PW: Eyewitness Returns to DK

Dorling Kindersley Publishing has reached an agreement with Random House to acquire all rights and inventory to the Eyewitness series. Random has published the Eyewitness line, which was developed by DK, since 1988 under the Knopf imprint.

DK will add the 80 backlist titles acquired from Random to its existing list of 30 books, which includes Eyewitness titles published in cooperation with the National Football League, Major League Baseball and the Smithsonian. In addition, DK plans to release four new Eyewitness titles per season beginning this spring. DK's Chuck Lang said that as part of the company's "re-launch" of the children's nonfiction series, DK has redesigned the covers and has lowered its suggested retail price to $15.95 from $19.95. All 110 titles will be in DK's March catalogue with a June publication date. Lang said the publisher has planned an aggressive marketing campaign for Eyewitness. "We want to create a lot of excitement about the series," he said