Simon &Schuster has established a new imprint, Simon &Schuster International, under which the company will distribute titles from Simon &Schuster U.K. and Simon &Schuster Australia. The first list of 26 titles will appear this October and will cover a range of fiction and nonfiction books in both hardcover and paperback formats. Only books for which S&S has acquired English-language rights will be included in the program.
Carolyn Reidy, president of the S&S trade division, who will oversee S&S International, said that the formation of the new imprint had been spurred by the success foreign titles were enjoying through the Internet. "Simon &Schuster's international divisions publish some original titles that have not previously been for sale in the U.S., and we are making these books available here to meet the demands of what we see as a growing worldwide market," Reidy explained.
S&S also announced last week that it will launch a line of S&S Classic Editions to mark the company's 75th anniversary. Titles in the series will combine each book's original artwork with contemporary packaging and in many cases will be updated with a new introduction by the author. The first three S&S Classic Editions -- All the President's Men, Where Are the Children? and Father of the Bride -- will be released this spring. Catch-22, The Blackboard Jungle and Charles Dickens's The Life of Our Lord will be published in the fall. In the coming years, S&S will likely release one Classic Edition per season.
