Random House

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Random House, Inc.
Type Subsidiary of Bertelsmann
Founded 1925
Founder(s) Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer
Headquarters (Original Office)
New York City, USA
(International Offices)
Munich, Germany
London, UK
Key people Markus Dohle (Chairman and CEO)
Brad Martin (Random House Canada, Chief Executive Officer)
Dr. Joerg Pfuhl (Verlagsgruppe Random House)
Gail Rebuck (Random House Group)
Industry Books, Publishing
Products Books
Revenue ▲$2.3 billion USD (2006)
Employees 5,764 (as of December 31, 2007)
Website www.randomhouse.com
Random House Tower headquarters, New York City

Random House, Inc. is the world's largest English-language general trade book publisher. It has been owned since 1998 by the large German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a home video distribution arm, Random House Home Video.

Contents

[edit] Random House, U.S.A.

Random House was founded in 1927 by Americans Bennett Cerf, Christopher Coombes and Donald Klopfer, two years after they acquired the Modern Library imprint. Cerf is quoted as saying, "We just said we were going to publish a few books on the side at random," which suggested the name Random House.[1]

Its American imprints currently include the Crown Publishing Group including Three Rivers Press, the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, the Random House Audio Publishing Group, the Random House Publishing Group, and Random House Children's Books. Del Rey Manga publishes English manga in North America.

Random House entered reference publishing in 1947 with the American College Dictionary, which was followed in 1966 by its first unabridged dictionary. Today it publishes the Random House Dictionary of the English Language and Random House Webster's College dictionaries, probably the main competitors for Merriam-Webster reference titles.

The distinguished American publishers Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. and Pantheon Books were acquired by Random House in 1960 and 1961, respectively; works continue to be published under these imprints with editorial independence, such as Everyman's Library, a series of classical literature reprints. Random House has been the distributor for Shambhala Publications since 1974. They also currently distribute Rizzoli Books, National Geographic Books, Steerforth Press, Wizards of the Coast, Vertical Books, Welcome Books, New York Review of Books, Titan Books, Other Press, Hatherleigh Press, North Atlantic Books, Monacelli Press Books, and DC Comics. In 1998, Bertelsmann AG bought Random House and it soon went global.[2]

The publisher's main U.S. office is located at 1745 Broadway in Manhattan, in the 684-foot Random House Tower, completed in 2003 and spanning the entire west side of the block between West 55th Street and west 56th. Its lobby showcases floor-to-ceiling glassed-in bookcases filled with books published by the company's many imprints.

[edit] Random House, UK

The Random House Group is one of the largest general book publishing companies in the UK. The Group is based in London and has subsidiary companies in Australia, New Zealand and India, with a joint venture in South Africa called Random House Struik.

The Group comprises six publishing companies with over 40 diverse and highly respected imprints and brand-name publishers including BBC Books, Jonathan Cape, William Heinemann, Chatto & Windus, Vintage, Corgi, Doubleday, Bantam Press and Virgin Books.

Random House’s non-fiction publishing consists of broad general non-fiction and specialist categories such as cookery, gardening, travel and business books. The Group’s classic backlist of over 6000 titles includes the works of Graham Greene, Iris Murdoch and Virginia Woolf amongst others. Random House Children’s Books publishes many bestselling writers including Philip Pullman and Jacqueline Wilson, the former Children’s Laureate. The Random House Group distribution business services its own imprints as well as 60 other UK publishers.

[edit] Other international branches

Verlagsgruppe Random House is the second largest book publisher in Germany with 40 imprints as of September 2008, including historic publishing houses Goldmann and Heyne. It is headquartered in Munich.

Random House of Canada was established in 1944 as the Canadian distributor of Random House Books. In 1986 the company established its own indigenous Canadian publishing program that has become one of the most successful in Canadian history.

Random House also operates branches in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India and South Korea.[3] In Australia offices are in Sydney and Melbourne. In New Zealand it is based in Glenfield, Auckland, while Random House's Indian headquarters are located in New Delhi.

[edit] Subsidiaries and affiliates

[edit] Imprints

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ [1] Bennet Alfred Cerf Biography
  2. ^ Random House Company History, from http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Random-House-Inc-Company-History.html. Accessed April 13, 2008.
  3. ^ (Korean) Random House Korea web site

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_House"
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