MAIN NEWS HEADLINES
April 17 – April 24, 2008 Edition
Balzer and Bray
Move to Harper
to Start Kids Imprint
NEW YORK, NY/4/15/08–HarperCollins has enticed three key executives away from Disney’s Hyperion within less than two weeks. Following longtime Hyperion founder-president Robert S. Miller’s move to HarperCollins, this week Dona Bray, editorial director, and Alessandra Balzer, executive editor at Hyperion Books for Children, announced they will also move to Harpercollins to begin their own imprint, Balzer & Bray.
Bob Miller will head a new imprint specializing in short, "popular-priced" books. Under the surprising new model, authors will receive lower or no advances, but will share revenues on a 50/50 split with the publisher. Books under Miller’s imprint will be offered to retailers as non-returnable.
The Balzer & Bray imprint will launch in fall 2009 and will include a range of titles from picture books to young adult. Brenda Bowen, a third Hyperion children’s executive, left her post as editor and chief and associate publisher of Global books, to also join HarperCollins to begin her own imprint, The Bowen Press.
According to Jeanne Mosure, senior vice president and publisher of Global Children’s Books, Disney Publishing Worldwide, she is looking for replacements for both Balzer and Bray. Hyperion plans to change its name by early next year to Disney-Hyperion. The change is being made to more closely associate the Disney name with the Hyperion publishing unit.
