Linda Kramer, the cofounder and former publisher of H.J. Kramer and longtime publishing industry mainstay, died at her home in Marin County, Calif., on December 24, 2017, after a brief illness. She was 81.

Kramer began her work in publishing as an art director for Dover Publications, and later Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, in the 1960s. She moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1966 to raise her family, and worked in investments for several years, before returning to publishing in 1983 after launching H.J. Kramer Inc. with Celestial Arts founder Hal Kramer. (The two married in 1987.)

In 1984, Kramer published Dan Millman’s Way of the Peaceful Warrior, which became a global bestseller; the press followed up the sucess with such titles asJohn Robbins’s Diet for a New America and Sanaya Roman and Duane Packer’s Opening to Channel. The publisher entered into a joint venture with New World Library in 2000; as a result, New World Library currently provides sales, marketing, day-to-day production, and fulfillment for H.J. Kramer, while Kramer manages author relationships, manuscript acquisition, and foreign rights.

The family requests that, in lieu of flowers, any memorial donations be made to the African Wildlife Foundation.