Podcasting company Lemonada Media is launching a publishing imprint with Simon & Schuster.
Gallery Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, is partnering with the podcasting networking to create Lemonada Books. The imprint will launch with two books based on podcasts in the network: Fail Better, hosted by David Duchovny, and Last Day, hosted by Lemonada co-founder and chief creative officer Stephanie Wittels Wachs.
Fail Better features conversations between actor and director Duchovny and well-known guests on the topic of failure.
Last Day was inspired by Wittel and Lemonada CEO and co-founder Jessica Cordova Kramer’s experiences losing their brothers to opioid overdoses and centers on the final days of those lost to opioids, gun violence and more. The book will follow Last Day’s first season, which launched in 2019, and the opioids crisis. Both books will be written as narratives, rather than transcripts from the podcasts.
“Podcasting is a vibrant source for storytelling, enlightening conversation, entertainment and helpful information – and Lemonada is a proven leader in producing the podcasts that listeners most want to hear. We look forward to working with them to create books that will expand their highly popular podcasts into the time-tested medium of books, bringing them to readers everywhere,” said Simon & Schuster CEO Jonathan Karp.
Lemonada’s slate of podcasts include Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Archetypes with Meghan Markle and other projects to come and The Pink House with Sam Smith.
“Our mission has been to make life suck less at scale, focusing on podcasts but leveraging the work in audio into other formats. We are so thrilled to be able to expand our mission and reach with Simon & Schuster and the Gallery team in this new way. Lemonada Books certainly will improve readers’ lives in a variety of ways,” said Lemonada’ CEO and co-founder, Jessica Cordova Kramer.
Publication dates for both titles will be announced at a later time.