Cover Story : 50 Top Women in Book Publishing

Book Business honors leading female executives who are helping to shape the industry.

Ellen W. Faran, Director, MIT Press
Faran has served as director of MIT Press since 2003. She has led the Press’ explorations of open-access publishing and the expansion of its programs in digital media, information science and life sciences. She has more than 30 years’ experience in trade, professional and scholarly publishing with companies such as Houghton Mifflin, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, HarperCollins, the National Academies Press, David R. Godine, Publisher; and the Folger Shakespeare Library.

• Tip: “Cultivate your ‘helicopter vision’—the ability to zoom easily up and down in order to get the right perspective on a single title, a group of titles, an imprint, or the entire publishing enterprise, as needed.”

Susan Fleming, Vice President, Executive Director of Content and Programming, Digital Group, Simon & Schuster Inc.
Fleming is part of the team responsible for Simon & Schuster’s expansion into digital marketing and publishing. She leads the content and programming team, overseeing the editorial direction of content on SimonAndSchuster.com, as well as book content applicable for marketing verticals with other media partners. She was previously marketing director of the company’s adult trade publishing group, where she worked on the company’s first video production partnership and online marketing group. She also initiated, designed and launched Simon & Schuster’s innovative consumer book club program. Fleming also served as vice president, publicity director of the Simon & Schuster Trade Paperback Group, where she was responsible for more than two-dozen national best-sellers.

• Tip: “Do what you love, and the rest will follow. … In an industry built on collaboration, that passion drives new projects, pushes ideas to fruition, and positions you with your peers as a forward thinker who is willing to try new things and isn’t afraid of a challenge.”

Jenny Frost, President and Publisher, The Crown Publishing Group, Random House Inc.
Frost is behind one of Random House’s most consistently profitable divisions. She has been with Random House since 1985, when she founded the audio division of what was then Bantam Books. With the acquisition of Random House by Bertelsmann AG in 1998, the audio divisions for Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio were consolidated under Frost’s supervision, and she took over responsibility for the Large Print business and Random House Value Publishing, where she effected a financial turnaround. In 2002, Frost was named president and publisher of The Crown Publishing Group, whose 17 imprints include Crown, Clarkson Potter, Random House Audio, Fodor’s, The Princeton Review, Sylvan Learning, Broadway Books, Doubleday Religion and Waterbrook Multnomah.

• Tip: “Never stop learning. … Don’t accept the status quo and never stop thinking about how to do things in new and different ways.”

Maureen “Moe” Girkins, President and CEO, Zondervan, HarperCollins Publishers
Girkins heads Zondervan’s leadership team and is responsible for managing all of Zondervan’s business operations, working with parent company HarperCollins Publishers on strategic planning and cooperative operations initiatives. She joined Zondervan in 2008, after 25 years in the high-tech industry, where she held a number of senior executive positions at companies such as Dell, Motorola and AT&T. Girkins also is a published author (“Mother Leads Best”) and serves on several boards including Trinity International University, Evangelical Christian Publishers Association and the Center for Policy on Emerging Technologies.

• Tip: “Recognize that the industry is turning upside down. Bring in people who … can bring a much-needed fresh perspective to the business, … people who are probably not from the publishing world. … Support your authors holistically: … Help them manage their brand, create a platform for them, etc. Be prepared to support successful self-published authors, as many have … a strong Internet following, and they can represent a great opportunity.”

Julie Grau, Senior Vice President and Publisher, Spiegel & Grau, Random House Inc.
Spiegel & Grau was founded in 2005 as a division of Random House Inc. by Julie Grau and Celina (Cindy) Spiegel. Previously, Grau and Spiegel were the publishers of Riverhead Books, a division of the Penguin Group, where they were two of the founding editors. There, they became known for discovering new talent, including Junot Díaz, Khaled Hosseini, Chang-rae Lee and James McBride, among others, and worked with such luminaries as Harold Bloom, Suze Orman and Anne Lamott. The first book published at Spiegel & Grau was Suze Orman’s “Women & Money,” a New York Times best-seller with over 1 million copies in print.

• Tip: “… Your willingness to take on work will be your biggest asset. I don’t know of anyone who was ever turned away for wanting to do more.”

Linda J. Hanger, President, Evan-Moor Educational Publishers
Hanger has been the president of Evan-Moor Educational Publishers since 2005. Founded in 1979, Evan-Moor publishes supplemental Pre-K to 6th-grade educational materials. Hanger’s previous positions include: president and CEO of Nolo; faculty, Stanford Professional Publishing Course, Stanford University; senior vice president and publisher, M&T Publishing; and vice president, sales and marketing, Osborne/McGraw-Hill. Hanger serves on the board of directors for The Association of Educational Publishers and Nolo.

• Tip: “Successful publishers of tomorrow must be technologically savvy today. … Keeping pace with consumer expectations regarding flexibility and portability [of digital content] will represent new challenges and opportunities.”

Donna Hayes, Publisher and CEO, Harlequin Enterprises Ltd.
Hayes started her career in publishing at Doubleday Canada, then moved on to Ogilvy & Mather before joining Harlequin in 1985. She was named president and COO of Harlequin in 2002 and appointed publisher and CEO in 2003. Hayes is the first woman to run the company since it was founded in 1949. Harlequin is one of the leading global publishers of women’s fiction, with 2008 revenues of $472.9 million. It publishes 120 titles a month in 28 languages. Hayes continues to shift Harlequin’s focus from romance fiction to women’s fiction and to increase the level of innovation in the company.

• Tip: “Passion and perseverance.”

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