Tor Books

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Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Distinguish Template:Infobox publisher

Tor Books is the primary imprint of Tor Publishing Group (previously Tom Doherty Associates),<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> a publishing company based in New York City. It primarily publishes science fiction and fantasy titles.

History

Tor was founded by Tom Doherty in 1980, with Harriet McDougal and Jim Baen joining him from Ace as the editorial staff. (Baen and Doherty founded Baen Books three years later.) They were soon joined by Barbara Doherty and Katherine Pendill, who then composed the original startup team.

Tor is a word meaning a rocky pinnacle,<ref name=dict/> as depicted in Tor's logo.<ref name=logo/> Tor Books was sold to St. Martin's Press in 1987. Along with St. Martin's Press; Henry Holt; and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, it became part of the Holtzbrinck group, now part of Macmillan in the US.<ref name=SFE/>

In June 2019, Tor and other Macmillan imprints moved from the Flatiron Building, to larger offices in the Equitable Building.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite webTemplate:Cbignore</ref>

Imprints

Tor is the primary imprint of Tor Publishing Group.<ref name=AboutTorUK/> The Forge imprint publishes an array of fictional titles, including historical novels and thrillers. The Nightfire imprint publishes horror, largely but not exclusively with science fiction and fantasy elements. The Bramble imprint publishes romance and romantic stories with elements of other genres.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Tor Books has two imprints for young readers: Starscape (for readers 10 years of age and up) and Tor Teen (for readers 13 years of age and up).<ref name=TorForgeMac/> The Tordotcom imprint focuses on short works such as novellas, shorter novels and serializations.<ref name=imprint/>

A United Kingdom sister imprint, Tor UK, specializes in science fiction, fantasy, and horror, and publishes young-adult crossover fiction based on computer-game franchises.<ref name=AboutTorUK/> Tor UK briefly maintained an open submission policy, which ended in January 2013.<ref name=TorUKClosed/>

Orb Books publishes science-fiction classics such as A. E. van Vogt's Slan.

Tor Teen publishes young-adult novels such as Cory Doctorow's Little Brother and repackages novels such as Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game for younger readers.

Tor Labs produces podcasts.<ref name=Liptak2017/>

A German sister imprint, Fischer Tor, was founded in August 2016 as an imprint of S. Fischer Verlag (which also belongs to Holtzbrinck Publishing Group).<ref name=Fischer/> It publishes international titles translated into German, as well as original German works. Fischer Tor also publishes the German online magazine Tor Online, which is based on the same concept as the English Tor.com online magazine, but has its own independent content.<ref name=Fischer/>

Authors

File:Tor-Logo1.jpg
The logo used until 2015

Authors published by Tor and Forge include:

Tor UK has published authors such as Douglas Adams, Rjurik Davidson, Amanda Hocking, China Miéville, Adam Nevill, and Adrian Tchaikovsky.<ref name=AboutTorUK/>

Ebooks

Tor publishes a range of its works as ebooks and, in 2012, Doherty announced that his imprints would sell only DRM-free ebooks by July of that year.<ref name=TorDRMfree2012/> One year later, Tor stated that the removal of DRM had not harmed its ebook business, so they would continue selling them DRM-free.<ref name=TorDRMfree2013/>

In July 2018, Macmillan Publishers and Tor prompted a boycott spread across social media websites and library bulletin boards after they announced that Tor's e-books would no longer be made available for libraries to purchase and lend to borrowers, via digital distribution services such as OverDrive, until four months after their initial publication date.<ref name=Hoffelder/> The company cited the "direct and adverse impact" of electronic lending on retail eBook sales but suggested that the change was part of a "test program" and could be reevaluated.<ref name=Hoffelder/><ref name=UpperArlington/>

Accolades

Tor won the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Publisher in 36 years from 1988 to 2024 inclusive.<ref name=Locuspoll/>

In March 2014, Worlds Without End listed Tor as the second-most awarded and nominated publisher of science fiction, fantasy and horror books, after Gollancz.<ref name=WWE2014/> At that time, Tor had received 316 nominations and 54 wins for 723 published novels, written by 197 authors.<ref name=WWE2014/> In the following year, Tor surpassed Gollancz to become the top publisher on the list.<ref name=WWE2015/>

By March 2018, Tor's record had increased to 579 nominations and 111 wins, across 16 tracked awards given in the covered genres, with a total of 2,353 published novels written by 576 authors.<ref name=WWE2018/>

References

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