Marcus Joins BSG Board and Agents Book

by Judith Rosen, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 4/9/2007

As part of her plan to "ease back" into publishing, Barbara Marcus, former president of Scholastic Children's Book Publishing, has joined the board of Lexington, Mass.-based B*tween Productions, publisher of the Beacon Street Girls series, which is aimed at providing positive role models for preteen girls.

"I've decided to work with companies that excite me," said Marcus. "I was drawn to BSG because it's entrepreneurial, they have a great mission and they're looking to build a brand. They're creating a new model of books, online [content] and products to reach out to girls where they live."

Although B*tween Productions founder and CEO Addie Swartz is pleased with the company's growth—year-over-year revenue doubled from 2005 to 2006—she is counting on Marcus to help get the company grow. "She has such an incredible history building brands," said Swartz, pointing to Marcus's 22 years of experience taking Scholastic's book group from a $50 million channel to one with revenues of $1.2 billion at the time she left.

With last month's release of Just Kidding, B*tween Productions has published 10 books in its BSG series since it began in 2004, along with one related adventure title. It will publish one more book in its traditional line and two adventure titles in 2007, and has just signed its first foreign rights deal for the first three BSG books.

In addition to BSG, Marcus is also working with another line of books for girls, published by Forever Entertainment, which is looking to turn a series of novels about Santa's daughter, Holly, into a franchise for ages nine to 12. Marcus is acting as an adviser to Forever Entertainment and sold Holly Claus: The Christmas Princess by Brittney Ryan, to HarperCollins, which will release the book as part of its Julie Andrews Collection in the fall. Ryan and business partner John Hertz founded Forever Entertainment.