Carol Publishing Group

Last updated

Carol Publishing Group
PredecessorLyle Stuart, Inc.
FoundedJanuary 1989
Defunct2000
Successor Kensington Books
Country of originUnited States
Headquarters location120 Enterprise Avenue, Secaucus, New Jersey, US

Carol Publishing Group was an American publishing company. Lyle Stuart founded its predecessor around 1955. Steven Schragis bought Stuart's publishing business in early 1989, renaming it to Carol Publishing. Carol was a going concern from its 1989 sale to its bankruptcy in 2000; Kensington Books bought its assets after Carol liquidated. It was mainly known for salacious titles about celebrities.

Contents

Early history and sale (1955–1989)

The organization that was to become Carol Publishing Group began around 1955, when Lyle Stuart established Lyle Stuart, Inc., a publishing outfit later based in Secaucus, New Jersey, known for "scandalous" titles including biographies of celebrities. [1] Stuart sold his eponymous company, and its imprints Citadel Press and University Books, to Carol Management for US$12 million, effective January 9, 1989. [1] The deal was orchestrated by Steven Schragis, then the executive vice president of Carol Management. [1] After the sale closed, Schragis took over control of the new entity, known initially as Carol Communications. [1]

Carol Management was a family business and Schragis was a member of the family that controlled it. [2] The name "Carol" was Schragis's mother's and his purchase from Lyle Stuart was financed with a loan from his parents, aunt, and Carol Management itself. [2]

Operations, litigation, and bankruptcy (1989–2000)

Carol's business model focused on marketing and publicity. [3] An encyclopedia of publishing suggests that Schragis, in his role as Carol's head, "exemplified the 'hard-sell' accountant-publisher mentality of today taken to perhaps its furthest extreme". [4] A 2001 profile of Schragis said Carol was known for its "lowbrow celebrity bios"; [5] The Washington Post called Carol a publisher of "salacious star biographies". [6]

Carol published several unauthorized biographies and distributed (but did not itself publish) [2] [7] a suicide manual called Final Exit by Derek Humphry, an advocate of the right to die. [3] [8] An imprint named after Lyle Stuart published books by Kahlil Gibran. [2] Carol made a foray into artificial intelligence with the 1993 romance novel Just This Once , about three quarters of which was written by a computer. [9] [10]

In 1990, Carol won an appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that allowed it to publish A Piece of Blue Sky: Scientology, Dianetics and L. Ron Hubbard Exposed, a biography of L. Ron Hubbard, who founded the Church of Scientology. [11] [12] The book contained quotations from Hubbard's writings totaling about 3 percent of the biography. [11] Paramount Pictures sued Carol over The Joy of Trek: How to Enhance Your Relationship with a "Star Trek" Fan, which Paramount said infringed its copyright in Star Trek . [13] [14] Carol lost. [15] It lost again in Castle Rock Entertainment, Inc. v. Carol Publishing Group Inc. (1998), where the Second Circuit, affirming the trial judgment by Sonia Sotomayor, [16] found that Carol's Seinfeld Aptitude Test, a trivia book about Seinfeld , infringed Castle Rock Entertainment's copyright in the show. [17] [18]

Around April 1999, a sale of Carol to LPC Group, a book distributor, appeared imminent. [19] As of that time, Carol published 100–125 new books each year and had a backlist of 1,300. [19] The deal fell through. [20] Carol filed for bankruptcy on November 15, 1999. [21] Its assets were sold in 2000 to Kensington Books. [22]

As of 1998, Carol was headquartered at 120 Enterprise Avenue, Secaucus, New Jersey. Its booklist covered most commercial categories. Its Citadel imprint was the second-largest entertainment book publisher in the United States. Carol's editor-in-chief was Hillel Black. [23]

Related Research Articles

Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. It has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by German media conglomerate Bertelsmann.

<i>The Anarchist Cookbook</i> 1971 book

The Anarchist Cookbook, first published in 1971, is a book containing instructions for the manufacture of explosives, rudimentary telecommunications phreaking devices, and related weapons, as well as instructions for the home manufacture of illicit drugs, including LSD. It was written by William Powell at the apex of the counterculture era to protest against United States's involvement in the Vietnam War. Powell converted to Anglicanism in 1976 and later attempted to have the book removed from circulation. However, the copyright belonged to the publisher, who continued circulation until the company was acquired in 1991. Its legality has been questioned in several jurisdictions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seagram Building</span> Office skyscraper in Manhattan, New York

The Seagram Building is a skyscraper at 375 Park Avenue, between 52nd and 53rd Streets, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe along with Philip Johnson, Ely Jacques Kahn, and Robert Allan Jacobs, the high-rise tower is 515 feet (157 m) tall with 38 stories. The International Style building, completed in 1958, initially served as the headquarters of the Seagram Company, a Canadian distiller.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission</span> Agency charged with administering New York Citys Landmarks Preservation Law

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and culturally significant buildings and sites by granting them landmark or historic district status, and regulating them after designation. It is the largest municipal preservation agency in the nation. As of July 1, 2020, the LPC has designated more than 37,800 landmark properties in all five boroughs. Most of these are concentrated in historic districts, although there are over a thousand individual landmarks, as well as numerous interior and scenic landmarks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simon & Schuster</span> American publishing company

Simon & Schuster Inc. is an American publishing company owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924, by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. Along with Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins and Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster is considered one of the 'Big Five' English language publishers. As of 2017 Simon & Schuster was the third largest publisher in the United States, publishing 2,000 titles annually under 35 different imprints.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Morgan Library & Museum</span> Museum and library in Manhattan, New York

The Morgan Library & Museum, formerly the Pierpont Morgan Library, is a museum and research library in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It is situated at 225 Madison Avenue, between 36th Street to the south and 37th Street to the north. The Morgan Library & Museum is composed of several structures. The main building was designed by Charles McKim of the firm of McKim, Mead and White, with an annex designed by Benjamin Wistar Morris. A 19th-century Italianate brownstone house at 231 Madison Avenue, built by Isaac Newton Phelps, is also part of the grounds. The museum and library also contains a glass entrance building designed by Renzo Piano and Beyer Blinder Belle. The main building and its interior is a New York City designated landmark and a National Historic Landmark, while the house at 231 Madison Avenue is a New York City landmark.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bantam Books</span> Publisher from the USA

Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by parent company Random House, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin Jr., Sidney B. Kramer, and Ian and Betty Ballantine, with funding from Grosset & Dunlap and Curtis Publishing Company. It has since been purchased several times by companies including National General, Carl Lindner's American Financial and, most recently, Bertelsmann, which in 1986 purchased what had grown to become the Bantam Doubleday Dell publishing group. Bertelsmann purchased Random House in 1998, and in 1999 merged the Bantam and Dell imprints to become the Bantam Dell publishing imprint. In 2010, the Bantam Dell division was consolidated with Ballantine Books to form the Ballantine Bantam Dell group within Random House. By no later than February 2015, Bantam Books had re-emerged as a stand-alone imprint within Random House; as of 2023, it continues to publish as the Bantam imprint, again grouped in a renamed Ballantine division within Random House.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blanche Wiesen Cook</span> American historian

Blanche Wiesen Cook is a historian and professor of history. She is a recipient of the Bill Whitehead Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lyle Stuart</span> American publisher (1922–2006)

Lyle Stuart was an American author and independent publisher of controversial books. He worked as a newsman for years before launching his publishing firm, Lyle Stuart, Incorporated.

<i>A Piece of Blue Sky</i> 1990 book about Scientology and Dianetcs

A Piece of Blue Sky: Scientology, Dianetics and L. Ron Hubbard Exposed is a 1990 book about L. Ron Hubbard and the development of Dianetics and Scientology, authored by British former Scientologist Jon Atack. It was republished in 2013 with the title Let's sell these people A Piece of Blue Sky: Hubbard, Dianetics and Scientology. The title originates from a quote of Hubbard from 1950; an associate of Hubbard's noted him saying that he wanted to sell potential members "a piece of blue sky".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prentice Hall</span> Former publishing company (1913–2020)

Prentice Hall was a major American educational publisher. It published print and digital content for the 6–12 and higher-education market. It was an independent company throughout the bulk of the twentieth century. In its last few years it was owned by, then absorbed into, Savvas Learning Company. In the Web era, it distributed its technical titles through the Safari Books Online e-reference service for some years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dell Publishing</span> American publisher

Dell Publishing Company, Inc. is an American publisher of books, magazines and comic books, that was founded in 1921 by George T. Delacorte Jr. with $10,000, two employees and one magazine title, I Confess, and soon began turning out dozens of pulp magazines, which included penny-a-word detective stories, articles about films, and romance books.

<i>L. Ron Hubbard, Messiah or Madman?</i> Book by Bent Corydon

L. Ron Hubbard, Messiah or Madman? is a posthumous biography of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard written by Bent Corydon, which makes extensive use of interviews he conducted with Hubbard's son Ronald DeWolf. Though originally published in 1987 by Lyle Stuart Inc., the book was re-issued in a paperback edition on July 25, 1992, and a hardcover edition in October 1995, both by publisher Barricade Books. The 1995 edition also featured Brian Ambry as principal researcher. The first edition of the book listed DeWolf as coauthor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theater District, Manhattan</span> Neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City

New York City's Theater District, sometimes spelled Theatre District and officially zoned as the "Theater Subdistrict", is an area and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan where most Broadway theaters are located, in addition to other theaters, movie theaters, restaurants, hotels, and other places of entertainment. It is bounded by West 40th Street on the south, West 54th Street on the north, Sixth Avenue on the east and Eighth Avenue on the west, and includes Times Square. The Great White Way is the name given to the section of Broadway which runs through the Theater District.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">330 West 42nd Street</span> Office skyscraper in Manhattan, New York

330 West 42nd Street, also the McGraw-Hill Building and formerly the GHI Building, is a skyscraper in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Designed by Raymond Hood and J. André Fouilhoux in a mixture of the International Style, Art Deco, and Art Moderne styles, the building was constructed from 1930 to 1931 and originally served as the headquarters of McGraw-Hill Companies. The 485-foot-tall (148 m) building contains 33 stories.

Macmillan Inc. was an American book publishing company originally established as the American division of the British Macmillan Publishers. The two were later separated and acquired by other companies, with the remnants of the original American division of Macmillan present in McGraw-Hill Education's Macmillan/McGraw-Hill textbooks, Gale's Macmillan Reference USA division, and some trade imprints of Simon & Schuster that were transferred when both companies were owned by Paramount Communications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Scribner's Sons Building</span> Commercial building in Manhattan, New York

The Charles Scribner's Sons Building, also known as 597 Fifth Avenue, is a commercial structure in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, on Fifth Avenue between 48th and 49th Streets. Designed by Ernest Flagg in a Beaux Arts style, it was built from 1912 to 1913 for the Scribner's Bookstore.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scribner Building</span> Commercial building in Manhattan, New York

The Scribner Building is a commercial structure at 155 Fifth Avenue, near 21st Street, in the Flatiron District of Manhattan in New York City. Designed by Ernest Flagg in the Beaux Arts style, it was completed in 1893 as the corporate headquarters of Charles Scribner's Sons publishing company.

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tiffany & Co. flagship store</span> Retail flagship in Manhattan, New York

The Tiffany & Co. flagship store is a ten-story retail building in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, within the luxury shopping district on Fifth Avenue between 49th and 60th Streets. The building, at 727 Fifth Avenue, has served as Tiffany & Co.'s sixth flagship store since its completion in 1940. It was designed by New York City architects Cross & Cross in a "conservative modern" style.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Blades, John (December 20, 1988). "'Gutsiest' Publisher". Chicago Tribune . Archived from the original on July 24, 2018. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Smith, Dinitia (January 6, 1992). "The Happy Hawker: Tyro Publisher Steven Schragis's Genius for Promoting Schlock". New York . 25 (1): 40–46.
  3. 1 2 Cohen, Roger (August 26, 1991). "Publicity Obsession Pays Off for Suicide-Book Publisher". The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on May 25, 2015. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
  4. ↑ Altbach, Philip G.; Hoshino, Edith S., eds. (1995). International Book Publishing: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. p. 34. doi:10.4324/9781315073897. ISBN   978-1-134-26126-0. Archived from the original on November 3, 2021. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
  5. ↑ Cotts, Cynthia (July 24, 2001). "PR in the Blood". The Village Voice . Archived from the original on July 28, 2020. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
  6. ↑ Harden, Blaine (January 25, 1998). "Ex-Intern's Mother Put the Soap in the Opera". The Washington Post . ISSN   0190-8286. Archived from the original on August 27, 2017. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
  7. ↑ Papajohn, George (August 14, 1991). "Suicide Book Stirring Controversy and Sales". Chicago Tribune . Archived from the original on November 15, 2019. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
  8. ↑ Henry, William A. (August 19, 1991). "Do-It-Yourself Death Lessons". Time . p. 55.
  9. ↑ Lohr, Steve (July 2, 1993). "Potboiler Springs from Computer's Loins". The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved November 3, 2021.
  10. ↑ Rifkin, Jeremy (1995). The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era. G.P. Putnam's Sons. pp.  158–159. ISBN   0-87477-779-8. OCLC   30399559.
  11. 1 2 "Publisher Victorious on Hubbard Biography". The New York Times. May 27, 1990. ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on May 19, 2021. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
  12. ↑ Weinberg, Steve (1992). Telling the Untold Story: How Investigative Reporters Are Changing the Craft of Biography. University of Missouri Press. p.  210. ISBN   0-8262-0873-8. OCLC   25964617.
  13. ↑ Holloway, Lynette (May 2, 1998). "Studio Sues Over a 'Star Trek' Book". The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on May 10, 2017. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
  14. ↑ Fleischer, Matt (March 1, 1999). "Paramount Aims Phasers at Trekker Prosecutor". The New York Observer . Archived from the original on September 22, 2020. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
  15. ↑ Vitanza, Elisa (1999). "Castle Rock Entertainment, Inc. v. Carol Publishing Group, Inc". Berkeley Technology Law Journal . 14 (1): 51–52n44. ISSN   1086-3818. JSTOR   24115611.
  16. ↑ Pember, Don R.; Calvert, Clay (2005). Mass Media Law. McGraw-Hill. p.  524. ISBN   0-07-287928-9. OCLC   55894607.
  17. ↑ Joyce, Craig (2006). Copyright Law (7th ed.). LexisNexis. p.  643. ISBN   978-0-8205-7096-9. OCLC   71151332.
  18. ↑ "'Seinfeld' producers sue over book about series". Orlando Sentinel . February 9, 1995. Archived from the original on November 3, 2021. Retrieved November 2, 2021.
  19. 1 2 Milliot, Jim (April 19, 1999). "LPC Group Agrees to Acquire Carol Publishing". Publishers Weekly . Archived from the original on November 3, 2021. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
  20. ↑ Bake, John F. (August 23, 1999). "Carol Publishing's LPC Deal Fails; Seeks New Buyer". Publishers Weekly . Archived from the original on November 3, 2021. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
  21. ↑ Literary Market Place. Information Today. 2001. p.  xiv. ISBN   1-57387-132-X. ISSN   0000-1155. OCLC   959887548.
  22. ↑ "Kensington Publishing Corporation". International Directory of Company Histories. Archived from the original on April 19, 2021. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
  23. ↑ Herman, Jeff (1998). Writer's Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents, 1999–2000. Prima. pp.  64–66. ISBN   0-7615-1353-1. OCLC   39798658.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.