidy said combining SSE and Pocket will give Gallery more areas of strengths “in order to withstand the vicissitudes of the marketplace an respond rapidly to changing reader preferences.” Gallery will focus on the strengths of SSE and Pocket which include women’s fiction, pop culture and entertainment, and Gallery’s editors will be encouraged “to acquire top authors and hot prospects in a broad range of publishing categories, both fiction and nonfiction.” It was unclear if the formation of Gallery will result in the publication of fewer titles. No positions have been eliminated in the move; Pocket did cut three jobs earlier this month.
Other top appointments at Gallery include that of Tricia Boczkowski who was named v-p and editorial director of Gallery, Mitchell Ivers, appointed v-p, senior editor, and Lauren McKenna, named executive editor. Jennifer Robinson, who oversaw publicity for SSE, has been appointed v-p, publicity director for Gallery, with Jean Anne Rose, who headed publicity for Pocket, named publicity director. Lisa Keim will oversee sub rights for Gallery as v-p and director of subsidiary rights.
The other imprints in Pocket--Downtown Press, Karen Hunter Publishing, MTV Books, Star Trek, Threshold Edition, and WWE-- are unaffected by the move and will continued to be overseen by Burke and Ziccardi. Burke will also directly oversee Pocket's mass market operations.
