Marcella Smith, a veteran of the New York publishing and bookselling world, died on December 2 after a short illness. She was 78.
Smith graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in English, but gave up her plan to become an English teacher when a student described her as “very nice but boring,” recounted her wife, Linda Mironti.
She began her career in the book world as a sales clerk at the Globe, a small bookshop near the White House. She soon moved on to become the manager of the hardback department at Brentano’s main Washington, D.C. store where, Mironti said, she became a beloved fixture, puffing away at Lucky Strikes as she kept track of inventory and the next big sellers.
She had an oft-repeated refrain for such big hits of the day as Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Once Is Not Enough: “It might not be great literature, but it sells like hotcakes.”
When All the President’s Men was published in 1974, Smith spent hours on the phone to ensure that Brentano’s had enough copies on hand to satisfy the huge demand for the book about the Watergate scandal. Her initiative earned Smith a promotion to the regional chain store’s New York buying officer; in her new role, she worked for the fearsome head buyer, Lillian Friedman.
After a stint as manager of the Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich bookstore, Smith moved to St. Martin’s Press as a sales rep covering the Northeast and later served as director of special sales before working in sales at Simon & Schuster.
Smith was perhaps best known as a buyer at Barnes & Noble, where she served as small press manager and head of vendor relations. In that role, Smith helped hundreds of small press owners better navigate the world of publishing, a role she also fulfilled with the national organization Publishers Marketing Association (now the Independent Book Publishers Association).
She sat on the PMA board from 1995–1999, afterward serving on the organization’s nominating committee. For more than 25 years, she also served as a judge for the PMA’s Benjamin Franklin Awards (now the IBPA Book Awards) and was instrumental in starting the organization’s Trade Distribution Program (now Small Press United), which offered Independent Publishers Group distribution contracts to hundreds of small publishers.
Smith lived for more than 50 years in an apartment on West 46th St. and was joined there in 1995 by Mironti. In their almost 30 years together, the couple traveled extensively, often in connection with Mironti’s duties as co-owner of Il Chiostro, a company offering workshops and programs in Italy with a focus on art, culture, food, and wine. Smith’s final trip with Mironti was to Venice just a couple of months before her death.
Mironti said that Smith left a message for her friends and family reassuring them that she was at peace with her death. In her usual literary style, her farewell message was a quote from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: “So long and thanks for all the fish!”
Josh Marwell, retired president of sales at HarperCollins and a longtime friend of Smith's, had his own memory of Smith: “During her long career Marcella touched all aspects of the book business with her unique combination of keen intelligence, strong sense of humor and above all her core integrity. She is missed by her countless friends and colleagues in the book world who have had the lucky fortune to have known and worked with her.”
A memorial service will be announced at a later date.
