Bob Miller has returned home: the offices of his new Macmillan division, Flatiron Books, are in the iconic Flatiron Building at Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street in Manhattan, where Miller got his start in publishing at St. Martin's Press as an editorial assistant for Tom Dunne, then as an editor under Tom McCormack.
Flatiron Books' first list of seven titles is set for this winter (for more about them, see below), and when Flatiron Books gets up to full speed, it'll publish every month five to six books. Miller emphasized that the staff will select books they feel passionate about. "We're looking for distinctive ideas from unique voices," he said.
Most of the staff has been hired, and Miller said he'd like to keep the staff small to avoid, as he put it, being "a linear Rube Goldberg conveyor belt operation." He added: "With the size of our list, we can all be creatively involved. Ultimately that's more gratifying for us and for the authors as well."
Editorial director Colin Dickerman (who came over a year ago from Penguin Press), Whitney Frick (formerly at Scribner) and Miller have already signed more than 40 books. "We're laying down future titles in the wine cellar to be ready later," Miller commented.
At first, Flatiron Books planned to publish just two or three nonfiction titles a month, but in a fortuitous move, this summer Miller hired Amy Einhorn as publisher, who had her own imprint at Penguin Random House. With Einhorn aboard, Flatiron aims to publish two to three fiction titles a month.
Einhorn said that Flatiron's fiction will feature authors who are "wonderful writers and incredible storytellers" in all areas from literary and commercial fiction to young adult crossover. She is hiring a concentrated staff of fiction editors. Editorial director Colin Dickerman and senior editor Whitney Frick may well acquire fiction, too. Einhorn will continue to acquire some nonfiction as well.
Will Schwalbe, founder and chairman of Cookstr.com, which Macmillan bought, and editor-at-large for Macmillan, is acquiring cookbooks for Flatiron. Already he's bought a half dozen, which should start appearing in fall 2015.
Liz Keenan, who had worked at Plume and Hudson Street Press, is associate publisher. Publicity director Marlena Bittner came to Flatiron from Little, Brown. Tricia Cave, from February Media, is the publicity assistant. The art director is Henry Sene Yee, and Karen Horton, formerly of Oxford University Press, is senior designer. Caroline Bleeke, formerly of Knopf, has joined the team as an associate editor, and James Melia, assistant editor, has come on from Doubleday. Jasmine Faustino, who worked in editorial and production at Macmillan, is an assistant editor and administrative assistant who is "very helpful connecting us with the infrastructure here," Miller said.
Flatiron's first book out of the gate was Oprah's What I Know for Sure, which was published last Tuesday and is the division's only book for the fall. What I Know for Sure collects the best of Oprah's 165 columns that she did for 14 years for O, the Oprah Magazine, organized by topic. In these columns is "where you get Oprah at her most heartfelt," Miller said.