Penguin is shutting down Blue Rider Press as a standalone imprint, moving its books and those of sister imprint Plume under the Dutton publishing program. As a result, David Rosenthal, president and publisher of Blue Rider/Plume, and Aileen Boyle, v-p and associate publisher of Blue Rider/Plume, are leaving the company in the next few months.
In a memo, Penguin Publishing Group president Madeline McIntosh called it a "difficult" decision. Despite many successes, Blue Rider, she continued, has "faced the particular challenges of being a small start-up in a hypercompetitive market, with results that have not been as consistent as we need them to be."
She added that existing and upcoming Blue Rider titles will be a good fit at Dutton, particularly considering that much of Plume's backlist originated at Dutton. The question of whether new paperback originals will carry the Plume or Dutton name hasn't been decided yet.
Rosenthal joined Penguin and established Blue Rider in 2011; Boyle joined him later that year. The press's bestselling authors include Jeff Bridges, James Carville, Elvis Costello, Jim Cramer, R.A. Dickey, Damien Echols, Delia Ephron, Carrie Fisher, Michael Hastings, Jewel, Patrick Kennedy, Chuck Klosterman, Mark Leibovich, Mike Love, Stephanie Madoff Mack, Bill Maher, Stuart Scott, Marisa Silver, Lesley Stahl, Mike Tyson, Neil Young and the pseudonymous Ann Droyd, creator of Goodnight, IPad.
