Astra Publishing House has acquired DAW Books. The deal was announced today in a press release run at Amazing Stories and elsewhere.
DAW, although it has a distribution relationship with Penguin Group and is headquartered in Penguin USA’s offices in New York City, was editorially independent and formerly was closely held by its current publishers, Betsy Wollheim (Donald A. Wollheim’s daughter) and Sheila E. Gilbert.
Leying Jiang, President and CFO of APH said, “We’re so thrilled to have DAW Books and its talented team joining Astra Publishing House. It feels like we are adding another bright star to our growing program. And so this acquisition marks a new milestone to Astra’s journey to a successful future.”
DAW co-publishers Betsy Wollheim and Sheila Gilbert said, “We are extremely pleased by Astra’s enthusiasm, and thrilled that we will be the sole SFF imprint of their company (a first for DAW!). We think this is the perfect fit for us, and it’s exciting and refreshing to be an integral part of a new and growing company. It speaks volumes about Astra’s respect for our company that they have included our entire staff. We’re very happy.”
DAW, previously distributed by the Penguin division of Penguin Random House, will be distributed by the Penguin Random House Publisher Services division which distributes all of Astra Publishing House books.
Astra Publishing House, as Shelf Awareness reported in 2020, was formed by combining established and new publishing operations as a subsidiary of Thinkingdom Media Group. With headquarters in Beijing, China, TMG specializes in literary fiction, nonfiction and picture books. TMG is also associated with publishers in Japan, France and Germany. Founded by Chen Mingjun in 2002, Thinkingdom Media Group is the only non-state-owned publishing company to go public in China and has published more than 4,000 titles in that country.
APH’s newly-added DAW Books page outlines the imprint’s history: “Founded in 1971 by veteran paperback editor Donald A. Wollheim, along with his wife, Elsie B. Wollheim, DAW Books was the first publishing company ever devoted exclusively to science fiction and fantasy. Now over 50 years and 2,000 titles later, under the direction of co-publishers Betsy Wollheim and Sheila Gilbert, DAW has a well-deserved reputation for discovering and publishing the hottest talents in the industry.”
David Lamb and Susan Reich at Book Advisors brokered the deal for DAW, with Kuo-Yu Liang of Ku Worldwide. Alan J. Kaufman served as DAW’s counsel.