Simon & Schuster

Jul 5, 2023
13 min read

Simon & Schuster is one of the Big Five English-language trade publishers, and, at roughly two thousand new titles a year across more than thirty imprints, remains one of the central coordinates of contemporary publishing. Founded in New York in 1924 on the unlikely success of a crossword-puzzle craze, it has grown into a multifaceted global house whose list runs from prizewinning literary fiction and serious nonfiction to BookTok-driven romance, political bestsellers, and children’s series with deep backlist life.

The company began with a hunch and a fad. In 1924, Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster assembled The Cross Word Puzzle Book, the first book-length collection of newspaper crosswords. At a time when puzzles were primarily confined to newspapers such as the New York World, binding them into a book was considered a novelty that many in the trade expected to fail. Simon and Schuster initially issued the title under a dummy imprint to protect their reputations if it did. The gamble worked: the collection sold at scale, established Simon & Schuster as a serious commercial player, and set a pattern the house would repeat for decades, turning live cultural phenomena into durable books.

Through the middle of the twentieth century, Simon & Schuster expanded aggressively. It helped finance Robert de Graff’s launch of Pocket Books, the first American mass-market paperback line, and co-created Little Golden Books with Western Publishing, a children’s series that sold in the tens of millions and changed how families bought books. At the same time, it expanded beyond puzzles and popular nonfiction into trade paperbacks, educational and reference publishing, and general trade books for a growing middle-class readership. As the list widened, so did its roster. Literary prestige entered the group most visibly through Scribner, a historic house later brought under the Simon & Schuster umbrella, whose authors included F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. In the decades that followed, Bob Woodward’s reporting on Washington and Doris Kearns Goodwin’s presidential biographies helped define Simon & Schuster’s role as a publisher capable of carrying both heavyweight nonfiction and broad public attention.

By the turn of the twenty-first century, the company had become a global brand whose authors routinely appeared on bestseller lists and prize ballots. That scale did not rest on a single kind of book. Instead, Simon & Schuster built a portfolio designed to ride out cycles in taste and politics: literary fiction and narrative history; political and journalistic nonfiction; celebrity memoir and media-driven projects; commercial romance and thrillers; and an extensive, long-tail children’s program built on series and classroom adoption. Over the same period, the house moved through a succession of corporate parents, gaining the capital and infrastructure that underpin the scale at which it now operates.

Imprints and Divisions

Simon & Schuster organizes its publishing through several adult publishing groups and a children’s division, with dozens of imprints rather than a single monolithic list. The flagship Simon & Schuster imprint sits at the center of the adult program. It publishes a broad mix of narrative nonfiction, biography, current affairs, literary and upmarket commercial fiction, and high-profile memoirs, including books that sit directly at the center of political and cultural controversy. Recent and recurring titles by figures in politics, media, and public life mean that this imprint often carries the most visible general-interest projects in the group, particularly in narrative nonfiction and topical books.

Scribner functions as the company’s most overtly literary adult imprint and anchors the Scribner Publishing Group. With a lineage that predates its integration into Simon & Schuster, its backlist includes writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. Today, the list consists of authors such as Stephen King, Anthony Doerr, Jesmyn Ward, and Jennifer Egan, and it remains the clearest home within the group for prize-oriented fiction and nonfiction that still aims at a sizable trade readership. For agents, Scribner is the imprint to approach when a manuscript combines formal or stylistic ambition with a credible path to broad review coverage and long-tail sales.

Atria Books is part of the Atria Publishing Group and focuses on contemporary voices with strong commercial momentum. Its list spans book-club fiction, romance, memoir, and narrative nonfiction. In the past decade, it has become closely associated with the rise of Colleen Hoover and other authors whose sales have been accelerated by BookTok and adjacent communities. Atria’s editorial and marketing teams are known across the industry for treating social platforms and data as part of the frontlist strategy, responding quickly to emerging demand through rapid reprints, format expansion, and special editions. For many agents, Atria represents the point in the Simon & Schuster ecosystem where commercial sensibility, robust marketing infrastructure, and responsiveness to online readerships meet.

Gallery Books anchors the Gallery Publishing Group, which also houses Scout Press, Pocket Books, Threshold Editions, and other lines. Gallery focuses on genre-driven fiction and pop-culture nonfiction: thrillers, psychological suspense, romance, celebrity memoir, and media-adjacent projects. It publishes authors such as Lisa Jewell and J. R. Ward and handles tie-ins and celebrity books that benefit from television, film, music, or podcast exposure. Threshold Editions, now situated inside this group, was created to publish conservative political commentary and high-visibility political nonfiction. Over time, political publishing has expanded beyond Threshold, with the flagship Simon & Schuster imprint and others acquiring books by public officials and commentators, so the group’s political list spans the ideological spectrum and into the center of debates about platforming and responsibility.

The children’s and young readers’ program operates through a dedicated Children’s Publishing division, with imprints including Little Simon, Aladdin, and Atheneum. Little Simon focuses on board books and novelty formats, Aladdin specializes in chapter books and middle-grade series like Dork Diaries, and Atheneum is known for more literary middle-grade and young adult fiction and picture books. These lists share sales, marketing, and school and library outreach, and together they form a substantial long-tail business built on recurring series, classroom adoption, and library circulation.

Beyond these marquee brands, Simon & Schuster has developed and acquired smaller, more tightly focused imprints that deepen its bench. 37 Ink centers writers of color and culturally engaged fiction and nonfiction, often with a strong connection to questions of identity, politics, and contemporary culture. Saga Press publishes science fiction and fantasy across a range that runs from literary speculative work to commercial series. Simon Element and related lifestyle imprints concentrate on psychology, wellness, business, and practical nonfiction built around clear, prescriptive hooks. For authors and agents, the practical reality is that “publishing with Simon & Schuster” usually means aligning with one of these editorial cultures inside a specific publishing group, and that imprint choice shapes everything from acquisition path and positioning to how the book is presented in seasonal catalogs and internal meetings.

Global Reach

Headquartered in Manhattan, Simon & Schuster operates as a genuinely global publisher, with full-fledged companies in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and India, supported by international sales representation in additional territories. These are not merely sales offices. Each division acquires regional authors, originates its own local lists, and runs local marketing and publicity programs while also adapting and distributing U.S. and U.K. titles for its market. Under the Simon & Schuster UK banner, for example, British publishers have built careers for authors such as Philippa Gregory in historical fiction and Ruth Ware in psychological suspense, then coordinated with U.S. colleagues to align English-language publication and promotion across markets. Simon & Schuster Canada and Simon & Schuster India follow a similar pattern, combining locally originated books with distribution of the broader corporate list to create regionally tuned programs under a shared corporate roof.

In practical terms, this structure allows the company to stage coordinated English-language releases for high-profile books and to manage a mix of local and imported lists that can be tuned to regional tastes. Titles move through established distribution and sales relationships into independent bookshops, chain retailers, supermarkets where appropriate, digital storefronts, and library systems, and Simon & Schuster Distribution Services also supplies books for a number of external client publishers. The group’s network reaches readers in more than 100 countries and territories. For authors with genuinely international potential, this means that a single contract can, in many cases, be supported by an integrated corporate infrastructure that handles U.S. publication, Commonwealth and European editions, and format diversification, while still allowing agents to carve out specific translation or territorial rights where that makes sense. The ability to combine centralized reach with country-by-country campaigns remains one of Simon & Schuster’s structural advantages relative to smaller or less fully integrated houses.

Market and Format Strategy

Simon & Schuster’s market presence is most visible on bestseller lists. Its imprints publish hundreds of frontlist titles each year, sustain an extensive backlist, and place books in prominent positions across fiction, nonfiction, and children’s charts. The balance of that output has shifted. In recent years, growth in adult fiction has outpaced adult nonfiction in the U.S. trade market, and categories such as psychological suspense, romance, and political nonfiction now account for a significant share of the company’s commercial energy.

Digital ecosystems have become a primary engine for that performance. Social-media-driven reading communities, particularly BookTok, have altered the trajectory of specific authors, with Colleen Hoover's Atria list serving as the clearest example of how backlist romance and contemporary fiction can move into sustained bestseller territory through reader-generated video. Internally, Simon & Schuster has adjusted its marketing and analytics to reflect that reality: dedicated monitoring of social platforms, rapid reprints when a title spikes, format and special-edition expansions, and close coordination between U.S. and international teams when momentum builds.

On the format side, the company has spent heavily on audio and digital infrastructure. Simon & Schuster Audio is one of the largest dedicated audiobook publishers in the industry, producing recordings across the group’s imprints and for selected external partners. Its catalog spans adult and children’s lists, and the Pimsleur language-learning program sits inside the division as a fully audio-first line. Lead titles routinely appear in print, ebook, and audio on or near the same date, with many audiobooks narrated by actors or by the authors themselves to strengthen positioning in retail and subscription channels.

Industry data from the Association of American Publishers indicates that, as of 2024, digital audio and ebooks together account for roughly one-fifth of U.S. trade revenue, with audio revenues recording sustained double-digit growth over several years and ebook revenue holding relatively steady. Simon & Schuster’s strategy aligns with these trends: simultaneous print and audio publication for key books, a deep digital backlist, and active use of price promotions, subscription programs, and platform partnerships to sustain sales of older titles. Like other large trade houses, it now derives a substantial share of income from backlist, and much of its digital and audio investment is aimed at extending that revenue rather than treating formats as an adjunct to launch week.

For authors, this format mix carries direct financial consequences. As a member of the Big Five, Simon & Schuster structures agreements around advances against royalties and has the capacity to exploit print, ebook, and audio at scale. In many contracts, audio and foreign rights are retained and managed in-house, which can support higher advances at the outset and coordinated global campaigns but reduces the scope for agents to place those rights separately. When a book connects, income can accrue across multiple formats and territories over a long period. At the same time, the most considerable advances and most aggressive auctions tend to cluster in categories the company has clearly identified as growth drivers, including celebrity memoir, political books with strong news hooks, and commercially oriented fiction with demonstrable or projected digital momentum. Literary projects that fall outside those zones can still find committed editors here, but their economics are shaped by a different internal calculus of risk and return.

Ownership and Recent Developments

Simon & Schuster’s corporate history reflects the consolidation of the late-twentieth-century media industry. After its independent beginnings, the company was acquired in 1975 by Gulf + Western, folding it into a diversified entertainment conglomerate. It later passed through Paramount Communications and then Viacom, before landing within CBS and, after further restructuring, Paramount Global. In 2020, Paramount signaled its intention to sell the publisher. A proposed $2.2 billion acquisition by Penguin Random House was announced later that year and then blocked in 2022 by a U.S. federal court on antitrust grounds, in a decision that focused not on consumer prices but on the risk that combining two of the Big Five would depress advances and reduce competition for anticipated top-selling books.

In 2023, private equity firm KKR agreed to acquire Simon & Schuster from Paramount Global for approximately $1.62 billion. The deal closed in October, with chief executive Jonathan Karp and chief operating officer and chief financial officer Dennis Eulau remaining in place. As part of the transaction, KKR and Simon & Schuster announced a broad-based employee equity program projected to grant ownership stakes to more than 1,600 staff members. The initiative, unusual in trade publishing but consistent with KKR’s broader use of employee ownership in other portfolio companies, was framed as both an incentive mechanism and a way to align day-to-day employees with longer-term value creation.

Private equity ownership has prompted close scrutiny inside the industry. Editors, agents, and competitors are watching familiar pressure points: whether headcount and compensation, particularly in editorial and sales, will be squeezed; whether list sizes or advances will be pulled back in slower-growing categories; and whether marginal or overlapping imprints will be consolidated or retired. KKR, for its part, has presented Simon & Schuster as a growth investment rather than a cost-cutting exercise, highlighting expansion in audio and other digital formats, deeper use of the company’s international network, and more systematic exploitation of high-margin backlist as key levers. Early signals include continued investment in frontlist, the launch and retooling of select imprints, and the staged rollout of the equity program.

In practice, Simon & Schuster now occupies a structurally different position from its Big Five peers, which remain embedded in media or family-controlled conglomerates. As a large trade publisher owned outright by private equity, it is widely treated as a test case for what scaled, financially driven ownership will mean for advances, list composition, staffing, and risk tolerance over a typical private-equity time horizon. How KKR balances earnings growth, operational discipline, and editorial ambition at Simon & Schuster will significantly shape expectations for future deals of similar size in trade publishing.

Notable Authors and Titles

Simon & Schuster’s author roster is broad enough that no short list can be exhaustive. Still, a handful of names illustrate how the group balances literary ambition, commercial power, and topical reach across its imprints.

In literary and commercial crossover fiction, Stephen King’s long relationship with Scribner remains one of the house’s most reliable engines of global sales. His presence, alongside writers such as Anthony Doerr, Jesmyn Ward, and Jennifer Egan, signals Scribner’s identity as a place where formally ambitious work and large, general readerships are treated as compatible goals rather than opposing camps.

In digitally amplified commercial fiction, Colleen Hoover’s run of Atria novels, including It Ends With Us and Reminders of Him, has become the defining example of how backlist romance and contemporary fiction can be pushed into sustained bestseller status by BookTok. Her rise, driven initially by reader recommendation loops around older titles, has reshaped internal thinking about how Atria acquires, packages, and markets in those categories, from special editions and pricing to the speed with which the imprint responds to social media spikes.

In political and public-affairs nonfiction, Bob Woodward’s series of Washington books sits alongside titles by other prominent journalists and public figures, underscoring Simon & Schuster’s position as one of the leading houses setting the pace for narrative political publishing. These books are designed to move quickly into the center of news cycles while also forming part of a longer historical record, and they have helped establish the flagship Simon & Schuster imprint as a default home for high-impact political nonfiction.

In long-form biography and history, Doris Kearns Goodwin and Walter Isaacson anchor a program that spans presidential politics and the lives of scientific and technological figures. Goodwin’s work on U.S. presidents and political leadership and Isaacson’s biographies of innovators and cultural figures both sit at the crossover point between serious nonfiction and broad popular readership, demonstrating how the house uses carefully positioned biography to bridge trade and more academic markets.

On the commercial-fiction side, authors such as Ruth Ware in psychological suspense and Philippa Gregory in historical fiction, led primarily through Simon & Schuster UK, demonstrate the group’s capacity to build and maintain international brands in genre categories, coordinating publication and marketing across English-language territories. In the U.S. and Canada, similar work with authors such as Lisa Jewell and J. R. Ward shows how the Gallery Publishing Group sustains heavily branded franchises across multiple books and formats.

Taken together, this mix points to a clear underlying strategy: maintain a core of marquee authors whose books reliably command attention in key lanes, cultivate emerging writers adjacent to those strengths, and use backlist management, media tie-ins, and digital amplification to extend the life and reach of the catalog far beyond initial publication.

Community and Cultural Impact

Because of its scale and imprint mix, Simon & Schuster often sits in the middle of arguments about what publishers owe the public. Its lists have carried books that defend civil liberties and free expression, works that challenge prevailing political or cultural assumptions, and projects that critics regard as granting disproportionate platforms to polarizing figures.

Several high-profile episodes have made those tensions visible. The company initially acquired Milo Yiannopoulos’s book Dangerous for Threshold Editions, then canceled publication after widespread criticism of his comments about sexual consent and internal and external protests. Free-expression advocates and staff were divided over whether that decision represented overdue accountability or a worrying precedent. In another case, when Simon & Schuster announced a two-book deal with former United States vice president Mike Pence, employees and authors circulated petitions urging cancellation, while the publisher publicly defended the acquisition as part of its commitment to publishing a wide range of political viewpoints. The contrast between canceling Dangerous and standing by the Pence deal has been treated inside and outside the industry as a live example of how a large house weighs editorial independence, corporate reputation, and commercial calculation on a case-by-case basis. Similar debates have attended certain celebrity memoirs and true crime projects that raise questions about victim consent and the line between documentation and exploitation.

At the same time, Simon & Schuster’s imprints have been among the places where efforts to broaden who appears at scale in trade publishing are being tested. 37 Ink was established with an explicit focus on writers of color and culturally engaged fiction and nonfiction, and other imprints have expanded their acquisitions of authors from historically underrepresented communities across their large corporate lists. The company has made public diversity and inclusion commitments, and its hiring, promotion, and frontlist composition are watched closely, much as they are at its peers. The pace and depth of that diversification remain open questions. Still, the combination of prize lists, bestseller charts, and new imprints suggests an ongoing effort to adjust which stories the house carries at the center of the market.

The company’s authors have received Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards, National Book Critics Circle Awards, Newbery and Caldecott Medals, Grammy Awards for audiobooks, and other major honors. Those prizes are awarded across different parts of the operation, from Scribner’s literary and narrative nonfiction programs to Atheneum and other children’s imprints, and to Simon & Schuster Audio’s productions. Taken together with the sheer visibility of its commercial successes, they make Simon & Schuster one of the key intermediaries between literary culture, political discourse, and mass entertainment, where decisions about individual books can have disproportionate cultural effects.

A Final Word

Nearly a century after a crossword puzzle book launched the company, Simon & Schuster remains one of the few places where a single decision can move a writer from obscurity into the center of the English-language trade market. Its scale as a Big Five house gives it reach across formats and territories that smaller publishers cannot easily match. At the same time, its network of imprints allows it to operate simultaneously in literary fiction, long-form history and biography, political nonfiction, BookTok-fueled commercial categories, and recurring children’s series.

What has changed is the ownership context. In private equity, every list, imprint, and format decision is driven by a more explicit focus for earnings growth and operational discipline. The open questions are where that pressure will fall first, how it will shape advances and competition for anticipated bestsellers, and how much room it will leave for books whose value is measured over years rather than quarters.

For authors and agents, Simon & Schuster remains a publisher that can define or reorient a career, but not for every kind of project. It is a system tuned to carry certain books wide and keep them there: major political nonfiction, large-canvas biography, digitally amplified commercial fiction, durable genre franchises, and children’s and audio programs that can compound over time. Writers whose work fits those patterns will find here a combination of reach, infrastructure, and recognition that few other houses can match.

FOR THE WRITERS