The top two executives at Free Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, are leaving the company as a result of the reorganization of the company's adult publishing divisions, which will consolidate its imprints from six groups into four.
According to a memo sent to employees on Tuesday by Carolyn Reidy, Simon & Schuster's chief executive, the reorganization âwill lead to a sharper editorial focus for our imprints even as it takes consideration of the natural affinities among them.â
According to the memo, Martha Levin, the publisher of Free Press since 2001, and Dominick Anfuso, its vice president and editorial director, are both leaving, and Free Press will come under the responsibility of Jonathan Karp at the Simon & Schuster Publishing Group, which is part of the CBS Corporation.
Also as part of the reorganization, Howard Books, a Christian imprint, will become part of the Atria Publishing Group under Judith Curr.
Free Press, founded in 1947 and part of Simon & Schuster since 1994, has been one of the company's flagship intellectual imprints. Over the years its successes have included Ernest Becker's âDenial of Death,â which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1974, and the 1994 book âThe Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life,â a controversial look at
genetics and inherited intelligence, by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray.
Its biggest title recently has been âThe 17 Day Dietâ by Dr. Mike Moreno, which came out last fall and has sold about 1.3 million copies.
In another memo, Mr. Karp said there were no plans to discontinue Free Press.
âWe plan to continue publishing thought leaders and other important cultural voices under the Free Press imprimatur,â he wrote, âwhile also introducing many other Free Press authors, such as novelists and historians and business writers, to the flagship Simon & Schuster imprint.â
Ben Sisario writes about the music industry. Follow @sisario on Twitter.
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