When Martha Levin left Hyperion to take the helm at the Free Press last April, it was another clear sign that S&S intended to redefine the 55-year-old house by adding fiction and a new commercial luster to its nonfiction profile. Best known for publishing conservative authors such as Allan Bloom, Charles Murray and David Brock, the imprint has been searching for a new identity as four publishers have revolved through its doors in four years.
For Levin, moving to the Free Press represented a chance to bring together the kind of mix of literary fiction and serious nonfiction that defined Anchor when she was the publisher there, along with the self-help and New Age titles that were her bread and butter at Hyperion. After appointing Dominick Anfuso editorial director, Levin hired former Ballantine exec Leslie Meredith as v-p and senior editor, and Doubleday's Amy Scheibe as fiction editor. But to some longtime industry observers, the string of new appointments heralds the death of the concept of the serious nonfiction house, now that the Free Press has abandoned the publishing model that previously distinguished it and houses such as Basic Books and Pantheon.
"Traditions are great, but they sometimes need to be reexamined," said Levin. "We're not rebuffing but expanding on the Free Press identity. It will remain an important, critically acclaimed nonfiction house. I want to have it all—to win prizes and sell a lot of books." But the imprint's plans to expand its list from 100 to 125 books a year, and to introduce four fiction titles each season as well as new acquisitions in self-help, New Age, religion and biography—not to mention the recent arrival of three prominent S&S editors—have left some observers wondering what will distinguish the Free Press from Simon & Schuster's flagship imprint.
When pressed, Levin admitted that it may be a little easier to define the Free Press by what it won't do—that is, step into areas in which other S&S imprints have clear identities. "When I was at Anchor, the little band of us realized we were going to succeed by doing what everyone else wasn't doing," she said. At S&S, the obvious exception to this strategy will be self-help, an area in which every imprint is a player. But then again, it was also at Anchor where Levin learned to play the internal political game that ensues when imprint heads must vie for a book when a corporate bid is accepted—a game that's very often played at S&S.
Among the recent acquisitions Levin views as emblematic is Deboroah Daw Heffernan's account of her struggle with heart disease, An Arrow Through the Heart (May), and Ken Alder's Measure of All Things (Sept.), a work of narrative nonfiction about two men who set out to measure the world. Other titles build on core strengths in politics and history, psychology and business, such as longtime house author Norman Podhoretz's new book, The Prophets: Who They Were—What They Are (Nov.); Martin Seligman's Authentic Happiness: Using New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment (Sept.); and The Influentials, which Levin describes as a "very exciting book on marketing" by Edward Keller and Jonathon Berry (Jan. 2003). Long distinguished for its intellectual outlook and editorial specialists, the Free Press became known as one of the industry's few bastions of conservatism following the appointment of Erwin Glikes as publisher in 1983, when the house was owned by Macmillan. Within four years, he had made Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind a trendsetting bestseller. But that kind of commercial success was the exception for the relatively scholarly frontlist, which required a tight grasp on overhead and returns to remain profitable. As with many academically oriented publishers, the engine was in the backlist, which accounted for approximately 60% of profits.
When Paramount bought Macmillan in 1994, Glikes departed (and died unexpectedly of a heart attack shortly thereafter). But his vision remained more or less intact in the hands of publisher Michael Jacobs and editor-in-chief Adam Bellow. In 1995, Bellow published the controversial bestseller The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, leading the Washington Post to crown the son of the novelist Saul Bellow "the hottest editor in New York." But by 1997, the moment for conservative bestsellers had passed; Bellow stepped down amid speculation that S&S would fold the imprint into the adult trade division, and eventually moved to Doubleday as an editor-at-large.
As Simon & Schuster president Carolyn Reidy readily admits, the Free Press's established formula was never going to yield enough annual growth to suit Simon & Schuster; in addition, the house was not as dedicated to academic marketing as Macmillan had been. But at the time she was willing to leave the imprint's focus on serious nonfiction intact, hiring publisher Paula Duffy, the former director of the Harvard Business School Press, and editorial director Liz Maguire, who had been an executive editor at Addison-Wesley. Aiming for a broader readership, the two pitched the house as "a nonfiction Scribner," adding Cornel West, Michael Eric Dyson and Anne Roiphe to the list.
Though Maguire said she and Duffy had expanded the imprint's revenues by 30% by the time they left in 2000, Reidy was looking for even more growth. Her next move was to hire Bill Shinker, the industry veteran known for his flair in publishing nonfiction, to aggressively expand both the quantity and categories of books published by the house. In another bold stroke, she pared down the S&S list and gave Shinker a headstart by pushing two S&S senior editors into the press's orbit. Dominick Anfuso brought along major self-help authors Phil McGraw, Stephen Covey, Tony Robbins and Cheryl Richardson, as well as Pulitzer Prize—winning novelist James Alan McPherson. And Fred Hill, who had "guest-edited" the Free Press bestseller The Death of Outrage by William Bennett while still at S&S, brought over Gary Zukav. In addition, Bill Rosen, v-p, executive editor and director of the reference imprint S&S Source, came in to oversee a new joint venture with Wall Street Journal Books.
Senior editor Bruce Nichols, who was hired by Glikes nine and a half years ago, said that so far, the house's new gloss has helped the history and politics titles that still dominate his list. "The Free Press brand is still valuable, we have more resources for buying books than before we were part of S&S, and the commercial changes at the press have opened new sales channels for some of our serious nonfiction titles," he said.
Though Shinker left after only eight months (he moved to PenguinPutnam to start a smaller imprint), Levin is comfortable filling his shoes. "I loved my three years at Hyperion, but I'm happy to be back in a much larger publishing house," she said. "I love the structure and the informational systems, and I'm awed by the financial acumen that every editor in the building is charged with having. I'm in meetings with my publisher colleagues here all the time. I really like the level of collaboration."
