ABOUT MEL PARKER

Mel Parker has worked in virtually every aspect of trade book publishing, from mass
market and trade paperback to hardcover publishing and the direct marketing book club business.

Before launching Mel Parker Books, Mel was Senior Vice President and Editorial Director of Bookspan, the direct marketing book club partnership between Time Warner and Bertelsmann AG, where he led the editorial acquisitions programs for all of Bookspan's general interest, lifestyle and specialty book clubs, including Book-of-the-Month Club, Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club, Mystery Guild, Quality Paperback Book Club, History Book Club, Black Expressions and One Spirit. At Bookspan, Mel also played a key role in consolidating the book club businesses of Book-of-the-Month Club and Doubleday Direct into Bookspan;  launching a number of successful new book clubs such as Mosaico, the Latino book club; and leading Bookspan's highly successful exclusive publishing program for book club members.

Mel came to the book clubs from Time Warner Trade Publishing, where he was Senior Vice President of Warner Books and Publisher of its paperback division. During his more than eleven years at Warner, Mel was responsible for Warner's bestselling mass market paperback publishing program, including major authors such as James Patterson, Nelson DeMille, David Baldacci, Michael Connelly, Scott Turow, Elmore Leonard, P.D. James, Carl Hiaasen, Sidney Sheldon, Brad Meltzer and Sandra Brown.

Mel was also responsible for Warner's successful trade paperback list, which reprinted many of Warner's own bestsellers, and featured critically acclaimed authors of both fiction and nonfiction such as Jeffrey Eugenides, Rick Moody, Alan Lightman, James Ellroy, Lorrie Moore, Ethan Canin, Calvin Trillin, E.O. Wilson, Edna O'Brien, Robert Hughes, and Sherman Alexie.

Mel also acquired and edited his own hardcover list of bestselling fiction by Dean Koontz, David Morrell and Larry Bond, as well as hardcover bestsellers in a variety of nonfiction categories, from narrative nonfiction and biography to business books, health, inspiration and pop culture.

Prior to joining Warner, Mel was Editor-in-Chief of the Berkley Publishing Group, where he played an instrumental role in helping build the company into a major paperback publisher featuring 10 continuing New York Times bestselling authors. He also acquired a number of major bestsellers, most notably THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER by Tom Clancy, which set the stage for his bestselling career at Putnam and Berkley.

Mel was chairman of the Executive Trade Committee of the Association of American Publishers, where he launched the industry group's national Get Caught Reading Campaign, which secured millions of dollars of free print advertising to promote books and reading. Mel also lectured on publishing at the Stanford Publishing Course, and his essay on paperback publishing appears in EDITORS ON EDITING (Grove Atlantic).

He is presently a member of the American Book Producers Association and is on the Advisory Council of the New York Center for Independent Publishing.