Publishing | New York

In New York Cathy gained extensive experience at Doubleday & Company and held senior positions at Simon & Schuster and Random House where she was a pioneer of digital publishing in the print world. 

@Doubleday & Company Publishers | New York City

Cathy started her publishing career working for Doubleday’s business director where she gained extensive knowledge of the operations of publishing finance and then moved to editorial and engaged in the creative editorial process.  

She found her calling in the business upon moving to subsidiary rights where she sold rights and negotiated contracts for Doubleday’s impressive list for book club, paperback reprint, foreign translation, serial, merchandise, film, digital and audio deals.

When, in the late 1980’s, she completed Doubleday’s first electronic license for a text-based game, adapted from Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot, she had no idea that that would mark the beginning of a new career trajectory for her and new era in publishing (although it would take another 15 years to truly take off) .

@Simon & Schuster | New York City

As director of subsidiary rights at Simon & Schuster, Fowler created and directed a new subsidiary rights department for the newly acquired Prentice Hall Trade (S&S’s reference and nonfiction division).  Her new department increased rights income from $1.2 million to $2.5 million, including a tenfold increase in sales of rights in the burgeoning computer book market.

In 1989 Fowler was given the go ahead to create the first department in trade book publishing devoted to pursuing the new digital opportunities for print content. Those were the early days of CD-ROM and online publishing,  and, as Director of Electronic Rights,  she developed and negotiated groundbreaking electronic licenses for Webster’s New World dictionaries, Frommer’s Travel Guides, Mobil travel guides, Brady Computer Books, J.K. Lasser tax books, Burpee gardening, Betty Crocker cookbooks, New York Public Library Desk Reference, and other general reference books.  These deals were with leading digital companies of the time: Sony, Prodigy, AOL, Worldview (now Travelocity), Mindscape, and others.

@Random House | New York City

As Associate Publisher at Random House Reference, a division of Random House, Inc., Cathy reported directly to publisher and managed acquisitions, publishing budgets, subsidiary rights, contract negotiations, marketing, editorial team (including lexicographers), hiring and database development. $10-$15 million annual sales. 

In addition, she managed new business development and negotiation in digital publishing  for  other Random House imprints including: Fodor’s Travel, Crown, Random House  dictionaries, Random House Computer Books, The Modern Library (the very first e-books), Knopf, National Audubon Society series, Listening Library and more.