Lou Aronica and Peter Miller have formed a new independent publishing house named The Story Plant. The house, “dedicated to commercial fiction and author development, will publish its first two books, American Quest by Sienna Skyy and Capitol Reflections by Jonathan Javitt, in the fall of 2008.”
Aronica and Miller started the new business because they “saw an opportunity in the marketplace to develop writers over multiple books.” The Story Plant will focus on long-term relationships with commercial novelists. “There are many good reasons why publishers take a one-book-at-a-time approach with new writers,” said Aronica, who is the company’s Publisher, “but I’m not entirely sure that’s the best approach for either the writer or the publisher. We’re being ultra-selective in the writers we choose, but when we choose them, we’re making a serious commitment to them.” That commitment includes close editorial work with the writers and marketing plans that ramp up months before publication and extend from one book to the next.
The Story Plant will take an active role not only in North American publication, but in the exploitation of foreign, performance, and merchandising rights for all of its titles. Miller, the company’s Marketing and Rights Director, currently has multiple film projects in development, including a ten-part miniseries, Reclaiming History by Vincent Bugliosi, for HBO with Tom Hanks’s production company Playtone, and the first live action film from Oscar-winning director Brad Bird, 1906 by James Dalessandro. “When we sign a Story Plant title,” he said, “we’re specifically looking at the book’s film and foreign potential. We think the books on this list are going to be successful on a number of platforms.”
The Story Plant books will be distributed by Perseus Distribution. Baror International, Inc. will sell foreign rights.
Their first title, American Quest, is “a contemporary romantic fantasy,” and will be published in hardcover in September. Medical thriller Capitol Reflections will appear in trade paperback in October.
Aronica spent twenty years in publishing, serving as Deputy Publisher at Bantam before becoming Publisher at Berkley and Avon. In recent years, he has focused on writing, authoring two pseudonymous novels and seven works of nonfiction. Miller has been managing writers in books and film for more than three decades, representing more than a dozen New York Times bestsellers and Executive Producing more than a dozen movies.