HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the world's largest publishing companies and,
alongside Hachette, Holtzbrinck/Macmillan, Penguin Random House, and Simon & Schuster,
is part of the "Big Five" English-language publishing companies. Headquartered in New
York City, the company is a subsidiary of News Corp. The company name is a combination
of Harper & Row—an American publishing company acquired in 1987, itself the result of an
earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company—and UK publishing company
William Collins, Sons, acquired in 1990. The worldwide CEO of HarperCollins is Brian Murray.
HarperCollins has publishing groups in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom,
Australia, New Zealand, and India. The company publishes many different imprints, both former
independent publishing houses and new imprints.
History
Collins
Harper
Mergers and acquisitions In 1989, Collins was bought by Rupert Murdoch's
News Corporation, and the publisher was combined with Harper & Row, which NewsCorp had acquired
two years earlier. In addition to the simplified and merged name, the logo for HarperCollins
was derived from the torch logo for Harper and Row, and the fountain logo for Collins,
which were combined into a stylized set of flames atop waves.
In 1999, News Corporation purchased the Hearst Book Group, consisting of William Morrow & Company
and Avon Books. These imprints are now published under the rubric of HarperCollins.
HarperCollins bought educational publisher Letts and Lonsdale in March 2010.
In 2011, HarperCollins announced they had agreed to acquire the publisher Thomas Nelson.
The purchase was completed on July 11, 2012 with an announcement that Thomas Nelson would
operate independently given the position it has in Christian book publishing.
Management history Jane Friedman was CEO for HarperCollins from
1997 to 2008. Notable management figures include Lisa Sharkey, current senior vice president
and director of creative development and Barry Winkleman from 1989 to 1994.
United States v. Apple Inc. In April 2012, the United States Department
of Justice filed United States v. Apple Inc., naming Apple, HarperCollins, and four other
major publishers as defendants. The suit alleged that they conspired to fix prices for e-books,
and weaken Amazon.com's position in the market, in violation of antitrust law.
In December 2013, a federal judge approved a settlement of the antitrust claims, in which
HarperCollins and the other publishers paid into a fund that provided credits to customers
who had overpaid for books due to the price-fixing. U.S. warehousing closings
It was announced to employees privately and then later in the day publicly on Monday,
November 5, 2012 that HarperCollins is closing its remaining 2 U.S. warehouses, in order
to merge shipping and warehousing operations with R.R. Donnelley in Indiana. The Scranton,
PA warehouse will close in September 2013 and a Nashville, TN warehouse, under the name
Thomas Nelson, in winter of 2013. Several office positions and departments will continue
to work for HarperCollins in Scranton, but in a new location.
The Scranton warehouse closing will eliminate approximately 200 jobs, and the Nashville
warehouse closing will eliminate up to 500 jobs
HarperCollins previously closed 2 U.S. warehouses, one in Williamsport, PA in 2011 and another
in Grand Rapids, MI in 2012. “We have taken a long-term, global view of our print distribution
and are committed to offering the broadest possible reach for our authors," said HarperCollins
Chief Executive Brian Murray, according to Publishers Weekly."We are retooling the traditional
distribution model to ensure we can competitively offer the entire HarperCollins catalog to
customers regardless of location.” Company officials attribute the closings and mergers
to the rapidly growing demand for e-book formats and the decline in print purchasing.
Notable books HarperCollins maintains the backlist of many
of the books originally published by their many merged imprints, in addition to having
picked up new authors since the merger. Authors published originally by Harper include Mark
Twain, the Brontë sisters and William Makepeace Thackeray. Authors published originally by
Collins include H. G. Wells, Agatha Christie and J. R. R. Tolkien. This is a list of some
of the more noted books, and series, published by HarperCollins and their various imprints
and merged publishing houses.
The Art of Loving, Erich Fromm Master and Commander, Patrick O'Brian
the Leaphorn and Chee books, Tony Hillerman Collins English Dictionary, a major dictionary
Sharpe series, Bernard Cornwell Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, Hayden
Herrera, adapted into the 2002 film Frida Weaveworld, Clive Barker
the Paladin Poetry Series Of Gravity & Angels, Jane Hirshfield
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho, subsequent novels in the Take Back Plenty
series, Colin Greenland The Language of the Genes, Steve Jones
The Gifts of the Body, Rebecca Brown Microserfs, Douglas Coupland
Shuka Saptati: Seventy tales of the Parrot a new translation from the Sanskrit by A.
N. D. Haksar First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of
Cambodia Remembers, Loung Ung Bel Canto, Ann Patchett
A Theory of Relativity, Jacquelyn Mitchard recent volumes in the Discworld series by
Terry Pratchett American Gods, Neil Gaiman
Boonville, Robert Mailer Anderson Quicksilver, Neal Stephenson
Don Quixote, a new translation by Edith Grossman Acquainted with the Night, Christopher Dewdney
Darkhouse, Alex Barclay Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman
The Hot Kid, Elmore Leonard Freaky Green Eyes, by Joyce Carol Oates
Next, Michael Crichton Domicilium Decoratus, Kelly Wearstler ISBN
0-06-089798-8 Pretty Little Liars, Sara Shepard
Mister B. Gone, Clive Barker The Children of Húrin, J.R.R. Tolkien
Loving Natalee: A Mother's Testament of Hope and Faith, Beth Holloway
The Raw Shark Texts, Steven Hall The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the
Heart of American Power, Jeff Sharlet Going Rogue: An American Life, Sarah Palin
Solo, Rana Dasgupta The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, J.R.R. Tolkien
Pirate Latitudes, Michael Crichton Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
Shattered: The True Story of a Mother's Love, a Husband's Betrayal, and a Cold-Blooded Texas
Murder, Kathryn Casey Micro, Michael Crichton
The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
A Shot at History: My Obsessive Journey to Olympic Gold by Abhinav Bindra
Harper Children's Books Children's book editor Ursula Nordstrom was
the director of Harper's Department of Books for Boys and Girls from 1940 to 1973, overseeing
the publication of classics such as Goodnight Moon, Where the Wild Things Are, The Giving
Tree, Charlotte's Web, Beverly Cleary's series starring Ramona Quimby, and Harold and the
Purple Crayon. They were the publishing home of Maurice Sendak, Shel Silverstein, and Margaret
Wise Brown. In 1998, Nordstrom's personal correspondence was published as Dear Genius:
The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom, edited by Charlotte Zolotow. Zolotow began her career
as a stenographer to Nordstrom, became her protege, and went on to write more than 80
books and edit hundreds of others, including Nordstrom's The Secret Language and the works
of Paul Fleischman. Zolotow later became head of the Children's Books Department, and went
on to become the company's first female Vice-President. The Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis,
while not originally published by a merged imprint of HarperCollins, were acquired by
the publisher. HarperCollins has published the following
notable children's books:
the I Can Read! series for beginning readers, including the Amelia Bedelia, Frog and Toad
and Little Bear books the Warriors series
A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket A Taste of Blackberries, Doris Buchanan Smith
Skulduggery Pleasant series, Derek Landy Bart Simpson's Guide to Life
Love That Dog, Sharon Creech The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein
Where the Sidewalk Ends, Shel Silverstein The Saga of Darren Shan, Darren Shan
Cirque du Freak manga series, Darren Shan and Takahiro Arai
The Dangerous Book for Boys, Conn and Hal Iggulden
Sabriel, Garth Nix A Barrel of Laughs, a Vale of Tears, Jules
Feiffer Mister God, This Is Anna, Fynn
the Little House on the Prairie series, Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Wolves in the Walls, Neal Gaiman and Dave McKean
Monster, Walter Dean Myers Coraline, Neal Gaiman and Dave McKean
the Pretty Little Liars series, by Sara Shepard Surviving the Applewhites, Stephanie S. Tolan
Ruby Redfort, Lauren Child Divergent, Veronica Roth
The School for Good and Evil, Soman Chainani Imprints
HarperCollins has over 30 book imprints, most of which are based in the United States. Collins
still exists as an imprint, chiefly for wildlife and natural history books, field guides, as
well as English and bilingual dictionaries based on the Bank of English, a large corpus
of contemporary English texts. On 8 February 2013 it was announced that some
parts of the Collins non-fiction imprint would be merged with the HarperPress imprint to
form the new William Collins imprint. HarperCollins imprints, include:
Business strategy
Web approach In order to both boost book sales and reach
the online market, HarperCollins has created a browsing feature on its website, whereby
customers can read selected excerpts from books before purchasing. There are some concerns
among publishers with this approach because they feel that the online books could be exploited
by file-sharing. In addition, excerpts of books are also available to mobile phone users.
HarperCollins were first to market with an innovative approach to slushpile management
with the introduction of the authonomy website. From 2009 to 2010, they operated Bookarmy,
a social networking site. At the beginning of October 2013, the company
announced a partnership with online digital library Scribd. The official statement revealed
that the "majority" of the HarperCollins US and HarperCollins Christian catalogs will
be available in Scribd's subscription service. Chantal Restivo-Alessi, chief digital officer
at HarperCollins, explained to the media that the deal represents the first time that the
publisher has released such a large portion of its catalog.
Speakers Bureau The HarperCollins Speakers Bureau is the first
lecture agency to be created by a major publishing house. It was launched in May 2005 as a division
of HarperCollins to book paid speaking engagements for the authors HarperCollins, and its sister
companies, publish. Andrea Rosen is the director. Some of the notable authors the HCSB represents
include Carol Alt, Dennis Lehane, Gregory Maguire, Danny Meyer, Mehmet Oz, Sidney Poitier,
Ted Sorensen, and Kate White. HarperStudio
HarperCollins announced HarperStudio in 2008 as a "new, experimental unit... that will
eliminate the traditional profit distributions to authors. The long-established author advances
and bookseller returns has not proved to be very profitable to either the author or the
publisher. The approach HarperStudio is now taking is to offer little or no advance, but
instead to split the profit 50%, with the author." The division was headed by Bob Miller,
previously the founding publisher of Hyperion, the adult books division of the Walt Disney
Company. HarperStudio folded in March 2010 after Miller left for Workman Publishing.
HarperCollins India HarperCollins India was started in 2003 as
a joint venture between Living Media and HarperCollins. This combination makes HarperCollins India
a major publisher in India. HarperCollins took full control of the venture at the end
of 2012. Controversies
If I Did It
If I Did It was a book written by O.J. Simpson about his alleged murder of Nicole Simpson,
which was planned as a HarperCollins title, and which attracted considerable controversy
and a legal battle over publication. Ben Collins
In August 2010, the company became embroiled in a legal battle with the BBC after a book
it was due to publish, later identified as the forthcoming autobiography of racing driver
Ben Collins, revealed the identity of The Stig from Top Gear. In his blog, Top Gear
executive producer Andy Wilman accused HarperCollins of "hoping to cash in" on the BBC's intellectual
property, describing the publishers as "a bunch of chancers". On September 1 the BBC's
request for an injunction preventing the book from being published was turned down, effectively
confirming the book's revelation that "The Stig" was indeed Collins.
East and West The company became embroiled in controversy
in 1998 after it was revealed it blocked Chris Patten's book East and West after a direct
intervention by the then-CEO of News International, Rupert Murdoch. It was later revealed by Stuart
Proffitt, the editor who had worked on the book for HarperCollins, that this intervention
was designed to appease the Chinese authorities- of whom the book was critical- as Murdoch
intended to extend his business empire into China and did not wish to cause problems there
by allowing the book to be published. Murdoch's intervention caused both Proffitt's resignation
from the company and outrage from international media outside of News International. Chris
Patten later published with Macmillan Publishing, initially in America, where it carried the
logo "The book that Rupert Murdoch refused to publish". After a successful legal campaign
against HarperCollins, Patten went on to publish the book in the UK in September 1998 after
accepting a sum of £500,000 and receiving an apology from Rupert Murdoch.
eBooks In March 2011, HarperCollins announced it
would distribute eBooks to libraries with DRM enabled to delete the item after being
lent 26 times. HarperCollins has drawn criticism of this plan, in particular its likening eBooks,
which are purely digital, to traditional paperback trade books, which wear over time.
See also
COBUILD – a research facility set up by Collins in conjunction with the University
of Birmingham. Harper's Magazine – a separately owned magazine,
although begun by the original Harper & Brothers. List of largest UK book publishers
References
External links Official website