HarperEntertainment, which only a couple of years ago was offering a series of books created in cooperation with NASCAR and many titles linked to major league baseball, has a new look and direction under Morrow publisher Michael Morrison, who has taken it under his wing.
"I was interested in it because of my personal vision, because of our relationship with Fox, and because I felt no one else was focusing on the kind of areas I wanted HarperEntertainment to get into," Morrison said in a recent interview with him and his staff. "And one of the key elements to my vision for it was to hire someone like executive editor Maureen O'Brien, with the right sensibility" (to which the editor, formerly at Hyperion—and once at PW, too) responded: "Michael just gets it better, that's all."
Acquisition duties for the "new" HarperEntertainment are shared between O'Brien, who makes what she calls "the more conventional" buys, concentrating on high-profile memoirs like her recent purchase of B.D. Wong's Following Foo; and senior editor Josh Behar, who has a "more underground" sensibility—though both are "very selective." Behar won the auction for the tie-in with the recent movie and upcoming TV series XXX (and he actually had a part in one episode).
Executive editor Mauro DiPreta still buys some of the sports-related titles that used to be a HarperEntertainment staple, but which are now mostly done as Morrow books. "We're getting away from the Middle America image I think we used to have, to something sharper and edgier," said Morrison.
All told, the team is aiming to publish 12 to 15 hardcovers a year, with a handful, like 24—another TV tie-in bought by Behar—done in trade paperback. All this is done in the context of Morrow editorial meetings, where the editors pitch the books they'd like to take on—and to which editors from throughout the company can also come; there's "universal availability" of the HarperEntertainment name.
"I think we're now more frontlist driven, more proactive," said Morrison. "We actually go after the show business people we think would be right for us." Examples, beyond award-winning actor Wong, are memoirs by former porn star Traci Lords, actress Tatum O'Neal, musician Iggy Pop, and books for both children and adults by Bill Cosby, whom O'Brien had edited at Hyperion. Other upcoming titles: Essential Bond, tied in with the 007 movies, and a book about Manhattan's literary restaurant Elaine's by Hemingway biographer A.E. Hotchner.
The synergy with Fox, owned, like Harper, by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., is increasingly important. Morrison said there are regular "creative counsel" meetings to discuss ways in which they can work together, and the publisher is represented on the Fox lot in Hollywood by Paul Lance. "We're very connected," Morrison stressed.
Other successful outreach is to Harper U.K., where HarperEntertainment titles often enjoy strong serialization sales to British newspapers.
