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Ten Speed Press

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Ten Speed Press
Parent companyCrown Publishing Group(Random House)
Founded1971
FounderPhil Wood (publisher)[1][2][3][4]
Country of originUnited States
Publication typesBooks
ImprintsLorena Jones, 4 Color,Watson-Guptill
Official websitecrownpublishing.com/ten-speed-press

Ten Speed Pressis a publishing house founded inBerkeley, California,in 1971 by Phil Wood.[5]It was bought byRandom Housein February 2009 and became part of theirCrown Publishing Groupdivision.

History[edit]

Wood worked withBarnes & Noblein 1962,Penguin Booksin 1965, and had a senior sales position at Penguin Books in Baltimore and New York before founding Ten Speed Press.[6]Wood died of cancer in December 2010.[7]

Ten Speed's first book wasAnybody’s Bike Book,[8][9]which is still in print. It inspired the publisher's name and has sold more than a million copies.[9]Ten Speed's all-time best-seller isWhat Color is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-ChangersbyRichard N. Bolles(1972). It has been reissued in new editions and, as of 2009, has sold more than ten million copies, translated into 20 languages.[10]

Ten Speed has published numerous other non-fiction titles, includingMoosewood Cookbook,White Trash Cooking,Why Cats Paint,The Bread Baker's Apprentice,Vegetable Literacy,Yotam Ottolenghi'sJerusalem,Franklin Barbecue,andMarie Kondo'sThe Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up(2014). The books are usually colorfully designed. They are sometimes published in odd shapes to match their whimsical subjects. Ten Speed Press publishes 150 books a year under all of its imprints.[11]

In 1983, Ten Speed acquired Celestial Arts, (Millbrae, CA)[12]"founded in the late 1960s as a printer of rock music posters",[6]fromGary Kurtz,[13]aStar Warsproducer.[14][15][16]In 2002, the company acquiredCrossing Press,a publisher specializing in metaphysics, alternative lifestyles, and healing.[14]

In February 2009, Ten Speed Press was bought byRandom Houseand is now part of theirCrown Publishing Groupdivision. Before the takeover, it published under its four imprints, Ten Speed Press, Celestial Arts, Crossing Press, and Tricycle Press, more than 100 new hardcovers and trade paperbacks annually and had a backlist of more than 1,000 active titles.[17]

Watson-Guptillbecame an imprint of Ten Speed Press under Random House in 2013, part of their Crown Publishing Group.[18]

Tricycle Press[edit]

Tricycle Press was the children's imprint of Ten Speed Press, which published theAmelia's notebooksseries,[19]among others. Tricycle also publishedWho's in a Family?in 1997 andKing & Kingin 2002,[20]books that addressed different types of families, including those headed by gay parents. The imprint ceased publishing new books in 2011.[21][22]

References[edit]

  1. ^"In memoriam: Phil Wood, founder of Ten Speed Press".Berkeleyside.30 June 2011.Retrieved31 July2022.
  2. ^Fisher, Lawrence M. (23 March 1986)."Big Books from Small Houses".The New York Times.Retrieved31 July2022.
  3. ^"A Way With Weird: Ten Speed Press Founder Phil Wood Has Made a Small Fortune Publishing Books No One Could Imagine in Print".Los Angeles Times.8 December 1988.Retrieved31 July2022.
  4. ^Lagos, Marisa (20 December 2010)."Phil Wood, founder of Ten Speed Press, dies at 72".SFGATE.Retrieved31 July2022.
  5. ^About Ten Speed Press
  6. ^abBrown, Steven E. F. (26 January 2001)."Full speed ahead".San Francisco Business Times.American City Business Journals.Archived fromthe originalon 22 October 2002.Retrieved31 July2022.But when they turned down a book he thought would sell, he published it on his own and watched it hit sales of 1,000 copies a day. Because the book was "Anybody's Bike Book," he called his new company Ten Speed Press.
  7. ^"A Tribute to Phil Wood".Ten Speed Press. 2010-12-14. Archived fromthe originalon 2010-12-18.
  8. ^Cuthbertson, Tom (1971).Anybody's Bike Book: An Original Manual of Bicycle Repairs.Ten Speed Press.ISBN978-0-913668-00-9.
  9. ^abCuthbertson, Tom (1998).Anybody's Bike Book.Ten Speed Press.ISBN978-0-89815-996-7.Tom Cuthbertson was Ten Speed Press's first author, and his friendly bicycle repair manual not only inspired the name of our company, it made bicycle repair accessible for the casual and serious cyclist. As the technology of bicycles has evolved, so has his classic book.
  10. ^What color is your parachute
  11. ^Margolin, Malcolm(7 October 2017)."Berkeley Publishing in the 1970s".Sisyphus.Retrieved31 July2022.
  12. ^Walters, Ray (21 January 1979)."PAPERBACK TALK".The New York Times.Retrieved31 July2022.
  13. ^"Star Wars money buys Celestial Arts"(PDF).Starship #35.Summer 1979. p. 48.Retrieved31 July2022.Meredith Kurtz...
  14. ^ab"About Ten Speed Press & Tricycle Press".Crown Publishing Group.Retrieved2010-04-02.
  15. ^Plaume, Ken."From the Vault: An interview with Gary Kurtz".Fred Entertainment.Retrieved7 November2011.
  16. ^Barks, Carl; Summer, Edward; Walt Disney Productions (1981).Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge McDuck: His Life & Times.Celestial Arts.ISBN978-0-89087-290-1.
  17. ^"Random House, Inc. Acquires Ten Speed Press For The Crown Publishing Group"(PDF).Random House.Retrieved2010-04-02.
  18. ^"Crown Shifts Watson-Guptill, Amphoto, Potter Craft".PublishersWeekly.com.Retrieved2018-11-22.
  19. ^Berry, Michael (28 May 2015)."Berkeley author Marissa Moss says goodby to Amelia, a character that has delighted readers for 20 years".Berkeleyside.Retrieved16 March2024.
  20. ^"LGBTQIA+ Resources for Children: A Bibliography".American Library Association.Retrieved16 March2024.
  21. ^Rosen, Judith (17 November 2010)."Random House to Shutter Tricycle Press".Publisher's Weekly.Retrieved16 March2024.
  22. ^Yin, Maryann (18 November 2010)."Random House Will Shutter Tricycle Press".GalleyCat.Retrieved16 March2024.

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