Just a few months after leaving Simon & Schuster where he was publisher and executive v-p of the flagship S&S imprint, David Rosenthal has been named president and publisher of a new general, as yet unnamed imprint, at Penguin Group. Rosenthal will start in January and hopes to have his first titles released next fall, eventually doing 24 to 36 titles annually.
Rosenthal’s appointment reflects Penguin’s belief in the publishing business and its commitment to growth, said Susan Petersen Kennedy, president, Penguin Group (USA), noting that publishing remains “a very personal business. One that requires one on one relationships.” Noting the Penguin’s imprint strategy has been successful, Kennedy said the new imprint is being created because Rosenthal was available. “We wouldn’t create an imprint for the hell of it,” she said.
Titles “will reflect David’s breadth of vision,” Kennedy said covering both fiction and nonfiction. Rosenthal will put together a staff and Kennedy hopes he can publish 24 titles as soon as 2012. In the press release, Rosenthal said: “This imprint will allow me to work on titles I’m passionate about and give me the opportunity to be extremely hands on with every book we publish. I also envision it as a kind of ‘publishing laboratory,’ where we may from time to time experiment with new ways of promoting books and connecting readers with writers."
Among the authors he published at S&S, were David McCullough, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Bob Greene, Sandra Brown, Mary Higgins Clark, Paula Deen, Bob Woodward,, Jimmy Carter and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Rosenthal was replaced at S&S by Jonathan Karp who is reorganizing the imprint into a tighter-focused operation.
Photo by David Burnett.
