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| Molly Stern (photo: Marc Goldberg) |
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Molly Stern, who nearly two years ago left her position as senior v-p and publisher of Crown Publishers, Hogarth and Archetype when Crown was merged with Random House, is launching a publishing house called Zando. The new venture is in partnership with Sister, which was formed in 2019 by Elisabeth Murdoch, Stacey Snider and Jane Featherstone to "develop, produce and invest in visionary storytellers." Murdoch, the daughter of Rupert Murdoch, has a long background in film and TV, some of it with Murdoch companies and was founder of Shine Group. Snider was chairman and CEO of Murdoch's 20th Century Fox until its sale to Disney. Featherstone, who has a background in TV, founded Sister Pictures, which created Broadchurch and HBO's Chernobyl. Stern most recently been advising Spotify on the growth of its audiobook business.
Zando aims both to publish titles itself and to "collaborate with influential people, platforms and institutions [called catalyst partners] to acquire and publish new titles under their own imprints," Zando said. Zando and the catalyst partners will "champion a diverse range of talented authors" and the catalyst partners will curate the books they publish--an average of three annually--and "drive awareness and sales for those titles by communicating their advocacy and leveraging their influence."
The New York Times called this "an unusual marketing and publicity model. Rather than relying chiefly on bookstores, retailers, advertising and other traditional channels to promote authors, [Stern] plans to team up with high-profile individuals, companies and brands, who will act as publishing partners and promote books to their fans and customers."
Stern is negotiating with several possible catalyst partners--"a handful of high-profile cultural figures"--and will announce them individually soon. The company's first titles will appear in fall 2021. Zando's name, the Times said, is a reference to Stern's sons, Zach and Oscar.
Stern will lead Zando as chief executive, and the board will include Elisabeth Murdoch and Stacey Snider of Sisters, which is providing "a significant start-up investment," as well as Matt Lieber, co-founder of Gimlet, the narrative podcasting company, and David Benioff, screenwriter, co-creator of HBO's Game of Thrones and author of, among other titles, City of Thieves.
Highlights of Stern's 25-year publishing career include editing Michelle Obama's blockbuster memoir, Becoming, and publishing three Pulitzer Prize winners--Matthew Desmond's Evicted, Geraldine Brooks's March, and Tom Reiss's The Black Count--as well as winners of the Man Booker International Prize (Han Kang's The Vegetarian) and National Book Critics Circle Award. Other popular titles have included Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn and Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.
Also, in a move that might mirror the Zando model with Catalyst Partners, in 2016 Stern created an imprint at Hogarth for Sarah Jessica Parker, actress, producer and entrepreneur best known for playing Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City. Called SJP, the imprint was to publish three or four works of fiction a year and its titles included A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza and Golden Child by Claire Adam. The imprint appears to be inactive now.