Random House Acquires Ten Speed Press
By Jim Milliot -- Publishers Weekly, 3/2/2009 4:59:00 AM
The sale of Berkeley’s Ten Speed Press has finally been completed with Random House emerging as the winner in a process that has been dragging on for months and which included a dozen interested parties. Word that a deal for Ten Speed was in the works first surfaced late last year.
Ten Speed will become part of the Crown Publishing Group, which will retain Ten Speed as an imprint and keep its editorial, marketing, publicity, design and production staff in California. Founder Philip Wood has been named publisher emeritus and a new reporting structure is expected to be announced soon. The company has been operating without a publisher for several months. Distribution of Ten Speed will switch to Random May 1; the company currently handles its own distribution.
Under its four imprints, Ten Speed Press, Celestial Arts, Crossing Press, and Tricycle Press, the company publishes more than 100 new hardcovers and trade paperbacks annually and has a backlist of more than 1,000 active titles. Sales are estimated at over $20 million annually. Ten Speed is best known as the publisher of What Color is Your Parachute, which has sold more than 10 million copies, and publishes titles in business and career, cookbooks, mind/body/spirit and children’s categories.
Other bestselling Ten Speed titles include Mollie Katzen’s The Moosewood Cookbook (more than 2 million copies sold); The New Detox Diet by Elson Haas and Daniella Chase (more than 500,000 copies sold); How to Shit in the Woods by Kathleen Meyer (1 million copies sold); Why Cats Paint by Burton Silver and Heather Busch (500,000 copies sold); the You Say I’m a Bitch series by Ed Polish and Darren Wotz (400,000 copies sold); G Is For Googol by David Schwartz (more than 100,000 copies sold); and Hey, Little Ant by Philip and Hannah House (120,000 copies sold).
In a statement Random chairman Markus Dohle said, “We are excited about the Random House acquisition of Ten Speed Press, which will both strengthen and complement our portfolio in the publishing categories in which they excel. This is a real opportunity for us to further grow our business with a terrific group of imprints and a great publishing team.”
