Effective July 1, W.H. Freeman's trade list will be taken over by Henry Holt, which, like Freeman, is part of the Von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. Freeman is mainly a college textbook publisher, and company president Liz Widdicombe said that "scale issues" were behind the decision to transfer Freeman's trade program. "It's a nice fit with Holt," she added.
The Freeman line focuses primarily on science and should benefit from the growing public interest in popular science titles. There are 12 new titles scheduled for fall and the line has a backlist of about 250. Most of the books will appear as Freeman books under Holt's Times Books imprint, although some will be published under the Holt and Owl banners, said Elizabeth Shreve, publicity director for Holt. The Holt sales force will assume sales responsibility for the fall titles, although Widdicombe said Freeman's commissioned rep groups will also market the books for the remainder of the year. Widdicombe told PW that Freeman is looking to place the six-person trade department team in other jobs within the Holtzbrinck operation. "They're a good group of people," she said.
