Walden Forms New Imprint at HarperCollins
By Matthew Thornton -- Publishers Weekly, 5/12/2008 8:22:00 AM
Film studio Walden Media is switching its publishing partner from Penguin to HarperCollins. According to Deborah Kovacs, Walden svp, who oversees publishing activities for the company, the shift, which gives Walden its own HarperCollins imprint, represents the next stage in the company’s growth. Launching in fall 2009, the Walden Pond Press list will be tiny—the initial list is three books, with five or six books signed up for 2010, but Walden titles will be “specific, explicit selections that help enhance our name,” Kovacs says. And the idea is to bring the Walden name, known primarily for its Chronicles of Narnia film adaptations, “into the forefront” in another medium—though of course movies based on the books Walden signs up are very much part of the Harper joint venture.
Walden Pond Press, to be overseen by Brenda Bowen, will focus on fiction for young readers, and Kovacs emphasizes that the small list means a lot of support and visibility for each title. Bowen and HarperCollins will handle the primary editorial responsibility, but the acquisition process is collaborative, and Kovacs says she will contribute editorially throughout the publishing process. Kovacs will also be able to tap into Walden’s grassroots outreach, which includes teachers and libraries, to help market and sell the list.
Walden Pond Press will be the second list for which Bowen, who joined HarperCollins last year to start her own imprint, is responsible. Right now, her Bowen Press list is still growing, and Bowen is still adding staff. But whether the Walden list will remain the smaller of the two lists is up in the air. “We’ll see what happens,” says Bowen. “Walden may grow.”
Walden’s partnership with Penguin had been off to a great start. This season, Dial Books for Young Readers and Walden published a first novel by Ingrid Law called Savvy, which has gotten rave reviews, including one from PW, and is going to be made into a Walden movie. “We’re proud of our affiliation with Savvy,” said Kovacs, “and we’ll continue to support it as we’ll support all the books we’ve committed to with Penguin.” Kovacs says the move to Harper is more a statement that Walden is growing than any indication that it’s unhappy with its affiliation with Penguin. “There are no hard feelings,” she says, emphasizing that publishing with Penguin had been a productive and fruitful partnership.
Walden also has a history with HarperCollins, having collaborated on several movie tie-in editions; besides The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the forthcoming Prince Caspian (the film is due to hit theaters this Friday), film adaptations of Charlotte’s Web and Bridge to Terabithia have solidified the Harper-Walden relationship. This new publishing initiative, though, only emerged at a recent lunch, during which Bowen and Kovacs talked about how great it would be if they could work more closely together.But the move makes sense from a synergistic perspective, since both Walden Media films, distributed by Fox, and News Corp. publishing arm HarperCollins share a parent company. Either way, Kovacs emphasizes that Walden is just “thrilled to be moving into this field. We love getting kids reading—that’s the whole point of this company.”
The new imprint’s first title is Academy Award-nominated screenwriter (for Dirty Pretty Things) Steven Knight’s The Will of Will Wolfkin. Knight’s first book for children features a protagonist from Darfur who takes readers to her home country in a dramatic journey across a minefield. Knight is also working on the screenplay for the third Narnia installment, Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
