Weldon Owen Takes It Further

For more than 20 years, Weldon Owen has produced and packaged books, selling publishing rights to a third party. Now in an effort to get closer to its markets and take control of the sales and marketing of its books, Weldon Owen has taken the publishing process in-house.

First up: Weldon Owen becomes the official publisher of the highly successful Williams-Sonoma branded book titles. This expands its 18-year alliance of packaging books for Williams-Sonoma.

“Given our long and successful experience creating and packaging books for Williams-Sonoma, we believe now is the right time to take on the publishing, marketing and distribution of these quality cookbooks,” says Terry Newell, CEO and president of Weldon Owen, which is a part of Bonnier Corporation. “With our longtime publishing partner, industry-leading sales organization and distributor Simon & Schuster, we expect to build on the success and visibility of the Williams-Sonoma brand with more consumers.”

The new direction will bring Weldon Owen’s significant experience in creating quality books on classic and timely topics in cooking directly to the marketplace, with dedicated and robust marketing and publicity efforts.

“As a successful book packager for 25 years, we’ve seen what the combination of quality books, dominant consumer brands and skillful distribution can do to create marketplace success,” Newell says. “We feel confident that we have the right combination of all of these to bring an exciting new vision to cookbook publishing.”