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Kensington Publishing Corp. is an independent, family-owned book publisher founded in 1974 and based in New York City. Known for the diversity of the authors and books it publishes, Kensington releases more than 300 fiction and non-fiction titles each year, providing readers with a range of popular genres such as thrillers, romance, historical fiction, cozy mysteries, and non-fiction, as well as true-crime, western, sci-fi, and speculative fiction titles. The house of New York Times bestselling authors, including Fern Michaels, Lisa Jackson, William W. Johnstone, Joanne Fluke, Mary Monroe, Dr. Jen Gunter, Ellen Marie Wiseman, and many others, its imprints include Kensington Books, Dafina, Zebra, Pinnacle, Kensington Cozies, John Scognamiglio Books, Citadel Press, Lyrical Press, and Erewhon Books. Visit them online at kensingtonbooks.com.
Letter from President and CEO
As Kensington Publishing continues into our fifth decade as an independent publisher, we, like the entire industry, have gone through tremendous changes since our founding by my father, Walter Zacharius, who unfortunately passed away in March, 2011.
Kensington remains the largest independent firm to publish in the paperback field. We started as a historical romance publisher in 1974 with an investment of $67,000. Since then we have grown in the number of people we employ, the number of books we publish, and the range of genres that our titles represent. Even as we continue to grow and evolve, we remain a family business. My son, Adam Zacharius, who had worked for us on the West Coast, moved to the New York office shortly after my father passed away and sits behind the desk my father used for his 35-plus years in the office. I believe we are the only third generation publishing company in the business. Fortunately I have four grandchildren; so hopefully the trend will continue.
Some people ask why an author would choose to be published at Kensington instead of one of the larger companies. The answer is that although this is becoming a much more technologically based industry, we are still a “people” company. There isn’t another company where every author has the opportunity to meet and deal with everyone in the firm, including the top management team. We treat every writer as a part of our family. That’s easy to claim, but ask any of our authors how they feel about us.
There’s something special and unique about being a family-owned business. It’s hard to put into words, but if you were to ask authors or employees, they could probably explain it better than I could.
I thank you for supporting our company, and I want you to know that I enjoy answering all of my email from readers and writers. I truly answer every email that I receive whether it be praise, criticism, or just general correspondence. Although I enjoy reading and answering all correspondence, any conversations or proposals for submitting a manuscript should be send to an editor.
A lot of work goes into our website to make it user friendly, informative and enjoyable to readers. We have just gone through a complete update to the website and I hope you enjoy the new experience.
Steven Zacharius
Chairman, President & CEO
[email protected]