George Bick Professional Bio
George Bick’s first job in the publishing industry began in 1976 and consisted of delivering the Long Island Press newspaper to his customers in his hometown of Jackson Heights, New York. The paper had to be on doorsteps by 5:00 PM Monday through Saturday, which was simple enough, but on Sundays, it had to be there before 7:00 AM, which was tough for a night owl. The newspapers had to be pre-purchased by the route carrier each week—at face value—from the Dickensian and garishly tattooed “Mr. C.” Wednesdays were “collection days,” days spent knocking on customers’ doors, hoping to get paid for the weeks’ worth of newspapers, and perhaps, a little tip money. He was thirteen years old.
See, there was this Schwinn Stingray bike that was all the rage and he wanted one.
Bad.
Nine years later, after graduating from college, George packed up his Pontiac Ventura and drove out to Los Angeles “just to see.” After finding an apartment in Belmont Shore, a coastal suburb of Long Beach, he hit the Los Angeles Times want-ads hard. In less than a week, George found himself managing eighteen product lines of replacement hardware for commercial refrigeration. Not quite where he thought his degrees in Psychology, Business, and English would take him, but apparently close.
George’s boss, Jon, a recent graduate of UCLA’s Business school, lugged in a big carton one day. Inside was not the usual collection of refrigeration paraphernalia, but rather an Apple Macintosh computer.
In no time, the boys were using the “Mac” to desktop publish the company’s various and sundry parts into a catalog.
The publishing bug had bitten again.
After finding little love for big publishing in LA, George pointed the Ventura east and headed back to New York and peppered all the major houses with his commercial refrigeration-intensive resume.
So George really started in the publishing business in August 1987, when after answering a New York Times ad, he was hired by Ralph Vicinanza of the eponymous literary agency, where he learned many of the agenting basics.
But Big Publishing came calling and George answered, getting his first taste of big business as an Account Executive at Warner Publisher Services, a national distributor of both internal and external publishers’ books. After working closely as liaison for Tor Books, he moved up to become the Senior Account Executive for The Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.
In 1990, The Ballantine Publishing Group hired George away from Warner Publisher Services as it was building its own internal sales force and no longer needed the services of an external distributor.
Starting out as the National Sales Manager and working up to Vice-President, George spent the next nine years honing his book-selling skills—both to his sales force and to retailers across the country—from independent bookstores to airport, supermarket, and drugstore accounts to mass-merchandisers like Target, Wal-Mart, and Costco, to national chains like Barnes & Noble and Borders, Inc., and to regional chains like Books-A-Million and Hastings.
He quickly began designing sales strategies and marketing programs aimed at increasing volume, market share, and sales efficiency for mass-market, trade, hardcover, and audio titles across 17 imprints. He was also involved in title acquisition, budgeting, scheduling, and positioning.
Since Sales is always a team effort, George was closely involved in the other divisions that were integral to the sale of a book. From the Marketing and Publicity departments to Editorial (where George first met Doug!) to the Publisher’s office (where George worked with Clare Ferraro and Susan Petersen), George began adding these disciplines to his mental resume.
In 1999, George took a step back from Sales and joined Simon & Schuster to try his hand on the Publishing side. He was hired as the Publishing Manager for Pocket Books, working with the Associate Publisher. He was charged with developing product and creating turnkey backlist sales and marketing strategies for the Sales department. After the first year, backlist sales grew by 75%.
It was in this capacity that George began meeting agents and authors, not at cocktail parties as in his previous jobs, but at the acquisition stage. Although he didn’t know it at the time, this short stint at Pocket would be a turning point for him.
Exactly one year later, HarperCollins Publishers approached George with an intriguing proposal. They had just acquired Morrow and Avon Books and needed someone to help define the list, especially the vast, and new-to-them, Avon mass-market list.
Feeling the pangs of Sales again, George joined Harper in 2000 as their Senior Vice-President, Director of Sales for Morrow/Avon. At the time, sales to the mass-merchandiser channel were still being handled by a third-party (much like what Warner Publisher Services did back in the day). Having sat on both sides of that fence, George knew the only way to maximize sales was to bring them in-house. After writing a business proposal for the COO, George was given the green light to build and staff his own internal sales force.
Within the first year of operation, annual revenue doubled and there was no looking back.
In the summer of 2005, Jane Friedman, then CEO of HarperCollins Publishers, initiated an in-house multi-channel global initiative aimed at accelerating organic growth by evolving core businesses and business practices.
Primary objectives of Publishing Plus included development of new, related businesses, bottom line focus with top line growth, establishing global corporate leverage, and creating a consumer-centric culture.
George was chosen as the Collins Team Leader responsible for driving a team of ten international colleagues through 100 days of intensive research, planning, development and presentation resulting in Collins, a newly-created division, specializing in non-fiction adult titles across five categories: Business, Wellness, Lifestyle, Reference, and Design, as well as Smithsonian Books.
George was then named Senior Vice-President, Director of Sales/Associate Publisher, Collins. In addition to overseeing the sales of Collins Books, he was also responsible for the sales of Regan Books, where he once again ran into Doug.
He drove annual sales of $150M through three divisions, across all channels of distribution, including mass-merchandisers, brick-and-mortar and online retailers, and library and special markets. George determined title inventory levels and assessed supply chain forecasts and contributed to all Collins editorial meetings, reviewed submissions, met with authors/agents, and consulted on all acquisitions from a P&L (Profit and Loss) perspective. He worked closely with the Publishing team to identify, position, schedule, and market more than 200 titles each year and collaborated with the Design team to create market-leading jackets, covers, and packaging.
As Associate Publisher, George read close to 1,000 proposals and participated in nearly as many agent/author meetings and has developed a very good feel for what is salable.
Client management is also a strength and passion of George’s. He has worked shoulder-to-shoulder with hundreds of authors running the gamut from Stephanie Laurens to Dennis Lehane to Jessica Seinfeld to Jack Welch.
Having attended dozens of industry conventions and conferences (MWA, RWA, BEA, Comic-Con, etc.) over the years, George is always on the lookout for would-be authors to develop. Although the one-on-one contact these venues provide are invaluable, he feels that Web 2.0 can provide a veritable mother lode of talent as well.
In 2007, HarperCollins offered to buy out the last two years of George’s contract. It was somewhat of a Sophie’s Choice, but there were many compelling reasons to accept the offer. Which he did.
George spent time traveling and generally recharging his batteries, but kept coming back to his love of books. He began to do a little freelance agenting to keep his toe in the pool and eventually got in touch with his old friend, Doug.
Which is where the story now begins.
See, there was this Schwinn Stingray bike that was all the rage and he wanted one.
Bad.
Nine years later, after graduating from college, George packed up his Pontiac Ventura and drove out to Los Angeles “just to see.” After finding an apartment in Belmont Shore, a coastal suburb of Long Beach, he hit the Los Angeles Times want-ads hard. In less than a week, George found himself managing eighteen product lines of replacement hardware for commercial refrigeration. Not quite where he thought his degrees in Psychology, Business, and English would take him, but apparently close.
George’s boss, Jon, a recent graduate of UCLA’s Business school, lugged in a big carton one day. Inside was not the usual collection of refrigeration paraphernalia, but rather an Apple Macintosh computer.
In no time, the boys were using the “Mac” to desktop publish the company’s various and sundry parts into a catalog.
The publishing bug had bitten again.
After finding little love for big publishing in LA, George pointed the Ventura east and headed back to New York and peppered all the major houses with his commercial refrigeration-intensive resume.
So George really started in the publishing business in August 1987, when after answering a New York Times ad, he was hired by Ralph Vicinanza of the eponymous literary agency, where he learned many of the agenting basics.
But Big Publishing came calling and George answered, getting his first taste of big business as an Account Executive at Warner Publisher Services, a national distributor of both internal and external publishers’ books. After working closely as liaison for Tor Books, he moved up to become the Senior Account Executive for The Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.
In 1990, The Ballantine Publishing Group hired George away from Warner Publisher Services as it was building its own internal sales force and no longer needed the services of an external distributor.
Starting out as the National Sales Manager and working up to Vice-President, George spent the next nine years honing his book-selling skills—both to his sales force and to retailers across the country—from independent bookstores to airport, supermarket, and drugstore accounts to mass-merchandisers like Target, Wal-Mart, and Costco, to national chains like Barnes & Noble and Borders, Inc., and to regional chains like Books-A-Million and Hastings.
He quickly began designing sales strategies and marketing programs aimed at increasing volume, market share, and sales efficiency for mass-market, trade, hardcover, and audio titles across 17 imprints. He was also involved in title acquisition, budgeting, scheduling, and positioning.
Since Sales is always a team effort, George was closely involved in the other divisions that were integral to the sale of a book. From the Marketing and Publicity departments to Editorial (where George first met Doug!) to the Publisher’s office (where George worked with Clare Ferraro and Susan Petersen), George began adding these disciplines to his mental resume.
In 1999, George took a step back from Sales and joined Simon & Schuster to try his hand on the Publishing side. He was hired as the Publishing Manager for Pocket Books, working with the Associate Publisher. He was charged with developing product and creating turnkey backlist sales and marketing strategies for the Sales department. After the first year, backlist sales grew by 75%.
It was in this capacity that George began meeting agents and authors, not at cocktail parties as in his previous jobs, but at the acquisition stage. Although he didn’t know it at the time, this short stint at Pocket would be a turning point for him.
Exactly one year later, HarperCollins Publishers approached George with an intriguing proposal. They had just acquired Morrow and Avon Books and needed someone to help define the list, especially the vast, and new-to-them, Avon mass-market list.
Feeling the pangs of Sales again, George joined Harper in 2000 as their Senior Vice-President, Director of Sales for Morrow/Avon. At the time, sales to the mass-merchandiser channel were still being handled by a third-party (much like what Warner Publisher Services did back in the day). Having sat on both sides of that fence, George knew the only way to maximize sales was to bring them in-house. After writing a business proposal for the COO, George was given the green light to build and staff his own internal sales force.
Within the first year of operation, annual revenue doubled and there was no looking back.
In the summer of 2005, Jane Friedman, then CEO of HarperCollins Publishers, initiated an in-house multi-channel global initiative aimed at accelerating organic growth by evolving core businesses and business practices.
Primary objectives of Publishing Plus included development of new, related businesses, bottom line focus with top line growth, establishing global corporate leverage, and creating a consumer-centric culture.
George was chosen as the Collins Team Leader responsible for driving a team of ten international colleagues through 100 days of intensive research, planning, development and presentation resulting in Collins, a newly-created division, specializing in non-fiction adult titles across five categories: Business, Wellness, Lifestyle, Reference, and Design, as well as Smithsonian Books.
George was then named Senior Vice-President, Director of Sales/Associate Publisher, Collins. In addition to overseeing the sales of Collins Books, he was also responsible for the sales of Regan Books, where he once again ran into Doug.
He drove annual sales of $150M through three divisions, across all channels of distribution, including mass-merchandisers, brick-and-mortar and online retailers, and library and special markets. George determined title inventory levels and assessed supply chain forecasts and contributed to all Collins editorial meetings, reviewed submissions, met with authors/agents, and consulted on all acquisitions from a P&L (Profit and Loss) perspective. He worked closely with the Publishing team to identify, position, schedule, and market more than 200 titles each year and collaborated with the Design team to create market-leading jackets, covers, and packaging.
As Associate Publisher, George read close to 1,000 proposals and participated in nearly as many agent/author meetings and has developed a very good feel for what is salable.
Client management is also a strength and passion of George’s. He has worked shoulder-to-shoulder with hundreds of authors running the gamut from Stephanie Laurens to Dennis Lehane to Jessica Seinfeld to Jack Welch.
Having attended dozens of industry conventions and conferences (MWA, RWA, BEA, Comic-Con, etc.) over the years, George is always on the lookout for would-be authors to develop. Although the one-on-one contact these venues provide are invaluable, he feels that Web 2.0 can provide a veritable mother lode of talent as well.
In 2007, HarperCollins offered to buy out the last two years of George’s contract. It was somewhat of a Sophie’s Choice, but there were many compelling reasons to accept the offer. Which he did.
George spent time traveling and generally recharging his batteries, but kept coming back to his love of books. He began to do a little freelance agenting to keep his toe in the pool and eventually got in touch with his old friend, Doug.
Which is where the story now begins.
