Plume

Plume

Overview

Plume was founded in 1970 as the trade paperback imprint of New American Library. In its early history, Plume focused primarily on nonfiction titles, publishing approximately 35 titles per year. In the early 1980s, as trade paperbacks were rapidly becoming the format of choice among a large segment of book buyers, Plume began expanding its reach, and became recognized as one of the pre-eminent trade paperback imprints. The 1980’s saw Plume make its mark with a number of major bestsellers, including Toni Morrison’s Tar Baby, Erica Jong‘s Fanny, Russell Baker‘s Growing Up, and Gloria Steinem’s Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, among others. Now, in 2014, Plume is publishing 85 to 100 titles a year, and its backlist currently encompasses approximately 700 titles.

Throughout its history, Plume has been dedicated to voices previously neglected by mainstream publishing. The pioneering program in multicultural literature, which began with Toni Morrison and Jamaica Kincaid, has expanded to include ground-breaking works by Latino, African-American, and Asian-American authors. Plume publishes such notable writers as Julia Alvarez, Bernice McFadden (Sugar), Gish Jen, and August Wilson (Fences), among many others. Plume was also a pioneer in gay publishing, with such classics as Edmund White‘s A Boy’s Own Story and Andrew Holleran’s Dancer from the Dance, which built the foundation for an exceptional gay and lesbian publishing program that is still going strong with Judy Shepard’s The Meaning of Matthew and Dan Savage and Terry Miller’s ground-breaking It Gets Better.

Plume’s acclaimed fiction list boasts many bestselling and prize-winning authors, including Dorothy Allison (Bastard out of Carolina), David Benioff (City of Thieves), Tracy Chevalier (including The Girl with the Pearl Earring and The Last Runaway), Jennifer Chiaverini (Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker), Lev Grossman (The Magicians, The Magician King and The Magician’s Land), Sarah Jio (Blackberry Winter, The Violets of March, Goodnight June), Joyce Carol Oates (We Were the Mulvaneys), Jonathan Tropper (This is Where I Leave You, One Last Thing Before I Go), and Jussi Adler-Olson’s Department Q Novels.

Bestselling, quality, narrative and prescriptive nonfiction is another area in which Plume takes special pride, publishing Eckert Tolle (A New Earth), Jill Bolte Taylor (My Stroke of Insight), Daniel Levitin (This is Your Brain on Music), Neil Young (Waging Heavy Peace), Damien Echols (Life After Death) and Jeff Bridges and Bernie Glassman (The Dude and the Zen Master).

Plume’s dynamic backlist is nothing if not diverse, including Ayn Rand (The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged), titles by the major twentieth-century writer and thinker, George Orwell (Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four), Stephen King (volumes 1-4 of The Dark Tower series) Anne Rice (writing as A.N. Roquelaure, The Sleeping Beauty Trilogy) and Pat Barker’s Booker Prize winning The Ghost Road (part of her Regeneration Trilogy).

With Todd Wilbur‘s Top Secret Recipes series, to Putting Food By and Total Juicing, the cookbook list offers both the traditional and the practical. The business and personal finance list is likewise a mix of the classic and the cutting-edge, featuring everything from Jason Kelly‘s Neatest Little Guide to Investing to John PerkinsConfessions of an Economic Hit Man to Neffinger and Kohut’s Compelling People.

Plume’s bestselling diet and health category leads with Robert Lustig (Fat Chance) Gretchen Reynolds (The First 20 Minutes) Dr. David Burns (The Feeling Good Handbook) Dr. Andrew Weil (You Can’t Afford to Get Sick) and Mira Kirshenbaum (Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay).

While Plume publishes bestselling reprints in trade paperback, it also has a dynamic and bestselling original publishing program, with recent bestsellers in nonfiction as varied as James Wesley Rawles’s How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It, Cracked.com’s You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News and The De-Text Book, and Hugh Murphy’s T-Rex Trying, as well as Going Somewhere by Brian Benson and Jolie Kerr’s My Boyfriend Barfed in My Handbag…And Other Things You can’t Ask Martha.

Plume’s original fiction program is equally as varied and dynamic with fine novels by authors including Jason Porter (Why Are You So Sad?) and New York Times Bestsellers by Sarah Jio (The Violets of March, Blackberry Winter, Goodnight June) and Natasha Solomons (The House at Tyneford). Plume has also become the leader in the new publishing category of survival fiction, with recent original novels by G. Michael Hopf  (The End, The Long Road and Sanctuary) and A. American (including Going Home, Surviving Home and Escaping Home).

Plume’s long-term commitment to writers and readers is stronger than ever. The publishing program continues to be vigorous and exciting—the best new trade paperback and eBooks in each of these categories will be added to Plume’s distinguished list.

Meet Plume

Rachel Bressler

Editorial Director

Rachel Bressler became editorial director of Plume in July of 2014, and brings 20 years of extensive sales, marketing and editorial experience to managing Plume’s publishing list. Prior to joining Plume, she was the Executive Director of Corporate and Publisher Relations at The Park Literary Group and VP, Associate Publisher at Ecco/HarperCollins Publishers, Marketing Manager for William Morrow, and later National Accounts Manager for Harper. She started her career at Barnes & Noble as a store manager, and then Corporate Coop Manager. Over the course of her career, Rachel has contributed to the success of many high profile authors and bestselling publications including The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, Patti Smith’s National Book Award winning Just Kids, as well as authors Joyce Carol Oates, Ron Rash, Anthony Bourdain, Debbie Macomber and Ben Fountain.

For any media inquiries please contact Courtney Nobile, Director of Publicity, Courtney.nobile@us.penguingroup.com

Plume Newsroom

MikeTyson_UndisputedTruth
October 24, 2014

Philosopher, Broadway headliner, fighter, felon—Mike Tyson has defied stereotypes, expectations, and a lot of conventional wisdom during his three decades in the public eye. Bullied as a boy in the toughest, poorest neighborhood in Brooklyn, Tyson grew up to become one of the most ferocious boxers of all time—and the youngest heavyweight champion ever. But […]

Read more >
July 24, 2014

New York Times bestseller and Pen Faulkner Award Winner Karen Joy Fowler is one of four American authors included on the list for the 2014 Man Booker Prize for her novel We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. This is the first year in which American authors have been eligible for the award. A shortlist will be […]

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9780399170683H
May 2, 2014

The Blue Rider Press edition of This Town by Mark Leibovich was a New York Times bestseller last summer and hailed by the New York Times as a “spot on” portrayal of the American political landscape. With this week’s publication of Plume’s trade paperback edition, Washington, DC “bus king” advertising for the book is rolling around the streets of the nation’s capital […]

Read more >

New Releases

Anne Helen Petersen
Jason Kelly
Robert B. Baer

Bestsellers

Lev Grossman
Jonathan Tropper

Coming Soon

Greil Marcus
Matt Lewis
Una LaMarche

Award Winners

Randall Robinson
Hari Kunzru
Tracy Chevalier
Neil Simon

Connect With Plume

Plume, Penguin Group USA
Pre-order the hilarious UNABROW by Una LaMarche and be entered for a chance to win a Brow Bar To Go kit from Anastasia... 1 day ago

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