Miramax Books


Miramax Books was a publishing company started by Bob and Harvey Weinstein of Miramax Films and was known for the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series. It published the memoirs of many major celebrities, including David Boies, Madeleine Albright, Former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani, TV's Tim Russert, and others.
In November 1998, the tentatively named Miramax/Talk Media Books, a division of Miramax's Talk Media, was started with the naming of its Jonathan Burnham president and editor-in-chief. Miramax Books was dissolved into this new unit. Burnham would start on December 7. Miramax/Talk would published 10 to 15 total books a year, fiction and non-fiction, starting in 2000.
Tina Brown, chair of Talk Media recruited a number of high profile authors, historian the British novelist Martin Amis and Simon Schama for the imprint. Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani was paid $3 million in advance for his autobiography prior to 9-11. By April 2002, Talk Miramax Books had published 30 books, five of which made a national best-seller lists. The unit generated $10 million in revenue in 2001 and was profitable.
In 2004, Miramax Books won the auction for Riordan's Percy Jackson & the Olympians manuscript.
When the Weinsteins broke from Disney in 2005, five years before Miramax Films went for sale by Disney, the book division was still partly owned by the Weinsteins. So, a joint operation agreement for the company was made ending on September 30, 2007. Weinstein Brothers brought in CEO, Rob Weisbach, for Miramax Books while he also ran the Weinstein Books imprint at The Weinstein Company. Hyperion Books president Robert Miller, and Disney Publishing Worldwide president Deborah Dugan would be acquiring new books. Also, a financial stake in any books on the publication schedule from April 2005 to September 2007 would remain with The Weinsteins.