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Welcome to our first Imprint Focus feature, where the Penguin Blog will spend four weeks examining each of Penguin Group (USA)'s many imprints. Learn more about the character and goals of each imprint, and meet the staff members that help make the magic happen behind the scenes.

The subjects of our first Imprint Focus are Roc and Ace, distinguished publishers of science fiction and fantasy.

Today, Roc and Ace share the same editorial staff, and both belong to the Penguin Group (USA). What is the distinction? Why are they two different imprints? To understand the current situation, we have to look back into the publishing history, and trace the events that brought these two imprints together.

Ace is the most venerable science fiction and fantasy imprint, having been started 1953, while Roc was founded by Penguin's NAL / Signet line in 1990. In December 1996, the publisher Putnam Berkley was acquired by Penguin's parent company and the two publishers merged. Despite the merger, Ace and Roc remained separate editorially and the difference between the two was a matter of editorial taste. But towards the end of 2003, Roc's editor, Laura Anne Gilman left to pursue her own writing, and Susan Allison, Editor-in-Chief of Ace, was put in charge of both lines. Divisions blurred, boundaries were erased, and as a result, editors began to work on titles for both imprints.

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Penguin Group (USA) Dominates The New York Times Hardcover Fiction List for the Week of November 18th, Thanks to G. P. Putnam's Sons SVP and Publisher Neil Nyren

Another great week for The Group on The New York Times hardcover fiction list. Penguin Group (USA) owns nearly 40% of the hardcover fiction list for the second consecutive week – 6 out 16 slots.

Of the eight Penguin Group (USA) titles on the hardcover fiction and nonfiction lists combined, four were published by the Putnam imprint. Congratulations to Neil Nyren, SVP and Publisher of G. P. Putnam's Sons, who edited four of the eight hardcover bestsellers, a record from one editor!

The titles on the list this week include: Book of the Dead by Patricia Cornwell (G. P. Putnam's Sons) at #2 in its second week; Home to Holly Springs by Jan Karon (Viking) which debuted at #3; World Without End by Ken Follett (Dutton) at #6 in its fourth week; A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead) at #7 in its 24th week; Now and Then by Robert B. Parker at #11 in its second week; and Dark of the Moon by John Sandford (G. P. Putnam's Sons) at #12 in its fifth week. In addition, Write It When I'm Gone by Thomas De Frank has also made the hardcover nonfiction list, debuting at #15, while Alan Greenspan's Age of Turbulence moves up two slots to #3 in its seventh week on that same list.