Class Colloquium 18: Klebanoff – Publishing, July 11, 2 pm EDT
“A Life in Publishing: 50 Years Spent Bringing the Facts of Life into Focus”
With every opening of our 50th Reunion Classbook, one is rewarded with information, updated memories, biographies, even introductions to ‘69ers and details we never previously knew. The book, published by Classmate Arthur Klebanoff, has become a staple — a resource for recollecting and better understanding.
Arthur and his staff did a remarkable job producing our ‘opus’.
The story of how Arthur Klebanoff became a publishing icon is worth hearing, and deserving of our full attention. For his story recounts the last 50 years in the complex and ever-important world of publishing.
Join us as we follow his post-Yale days, as he grasped the opportunity, displayed uncanny awareness and understanding of the changing times, innovating and adapting to new and changing trends in the publishing world.
The business of publishing today is very different from what it was in the 70’s. The players, publishing houses, modes of access, and methods have changed, and changed again, and again.
We are fortunate to have Arthur’s reports from his journey and the insights he can share about the publishing industry, the milestones, the forces for change, and the very different world it is today.
It’s a fascinating story you won’t want to miss.
Please register for the event and indicate any questions you’d like to see explored.
Click to register for this event:
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEtc-GpqzgjHdJ6PzeHggOcYPCVl-XwgpKA
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We will start promptly, so please JOIN the meeting 5-10 minutes early.
I hope you can attend. Don’t forget to register and mark your calendars.
Arthur has handled books with over $1 billion in sales. In 2001, Arthur founded RosettaBooks, an independent eBook publisher which for twenty years disrupted the publishing business. Arthur has published, represented or packaged over 75 thought leadership titles. Arthur founded RodinBooks in 2020 to publish books by impactful leaders.
- Sells backlist commissions of Scott Meredith Literary Agency – www.scottmeredith.com – to Harold Ober Associates.
- Becomes Founding Publisher of www.rosettabooks.com upon sale of the eBook catalog to MEP Capital.
- Publication of Moonshot! by John Sculley which launches RosettaBooks into thought leadership publishing.
- Publication by Lexis Nexis of an eBook article Entertainment Industry Contracts eBook Publishing. The first comprehensive discussion of eBook contracts.
RosettaBooks publishes for twelve years the first eBook edition of The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People by Stephen R. Covey which becomes the worldwide lead Kindle nonfiction title and the Amazon example that bestselling backlist titles can be released in eBook without cannibalizing print sales. That acquisition kicks off a ten year Kindle alliance which propels RosettaBooks as the only publisher to hit the Inc 500 Fastest Growing Privately Held companies list.- Publication of the 7th Edition of Janson’s History of Art after a six year negotiation with Prentice Hall. The new edition is covered on the front page of the New York Times. Arthur Klebanoff also represented James Q Wilson for publication of his D C Heath text on American Government.
- Publication of his book The Agent: Personalities, Politics and Publishing. The book becomes a basic account of literary agent deal making.
- Launches www.rosettabooks.com . Random House sues over who owns the eBooks rights to backlist titles. RosettaBooks with the support of the Authors Guild and the Association of American Representatives (the agents’ trade association) prevails and establishes an important pro-author precedent.
- Commences representation of Mayo Clinic for consumer publishing. As its business affairs advisor assists Mayo Clinic Press become the leading consumer health publisher in the United States.
- Acquires the assets of Scott Meredith Literary Agency from the estate of Scott Meredith. www.scottmeredith.com.
- Joins International Management Group (“IMG”) as head of its publishing team.
- Commences acquisitions of direct response leather-bound rights for Easton Press. 3,000+ titles later, Easton Press is the dominant US leather-bound publisher.
- Forms the literary agency Arthur M. Klebanoff PC. Clients include Easton Press, Roger Tory Peterson, Daniel P. Moynihan, Sheila Lukins and Richard Nixon. Legal clients include CBS corporate.
- Joins Mort Janklow and Jerry Traum. Becomes partner in the law firm Janklow, Traum & KIebanoff and cofounder of the literary agency Morton L. Janklow Associates, Inc. Authors include Bill Safire, Judith Krantz, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Sidney Sheldon, Linda Goodman and Danielle Steel.
- Graduates from Harvard Law School. Harvard Law Review 1972. Co-founder of political consulting firm Josephson and Klebanoff whose clients include Bill Bradley.
- Assistant to Daniel P. Moynihan in Richard Nixon’s White House. Resigns over Kent State and Cambodia incursion.
- Graduates from Yale University. First participant in Yale Urban Intern Program in New York City (John Lindsay, Mayor). Wins Alpheus Henry Snow Prize for “inspiring in his classmates an admiration and love for the best traditions of high scholarship.”