Inside the Rise of Celebrity Publishing Imprints

As celebrity status markers go, it’s not quite an Oscar, or even a sandwich named after you at the Stage Deli. Still, getting a publishing imprint of your own carries at least some cachet, however short-lived. Oprah had one for a bit. Lena Dunham, too. Even Johnny Depp was peddling books for a spell.

The latest entry into the high-turnover world of celebrity book publishing is Jenna Bush Hager, who this year signed a partnering deal with Random House. In many ways, she’s a natural for this sort of thing — her “Read With Jenna” book club spots on the Today show helped some 70 tomes crack best-seller lists in the past six years — but even celebrities who had never recommended Civil War biographies or collections of poetry to their fans have been landing imprint deals of late.

Indeed, there’s a whole new publishing startup, Zando, that has built its entire business plan on the presumed power of film and TV stars to make people want to pick up a book. So far, the company, launched a few years ago by former Crown editor Molly Stern (with Elisabeth Murdoch and Stacey Snider’s Sister as an early investor), has forged imprint partnerships with Sarah Jessica Parker (SJP Lit), John Legend (Get Lifted Books), Lena Waithe (Hillman Grad Books) and lifestyle influencer Ayesha Curry (Sweet July Books), any one of whom could end up discovering and publishing the next Gillian Flynn (who, by the way, also has her own eponymous imprint with Zando).

How much each will lean into their brand identity and how those public profiles will translate into a publishing slate remains to be seen. Will followers of Curry, for example, be interested in an “Iron Chef meets Hunger Games YA fantasy” (Celestial Banquet, by Roselle Lim, out in June)? Are Sex and the City fans interested in a historical epic about a wealthy family of Latvian Jews (The Story of the Forest, by Linda Grant)?

Stern, for one, thinks celebrities can get books attention that eludes traditional publishing marketing. “Publishers expect authors to walk in with this massive platform and 10,000 Twitter followers and a huge presence on Instagram. One of our core beliefs is that authors should be authors,” Stern recently said. “Our model is, six to eight months before books hits the shelves, we’re saying to retailers, ‘This is Lena Waithe’s book. Here’s what she’s doing when the book goes on sale. Here are all of the things you can rely on.’ ”

But many in publishing are skeptical. Literary critic Sarah Manley mocked these “hobbies” as the “new celebrity vodka.” Veteran publishing executive Robert Gottlieb, the chairman of the literary agency Trident Media Group who has been following the trend since its inception, is only slightly more measured. “They kind of fizzle out,” he says. “People like the idea of doing it, but you have to put in the work, and traditional publishing takes a lot of time.”

Hollywood and the publishing world have been trying to make celebrity imprints happen for at least 15 years, since Grand Central Books gave Chelsea Handler her own in 2010 (beating Oprah’s imprint deal with Flatiron by five years). Gwyneth Paltrow, Derek Jeter, Mindy Kaling, Anthony Bourdain, Rachael Ray, Michael Mann — they’ve all given it a go. And most have indeed fizzled out. Depp’s imprint, Infinitum Nihil, which focused on his interest in music, published two books — a rediscovered novel by Woody Guthrie and a repring of the cult classic Narcisa — then closed shop. Dunham’s imprint, Lenny Books, published a few novels and a short story collection, then folded after barely two years.

Even those celebrity imprints that have managed to hang on haven’t ended up producing a whole lot. Andy Cohen’s imprint with Henry Holt was launched in 2017, published its first book in 2020, jumped to Crown in 2023 and just announced — two years later — its next book. The Rules of Culture Volume 1, by Las Culturistas podcasters Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers, is described as “a Guinness World Records book for queer people.” Paltrow’s Goop Press seems to still be operating. It published handful of books at Hachette before folding and relaunching with more modest ambitions — Intuitive Fasting, anyone? — at specialty publisher Rodale.

According to Gottlieb, the harsh truth is that celebrity imprints don’t generally deliver for publishers and more often than not are a huge waste of time for the celebrities. “The money that a rock star makes from being a rock star is huge,” he says. “The money he could make from having a book imprint is minuscule by comparison.”

This story appeared in the April 2 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.