Little, Brown announced yesterday afternoon that it was creating a new imprint for veteran editor Reagan Arthur called, simply enough, Reagan Arthur Books. In her seven years at Little, Brown, Arthur has acquired a wide portfolio of writers, from National Book Award nominee Josh Ferris (pictured) to Scottish crime masters Ian Rankin and Denise Mina to last week’s multimillion-dollar pickup of Tina Fey. (Observers who scoff that the publisher must have overpaid for that project should remember: Arthur’s the editor who snagged Elizabeth Kostova‘s The Historian for a reported $2 million.)
In a press release announcing the launch, publisher Michael Pietsch noted that “[Arthur’s] association with a book has come to signify a work of quality with a clear commercial hook, and by emblazoning her name on the book itself our goal is to carry that imprimatur of quality to the reading public.” (Which, as one observer noted, is ironically pretty much the goal FSG had in giving Pietsch’s immediate predecessor, Sarah Crichton, her own imprint, where she introduced Ishmael Beah to the reading public and was the editor for the late Doug Marlette‘s last novel.) Knowing that the first Reagan Arthur Books books were scheduled to come out in late 2009, we caught up with Arthur at her office and asked if she knew what they were yet. “I have a pretty good idea,” she told us, “but we’re still finalizing.”