Penguin Random House has purchased the trade-book publishing assets of health and wellness publisher Rodale Books from Hearst Communications and will take over publication of Rodale's frontlist and backlist titles, effective immediately. The acquisition, which was announced yesterday, comes a week after Hearst completed its purchase of Rodale Inc., Rodale Books' parent company. (Hearst has retained Rodale's many magazines and other products.)
Rodale Books' adult nonfiction will become an imprint of Crown Publishing Group's Illustrated and Lifestyle division, which also includes Harmony, Ten Speed Press and Clarkson Potter. Diana Baroni, v-p and editorial director of Harmony Books, will be responsible for Rodale Books. Rodale Kids, which debuted last fall, will meanwhile join Random House Children's Books, with Mallory Loehr, senior v-p and publisher of Random House Books for Young Readers Group, responsible.
The deal brings Penguin Random House more than 100 frontlist and 2,000 backlist titles. Some of the major titles published by Rodale Books over the course of its more than 75-year history include The South Beach Diet by Arthur Agatston, Thug Kitchen and Everything All at Once by Bill Nye, The School of Greatness by Lewis Howes, The Bulletproof Diet by Dave Asprey and An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore.