Walter Zacharius

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/business/media/08zacharius.html?_r=0

Walter Zacharius, Romance Publisher, Dies at 87 By WILLIAM GRIMES Published: March 7, 2011

Walter Zacharius, who rode the passion-swollen wave of romance fiction in the early 1980s to build the Kensington Publishing Corporation into a leading purveyor of bodice-rippers and other romance genres, died on Wednesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 87. The cause was pancreatic cancer, his son, Steven, said.

Mr. Zacharius emerged from the world of true-confession magazines and paperback genre fiction to found Kensington in 1974 with Roberta Grossman. Beating the bushes for overlooked writers and eager first-timers willing to start out cheap, the partners developed the careers of prolific and profit-generating authors like Janelle Taylor and Katherine Stone.

As it expanded the romance genre to embrace paranormal romance, adult Western romance and romance titles aimed at Hispanic, black and gay readers, Kensington branched out into new forms of distribution. Mr. Zacharius signed deals with Wal-Mart, sold his books on the shopping network QVC and saw the potential of e-books early on.

Through its Zebra, Dafina, Brava, Encanto and other imprints, Kensington publishes about 450 fiction and nonfiction books a year in a wide variety of genres. Although about 60 percent of its list is devoted to titles like “A Little Bit Sinful” and “A Storm of Pleasure,” it has also published “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell” by Tucker Max. With sales of $70 million, the company is the largest independent publisher of mass-market titles in the United States. Zebra Books, the company’s sole imprint until the late 1980s, became known for its embossed covers, with a lurid “sunset” palette of purples, pinks and oranges and a bold use of foil. Mr. Zacharius pushed the taste boundary even further in 1989, when he began putting holograms on his covers.

Although the company occasionally published name writers, including Joyce Carol Oates, Isaac Asimov and Jerzy Kosinski, its economic well-being and its reputation lay with many writers largely unknown to The New York Review of Books — best-sellers like Fern Michaels, Lisa Jackson and Beverly Barton.

“We’re not impressed with what’s selling on Fifth Avenue or Rodeo Drive,” Mr. Zacharius told The New York Times in 1982. “Our readers patronize suburban shopping malls.”

Walter Zacharius was born on Oct. 16, 1923, in Brooklyn, and attended public schools. He enlisted in the Army soon after leaving high school and took part in the Normandy invasion and the liberation of Paris.

After returning to the United States, he found a job with Macfadden Publications, working on magazines like True Confessions and True Story before teaming up with Aaron A. Wyn at Ace, where he helped create Ace Double Novels, a paperback line that offered two books in one volume.

With Irwin Stein, he founded Lancer Books in 1961 to publish genre fiction, primarily science fiction and fantasy, notably the “Conan the Barbarian” stories of Robert E. Howard. The company also turned out erotic crime and spy novels (“The Man From O.R.G.Y.”) and Gothic fiction, as well as the paperback edition of Mario Puzo’s first novel, “The Fortunate Pilgrim.”

In 1965, Mr. Zacharius jumped at a golden opportunity presented by “Candy,” a sex satire by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg, which had been published in Paris by Maurice Girodias and was unprotected by copyright in the United States. In a bit of literary swashbuckling, he undercut by 20 cents the 95-cent edition Dell planned to publish, emblazoning the cover with a big red lipstick print and the screaming come-on: “Not one word changed! This is the ORIGINAL, UNCUT and UNEXPURGATED EDITION as first published and banned in Paris.”

In similar fashion, Zebra Books later capitalized on the runaway success of “Iacocca,” the autobiography of the Chrysler executive Lee A. Iacocca, by publishing the paperback edition of a little-read biography of Mr. Iacocca with the same title. The book ended up at No. 3 on the list of top-selling paperbacks for 1985.

In 1988, Kensington began publishing hardcover books, placing two memoirs on the best-seller list that year: “On the Outside Looking In,” by Michael Reagan, the adopted son of Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman, and “The Duke of Flatbush,” by the Brooklyn Dodger star Duke Snider, who died on Feb. 27.

In addition to his son, Steven, of Melville, N.Y., the current president and chief executive of Kensington, Mr. Zacharius is survived by his wife, Suzanne; a daughter, Judith, of Fairbanks, Alaska; a stepdaughter, Mariel Mangold of Manhattan; two grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter. His first wife, Alice, died in 2004.

“Songbird,” a novel by Mr. Zacharius based on the harrowing wartime experiences of a Polish Jewish woman he met in Paris, was published in 2004 and later retitled “The Memories We Keep.”