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Kensington Publishing

US book publishing company

Field	Value
image	[[Image:Kensington-logo.png	220px	Kensington Books]]
founded
founder
predecessor	Lancer Books
country	United States
headquarters	New York City
distribution	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
keypeople
publications	Books
genre	Romance, women's fiction, African American, young adult, nonfiction, true-crime, western, mystery
imprints	Zebra Books
Pinnacle Books
Dafina
Urban Soul
Citadel Press
Lyrical Press
numemployees	85
url

Pinnacle Books Dafina Urban Soul Citadel Press Lyrical Press Kensington Publishing Corp. is an American, New Yorkbased publishing house founded in 1974 by Walter Zacharius and Roberta Bender Grossman. Kensington is known as "America's Independent Publisher". It remains a multi-generational family business, with Steven Zacharius succeeding his father as president and CEO, and Adam Zacharius as general manager.

It is the house of many New York Times bestselling authors, including Fern Michaels, Lisa Jackson, Joanne Fluke and William W. Johnstone. The company publishes around 500 new titles each year, and its backlist includes classics such as The Minority Report by Philip K. Dick, Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max and Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre.

Kensington's imprints include Zebra Books, Pinnacle Books, Dafina, Citadel Press, and Lyrical Press, which provide readers with a range of popular genres such as romance, military thrillers and espionage, women's fiction, African American, young adult and nonfiction, as well as true-crime, western, and mystery titles.

History

Kensington Books was founded by Walter Zacharius and Roberta Bender Grossman in 1974 as the successor to the paperback publisher Lancer Books, specializing in paperback romance novels. The Zebra Books and Pinnacle Books imprints debuted in 1975. Rather than bookstores, the company's books were generally sold in railroad stations, airports, bus terminals, and drug stores.

In 2008, Kensington acquired the publishing assets of Holloway House (publishers of Iceberg Slim and Donald Goines).

Co-founder Walter Zacharius died in 2011. In addition to having run Lancer Books from 1961 to 1973, Zacharius authored the World War II novel Songbird, published by Simon & Schuster in 2004 and republished by Kensington Books in 2007 as The Memories We Keep.

In 2022, Kensington acquired speculative fiction publisher Erewhon Books.

Management

Steven Zacharius, son of founder Walter Zacharius, has been with the company since 1993 and has been president and CEO since 2005. He is also chairman of Kensington. The company's senior vice president, Michael Rosamilia, has been the CFO since 1989. Adam Zacharius, Steven's son, is the Vice President - General Manager and originally started working with Kensington seven years ago. Kensington is believed to be the only publishing company with three generations of family management.

The staff totals over 85 employees and, in addition to its internal sales team, Kensington has a distribution agreement with Penguin Random House Publisher Services’ global sales force.

Imprints

Kensington Bookscommercial fiction, romance
Kensington Coziesmurder mysteries with minimal in-book violence, sex
Citadelgeneral non-fiction
DafinaAfrican-American literature
Erewhon Booksspeculative fiction
John Scognamiglio Booksbooks curated by editor-in-chief John Scognamiglio
Lyrical Pressdigital-first
Pinnacle Booksthrillers, true crime, westerns
Rebel Basedigital-first sci-fi and fantasy
Urban SoulAfrican-American literature
Zebra BooksScience fiction, fantasy, romance

Notable authors

Shobhan Bantwal
Noel Botham
Janet Dailey
Gerina Dunwich
Joanne Fluke
Hannah Howell
Lisa Jackson
William W. Johnstone
Jeffe Kennedy
Brandon Massey
William J. Mann
Fern Michaels
Mary Monroe
J.T. Patten (pen name of Scott Swanson)
Robin Reardon
Caitlin Rother
Tamara Thorne
Carl Weber
Sarah Graves
Bart Yates

References

[http://www.penguinrandomhouse.biz/publisherservices/clients/index.html Current Clients Penguin Random House Publisher Services]
Grimes, William. (2011-03-07). "Walter Zacharius, Romance Publisher, Dies at 87". [[The New York Times]].
(1992-03-24). "Roberta Grossman, 46, Head of Zebra Books". [[The New York Times]].
(2008-02-20). "Kensington Acquires Holloway House Backlist".
McMillan, Graeme. (2018-10-17). "New Science Fiction and Fantasy Publisher Founded by Former Tor Books Editor".
Milliot, Jim. (2022-11-01). "Kensington Buys Erewhon Books".
(2014-07-01). "Press Release".
Maher, John. (2021-08-05). "Kensington Cozies Imprint Coming in December".
"Kensington Publishing Editor-In-Chief John Scognamiglio".
(2014-01-03). "Kensington Publishing Has Acquired eBook Publisher Lyrical Press".
(2017-10-06). "Spotlight on Kensington's Rebel Base Books".

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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