Howard and Helen Fisher have acquired 280 educational titles and the brand name Good Year Books from the Pearson Learning Group. Good Year will become the main publishing business for the Fishers, who previously had built and sold HP Books and Fisher Books. Their other publishing interests include California Bill's Automotive Handbooks and No Nonsense Fly Fishing Guides.
Howard Fisher told PW his priority is to "re-establish the Good Year brand in the market channels." As part of that effort, Fisher has revised the company discount policy "to put it in tune with trade practices," Fisher said. Pearson had been selling the titles at a 40% discount. In addition, Fisher has reached a distribution agreement with Sourcebooks, which will handle sales and distribution in the U.S. and Canada. Ware-Pak will handle fulfillment for direct mail, foreign sales and special sales, and Good Year will sell the titles at educational conferences.
The Good Year line had been largely dormant for the last few years with no editor and no new catalogues released in 2001 and 2002, although a new one came out in 2003. Fisher is looking for an editor to head editorial operations and also plans to hire a marketing manager.
Good Year publishes a wide range of supplementary titles for kindergarten through grade 12. Subjects include language arts, social studies, art, math and music. Fisher said he hoped to begin releasing new titles next year as well as releasing revised editions of backlist books. Bestselling titles include Phonics Through Poetry, Baseball Math and The New Teachers Handbook. Fisher is aiming to publish 40 new and revised titles in 2005.
With the purchase of Good Year, Fisher is thinking about changing the name of his company from California Bill's Automotive Handbooks. The imprint publishes titles covering auto nostalgia, history and rebuilding, which are distributed by Motorbooks International. Titles in the No Nonsense imprint are distributed by Globe Pequot.
