Early years In 1924,
Richard Simon's aunt, a
crossword puzzle enthusiast, asked whether there was a book of
New York World crossword puzzles, which were popular at the time. After discovering that none had been published, Simon and
Max Schuster decided to launch a company to exploit the opportunity. At the time, Simon was a piano salesman and Schuster was editor of an automotive trade magazine. They pooled , equivalent to $ today and started a company that published crossword puzzles. In 1942, Simon & Schuster and
Western Publishing launched the
Little Golden Books series in cooperation with the Artists and Writers Guild. In 1944,
Marshall Field III, owner of the
Chicago Sun, purchased Simon & Schuster and Pocket Books. The company was sold back to Simon & Schuster following his death in 1957 for $1 million. In the 1950s and 1960s, many publishers including Simon & Schuster turned toward educational publishing due to the
baby boom market. Pocket Books focused on paperbacks for the educational market instead of textbooks and started the Washington Square Press imprint in 1959. In 1967, Simon & Schuster acquired Monarch Press Publishing, Inc., along with its extensive line of college and high school study guides published. In 1960, Richard Simon died of a heart attack; six years later, Max Schuster retired and sold his half of Simon & Schuster to Leon Shimkin. Shimkin then merged Simon & Schuster with Pocket Books under the name of Simon & Schuster. left abruptly to work at competitor
Knopf, taking other influential S&S employees,
Nina Bourne, and Tony Schulte. Four years later, in 1979, Richard Snyder was named CEO of the company. Over the next several years he would help the company to grow substantially.
1980s After the death of Gulf+Western head
Charles Bluhdorn on February 19, 1983, the company made the decision to diversify. Bluhdorn's successor Martin Davis told
The New York Times, "Society was undergoing dramatic changes so that there was a greater need for textbooks, maps, and educational information. We saw the opportunity to diversify into those areas, which are more stable and more profitable than trade publishing." mapmaker
Gousha in 1987 and Charles E. Simon in 1988. According to Korda, audiobooks were a major business for Simon & Schuster by the 1990s.
1990s In 1990,
The New York Times described Simon & Schuster! as the largest book publisher in the United States, with sales of $1.3 billion the previous year. That same year, Simon & Schuster acquired the children's publisher Green Tiger Press. In 1993, Simon & Schuster bought
Macmillan (including
Scribner's,
Free Press, and Jossey-Bass), and changed its name to Paramount Publishing.
Viacom then bought Paramount in 1994 and changed the name back to Simon & Schuster. Macmillan was acquired for US$552.8 million. Later that year, Snyder was suddenly fired from S&S and was replaced by the company's president and chief operating officer Jonathan Newcomb. Gousha was sold to
Rand McNally in 1996. In 1994, S&S acquired the software operations of
Markt+Technik. Later that year, Simon & Schuster (through Paramount) launched a software publisher in partnership with
Davidson & Associates named Simon & Schuster Interactive. The studio published video games such as
Outlaw Golf,
Deer Avenger,
I.M. Meen,
Chill Manor,
EVE Online, and games based on
Richard Scarry's characters. S&S Interactive shut down in 2003. In 1998, Viacom sold Simon & Schuster's educational operations (including Prentice Hall, Macmillan, and Jossey-Bass) to
Pearson plc, the global publisher and then owner of Penguin and the
Financial Times; Pearson then merged the operations with
Addison-Wesley Longman to form
Pearson Education. Later, Pearson sold several of the acquired S&S divisions: first Appleton & Lange was divested to
McGraw-Hill and Master Data Central was sold to
Master Data Center. Then, Jossey-Bass was sold to
John Wiley & Sons and the Bureau of Business Practice was sold to
Wolters Kluwer. Subsequently, Macmillan Library Reference's children's imprints (Silver Burdett Press, Dillon Press, Crestwood House, Silver Press, New Discovery and
Julian Messner) were closed. Then,
Gale acquired Macmillan Library Reference (Charles Scribner's Sons Reference, Macmillan Reference, Thorndike Press,
G.K. Hall, Twayne Publishers and Schirmer Books). Finally,
IDG Books acquired Macmillan General Reference (including
Frommer's,
J.K. Lasser,
Betty Crocker Cookbooks,
Weight Watchers Dieting and Cookbooks and Howell House Pet Books but excluding
Complete Idiot's Guides, which Pearson later transferred to Macmillan Computer Publishing under
Alpha Books and currently part of
Penguin Random House under
Dorling Kindersley).
2000s In 2002, Simon & Schuster acquired its Canadian distributor Distican. Simon & Schuster began publishing in Canada in 2013. At the end of 2005, Viacom split into two companies:
CBS Corporation (which inherited S&S and
Paramount Parks), and the other retaining the
Viacom name. Also in 2005, Simon & Schuster acquired Strebor Books International, which was founded in 1999 by author Kristina Laferne Roberts, who has written under the pseudonym "Zane". A year later, in 2006, Simon & Schuster launched the conservative imprint
Threshold Editions. In 2009, Simon & Schuster signed a multi-book and co-publishing deal with
Glenn Beck which fell over many of its imprints and included adult non-fiction, fiction, children, and YA literature as well as e-book and audiobook originals. As part of CBS, Simon & Schuster has been the primary publisher for books related to various media franchises owned by and/or aired on CBS such as
CSI. The company has also held a license to publish books in the
Star Trek franchise under
Pocket Books.
2010s In 2011, Simon & Schuster signed a number of co-publishing deals. Glenn Beck signed a new co-publishing deal with Simon & Schuster for his own imprint,
Mercury Ink. Under Atria, Simon & Schuster also launched a publishing venture with
Cash Money Records called Cash Money Content. On April 11, 2012, the United States Department of Justice filed
United States v. Apple Inc., naming
Apple, Simon & Schuster, and four other major publishers as defendants. The suit alleged that they conspired to fix prices for
e-books, and weaken
Amazon.com's position in the market, in violation of
antitrust law. Simon & Schuster reorganized all of their imprints under four main groups in 2012. The four groups included the Atria Publishing Group, the Scribner Publishing Group, the Simon & Schuster Publishing Group and the Gallery Publishing Group. On November 14, 2013, Simon & Schuster signed a co-publishing agreement with former
New York Yankees shortstop,
Derek Jeter, to launch Jeter Publishing. In December 2013, a federal judge approved a settlement of the antitrust claims, in which Simon & Schuster and the other publishers paid into a fund that provided credits to customers who had overpaid for books due to the price-fixing. In 2014, Simon & Schuster signed a partnership deal with Amazon over ebooks and also launched a new speculative fiction imprint. On October 21, 2014, Simon & Schuster signed a multi-year partnership deal with
Amazon.com in negotiations concerning the price of e-books. Simon & Schuster also launched a new science fiction imprint called Simon451 that would publish titles across science fiction and fantasy with an emphasis on ebooks and online communities. The name of the imprint was inspired by
Ray Bradbury's book
Fahrenheit 451 (the temperature at which books burn). The imprint would publish non-fiction titles such as self-improvement, inspirational and mind-body-spirit titles. In addition, the group would also serve as a platform and set of services for authors that go beyond what a traditional book publisher offers to find their audience. In an interview with
Kirkus Reviews, Michele Martin expanded that North Star Way, "aims to meet consumers where they are, in whatever form of media they consume. We expand the ideas in the books into a variety of platforms." The name prompted
Marvel Comics to attempt to register the name of their superhero
Northstar in February 2015. The application was denied as Simon & Schuster had already made a trademark application for North Star Way in January. Simon & Schuster launched SimonSays.com a portal for online video courses in 2016, along with Scout Press, a new literary fiction imprint under Gallery Books Group. They also launched North Star Way, a platform-based program to provide authors with services beyond publishing including brand management, online courses, sponsorship, and business partnerships. Also as of 2016, Simon & Schuster had more than 18k e-books available for sale and signed a deal to distribute Start Publishing LLC, a catalog of 7,000 e-book titles. Since February 15, 2022, ViacomCBS is known as
Paramount Global.
2020s In March 2020, ViacomCBS CEO
Bob Bakish announced the company's intention to sell the Simon & Schuster division, as it "does not have significant connection for our broader business." Bakish expected the sale to close in 2020, a date that was delayed by the
COVID-19 pandemic. In September 2020, German media group
Bertelsmann, which owns
Penguin Random House, announced that it was interested in acquiring Simon & Schuster. According to Bertelsmann chief executive and chairman
Thomas Rabe, "We've been the most active player on the consolidation of the book publishing market in the last 10 years. We combined
Penguin and
Random House very successfully to create by far the largest book publisher in the world, actually the only global book publisher. Given this position we would, of course, be interested in Simon & Schuster."
Vivendi, which owns the French publisher
Editis, and
News Corp, which owns
HarperCollins, were also named as contenders in acquiring Simon & Schuster.
ViacomCBS expected the bids to be placed before November 26, 2020. On November 25, 2020, ViacomCBS announced it would sell Simon & Schuster to Penguin Random House for $2.175 billion. The deal was expected to close in 2022, but was blocked by US federal judge
Florence Y. Pan on October 31, 2022. An appeal to the court ruling was announced a day later by Bertelsmann, but it was ultimately canceled on November 21. In 2021, Simon & Schuster made book deals with former Trump administration officials such as
Vice President Mike Pence and Trump adviser
Kellyanne Conway. This prompted protests among Simon & Schuster staff. On November 2, 2021, the
United States Department of Justice filed a civil antitrust lawsuit to block Penguin Random House's proposed acquisition of Simon & Schuster. The lawsuit argues that the acquisition would create a publisher with too much influence over books and author payments. A federal judge sided with the plaintiff, leading Paramount to nullify the deal in November 2022. In 2022, Simon & Schuster employee Filippo Bernardini was arrested for the
2016–2021 literary phishing thefts. The company released a statement saying they were "shocked and horrified to learn today of the allegations of fraud and identity theft by an employee." In June 2023,
The Wall Street Journal reported that HarperCollins and investment firm
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) had emerged as potential frontrunners for the company. On August 3, 2023, it was reported that KKR was in "advanced talks" with Paramount Global. On August 7, 2023, Paramount Global announced that it had agreed to sell Simon & Schuster to KKR for $1.62 billion. The sale was completed on October 30, 2023. In May 2024, Simon & Schuster acquired
Veen Bosch & Keuning (VBK), the largest Dutch book publishing company. The acquisition includes all of VBK's imprints in the Netherlands and Belgium, as well as its sister companies, the audiobook producer Thinium, and Bookchoice, a subscription-based platform for e-books and audiobooks. This is the first expansion of Simon & Schuster into a non-English market. In September 2024, it was announced that Simon & Schuster Australia had entered an agreement to acquire publisher
Affirm Press. == People ==