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LPC Forms Imprint With Richard Curtis
Steven M. Zeitchik -- 3/27/00

In an announcement that highlights both the expanding role of distributors and the move toward online-offline partnerships, Chicago's LPC Group has revived a publishing imprint that will see the majority of its titles come from a co-publishing venture with Richard Curtis's e-Reads. Olmstead Press will publish as many as 40 books per year, beginning this summer with What Women Need to Know by Marianne Legato and Carol Colman, originally published as a Simon & Schuster hardcover in 1997.

About two-thirds of Olmstead's titles will come from a division known as Olmstead Press/e-Reads that will allow, in some cases, for an electronic edition from Curtis to complement LPC's on-demand or traditionally published title. The print books might come out as simultaneous editions or later than the e-versions. LPC's David Wilk said that the electronic edition could serve as a bellwether for how many copies to print of a p-book, or whether to print it at all. Despite the way the market for one might be used to gauge demand for the other, Wilk said he was not worried about cannibalization, because he sees the markets for e- and p-books as largely distinct. According to the deal, LPC has first rights to all e-Reads titles.Titles in the imprint will be both fiction and nonfiction. Olmstead will also publish a series of guidebooks and cookbooks in conjunction with the Independent Innkeepers Association, and will license rights from other sources.

Wilk sees the extension into publishing as a logical move that stems from LPC's business model as well as a changing market. "We think we're the third-largest distributor and, up till now, the only ones who weren't publishing," he said, adding, "What we do now is not all that different from what we will do as a publisher."

From a personnel standpoint, the main change will come in the company's editorial department. It will add Maureen Owens as managing editor, as well as other editorial and publicity staff. Sales and distribution, for the time being, will be handled by the regular staff, and Wilk said the company "would not divert resources" from its distribution efforts in behalf of other publishers.

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