Warner Books Gets a New Name
Posted on March 26, 2007
Warner Books will soon be no more. The publisher will change its name to Grand Central Publishing, as required by the terms of the company's acquisition by Hachette Livre of France, which is owned by Lagardère, the media and armaments conglomerate.
"I was very nervous," Jamie Raab, the publisher of Warner Books, said in a telephone interview. "It's like suddenly being told that not only are you being sold, but you have to give up the name you’ve lived with your whole life." Since January 2006, Warner executives have tried on new names for size, bringing in consultants for advice and soliciting its authors for ideas. But in the end, it was Ms. Raab's idea that won out over stacks of rejected entries that included Blue Heron and Jack Straw.The new name and logo will be rolled out at BEA in Manhattan in June. It's interesting that Ms. Raab chose to omit the word "book" from the name: it's just another sign of the effect of new media on traditional publishing.Grand Central Publishing, she said, conveyed the company's wide range of readers and the many genres it publishes. It pointedly omits the word "books," a gesture to electronic and other emerging forms of publishing that go beyond ink and paper. Perhaps most significant is the company’s plan to move its offices late in April from the Time & Life Building on Sixth Avenue to 237 Park Avenue, up the block from Grand Central Terminal in Midtown Manhattan.
The first books to carry the Grand Central Publishing imprint are expected to be on the fall 2007 list, which includes a novel by David Baldacci, a memoir by Rosie O'Donnell and a graphic novel by Anthony Lappe and Dan Goldman.