Square Fish Gets Behind L'Engle
by Rachel Deahl, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 6/14/2007
"Serendipity" is Jean Feiwel's explanation for how she became the new paperback publisher of A Wrinkle in Time. The popular children's book is one of the major titles in Feiwel's new reprint line at Holtzbrinck's Square Fish, where author Madeleine L'Engle is getting a major backlist push. Wrinkle, which was originally published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, now a Holtzbrinck imprint, in 1963, was ending its license period with Random House—Dell has been publishing it—at about the same time Feiwel was starting at Holtzbrinck. The timing, according to Feiwel, couldn't have been better. Now FSG has released a revised hardcover edition, and Square Fish is handling the paperback and mass market side.
Wrinkle and four other titles by L'Engle that feature the Murry family were released by Square Fish on May 6. Feiwel has dubbed the collection the Time Quintet and is treating the books like new releases, complete with new covers, a movie-style trailer, a dedicated Web site (www.awrinkleintime.net), teacher edition copies, and print and online advertising. The new attention has paid early dividends, too; the Square Fish editions are now approaching a million copies in print.
The books were prime for rejuvenation, Feiwel believes, because they remain relevant. A key to Square Fish's publishing effort was its ability to get the titles into the mass retailers. Now selling at Wal-Mart and Costco, along with the big book chains, the books are turning out to be "a whole lot bigger than we thought [they] would be," Feiwel said. (Wrinkle, not surprisingly, continues to be the book the accounts are most interested in, with its sales, Feiwel said, "50% higher than the rest of the books.")
Square Fish will continue to have spotlight authors on each of its lists and will be pushing the backlist of Natalie Babbitt this fall. Babbitt's bestselling Tuck Everlasting will be the focus in September, with four other titles being promoted alongside it: The Search for Delicious, Goody Hall, Kneeknock Rise and The Eyes of the Amaryllis. And, it seems, Feiwel may again have stumbled into a potential publishing coup: Babbitt, who hasn't written a novel in 25 years, just published a new book with Scholastic/di Capua, Jack Plank Tells Tales. While Feiwel couldn't speak to any possible crossover promotion between Square Fish and her former employer, she did say that they were trying to arrange a joint event at ALA later this month.
