Simon & Schuster has created Gallery Books, an imprint that is joining Pocket Books's hardcover and trade paperback lines with Simon Spotlight Entertainment. With the move, Pocket Books will return to its roots as a mass market publisher. Gallery is expected to issue its first books this spring.
Louise Burke will be executive v-p and publisher of Gallery, and Anthony Ziccardi becomes v-p and deputy publisher. The pair continue to hold the same positions at Pocket Books.
Jen Bergstrom is v-p and editor-in-chief of Gallery. She and other Pocket Books editors will acquire and publish books both for Gallery and Pocket Books imprints. Similarly the publicity department of Pocket will now handle Gallery and Pocket.
In a company memo, S&S CEO and president Carolyn Reidy wrote that Gallery will be "an immediate leader in those areas where Pocket Books and SSE have already forged well-earned reputations, such as women's fiction, pop culture and entertainment" and will have a mandate "to acquire top authors and hot prospects in a broad range of publishing categories, both fiction and nonfiction."
Pocket Books's hardcover and trade paperback fiction authors include Johanna Lindsey, Lisa Genova and Mary Alice Monroe. Since its founding two years ago, Simon Spotlight Entertainment has published such books as This Family of Mine by Victoria Gotti, High on Arrival by Mackenzie Phillips, Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler and Mommywood by Tori Spelling.