Lorena Jones New Publishing Director at Chronicle

Former Ten Speed publisher to spearhead digital cookbook publishing program

By Lynn Andriani -- Publishers Weekly, 10/28/2009 7:34:00 AM

Chronicle Books announced yesterday that former Ten Speed Press publisher Lorena Jones has taken over as publishing director. In her new role, Jones will begin a digital food and drink publishing program, and oversee Chronicle’s food and drink list as a whole.

Jones left Ten Speed last November, before Random House bought the company, and spent a few months getting a “digital education.” She told PW she plans to publish some of Chronicle’s food and drink titles in conjunction with compatible mobile applications, enhanced e-books “and other iterations that are just starting to present themselves." She referred to "multilayered, multicomponent products," but said the company was not planning on parcelling out content (i.e., recipes) in a "granular" format for the time being. "I think there’s a mobile component to cookbooks," Jones said. "Those of us who read them for pleasure also want that core content with us at the farmer’s market or on vacation. The cooks who buy these books think about food everywhere they go, not just when they have the books [with them].”

Jones will also work on diversifying Chronicle’s food and drink list, and determining which titles should be adapted to a multimedia platform and which should go into the print-only program. "Some authors are not well-suited for a multi-platform publishing program but are terrific authors in a defined respect," Jones said. "We want to still be a place for those folks, but we want to be able to expand on what’s possible—in terms of market share and expansion of authority—for the authors who have that capability.”