After PW reported two weeks ago that Fourth Estate would be closing its U.S. branch, the house made it official last week, setting off speculation about at least one of its star authors.
The company announced it will keep the Fourth Estate name officially until next winter, but that imprint copublisher Christopher Potter will leave now. Editorial director Courtney Hodell, though, will continue on as executive editor for HC, first shepherding the remaining 50 or so titles in the FE pipeline and then acquiring similar books for HC.
Earlier speculation had some of the books becoming part of Ecco, where publisher Dan Halpern had served an uneasy term as copublisher of FE, but all of the books published after next winter will be part of the HarperCollins imprint. It is also believed that Potter, a talented and respected editor, could have stayed on at a job in the Fourth Estate U.K., but chose to leave.
Despite its short (three-year) history as an extension of the Harper U.K. division, Fourth Estate U.S. managed to compete with more established houses and to lure big authors, most notably Michael Chabon.
Chabon has a novel and a collection still outstanding for Fourth Estate. His agent, Mary Evans, said she expected both of her client's books to come out as planned from Fourth Estate but declined to comment further or say whether that could change if Potter landed at another house.
It is not known whether Chabon had an out clause because of Potter; one source noted that while Harper's policy is generally not to offer them, an exception might have been made because of both the author's status and Fourth Estate's origins as a separate company.
The move also had Fourth Estate U.K. chief Victoria Barnsley reorganizing literary imprints, in an effort to reassure the British industry that the house's ability to attract authors won't be affected by the U.S. closure. Still, skepticism remains. Said one observer who has had dealings with the British company, "The question it raises for everybody is this: if the line [to agents] has been that the reason you should publish the book with us is that we have two hands [an American and a British division], and now one of those hands gets cut off, you need a new line."
