Fourth Estate Could Soon Be No More

by Steven Zeitchik, PW NewsLine -- Publishers Weekly, 2/10/2005

As Harper tries to give its imprints a greater consumer profile, one project it had touted as a bold transatlantic branding experiment could be coming to an end.

Sources say the company is in serious internal discussions about ending the standalone U.S. imprint of Fourth Estate and folding its titles into other Harper lines. Executives both in the U.S. and the U.K. are said to be hashing out where the line's three-year-old backlist and approximately 50 books in the pipeline would go.

Insiders say books could end up at Harper Perennial (which is currently in the midst of a revamping) or at the related Ecco Press, among other places. The discussions have become a part of (and have been slowed down by) Harper's more general move to overhaul brands as part of its Publishing + program "It's all interrelated," said one source. Company spokesperson Lisa Herling declined to comment.

Harper acquired the British literary house Fourth Estate in the summer of 2000 and opened a U.S. beachhead in October 2001. The idea at the time was to find authors who could work in both territories, buy transatlantic rights and publish the books simultaneously. Initially the house scored some big names, bringing on authors such as Carol Shields and Michael Chabon.

But the division's similarity and proximity to Ecco (Dan Halpern serves as co-publisher and American point person) made matters tricky. And one person with knowledge of the situation says the imprint was not "neatly fitting into [any] structure," referring to a U.S. line of a U.K. division that's part of a U.S.-based conglomerate.