Wood worked with Barnes & Noble in 1962, Penguin Books in 1965, and had a senior sales position at Penguin Books in Baltimore and New York before founding Ten Speed Press.[6] Wood died of cancer in December 2010.[7]
Ten Speed has published numerous other non-fiction titles, including Moosewood Cookbook, White Trash Cooking,Why Cats Paint,The Bread Baker's Apprentice, Vegetable Literacy,Yotam Ottolenghi's Jerusalem, Franklin Barbecue, and Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (2014). The books are usually colorfully designed. They are sometimes published in odd shapes to match their whimsical subjects. Ten Speed Press publishes 150 books a year under all of its imprints.[11]
In 1983, Ten Speed acquired Celestial Arts, (Millbrae, CA)[12] "founded in the late 1960s as a printer of rock music posters",[6] from Gary Kurtz,[13] a Star Wars producer.[14][15][16] In 2002, the company acquired Crossing Press, a publisher specializing in metaphysics, alternative lifestyles, and healing.[14]
In February 2009, Ten Speed Press was bought by Random House and is now part of their Crown Publishing Group division. Before the takeover, it published under its four imprints, Ten Speed Press, Celestial Arts, Crossing Press, and Tricycle Press, more than 100 new hardcovers and trade paperbacks annually and had a backlist of more than 1,000 active titles.[17]
Watson-Guptill became an imprint of Ten Speed Press under Random House in 2013, part of their Crown Publishing Group.[18]
Tricycle Press
Tricycle Press was the children's imprint of Ten Speed Press, which published the Amelia's notebooks series,[19] among others. Tricycle also published Who's in a Family? in 1997 and King & King in 2002,[20] books that addressed different types of families, including those headed by gay parents. The imprint ceased publishing new books in 2011.[21][22]
^ abBrown, Steven E. F. (26 January 2001). "Full speed ahead". San Francisco Business Times. American City Business Journals. Archived from the original on 22 October 2002. Retrieved 31 July 2022. But when they turned down a book he thought would sell, he published it on his own and watched it hit sales of 1,000 copies a day. Because the book was "Anybody's Bike Book," he called his new company Ten Speed Press.
^ abCuthbertson, Tom (1998). Anybody's Bike Book. Ten Speed Press. ISBN978-0-89815-996-7. Tom Cuthbertson was Ten Speed Press's first author, and his friendly bicycle repair manual not only inspired the name of our company, it made bicycle repair accessible for the casual and serious cyclist. As the technology of bicycles has evolved, so has his classic book.
^Barks, Carl; Summer, Edward; Walt Disney Productions (1981). Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge McDuck : His Life & Times. Celestial Arts. ISBN978-0-89087-290-1.
^ abjoint venture with Amperwelle Studio München Programmanbietergesellschaft, Axel Springer AG, Burda, Studio Gong, m.b.t. Mediengesellschaft der bayerischen Tageszeitungen für Kabelkommunikation, Medienpool and Radio Bavaria Rundfunkprogrammgesellschaft.
^joint venture with Verlagsgesellschaft Madsack, Studio Gong Niedersachsen and Brune-Rieck-Beteiligungs.
^joint venture with Axel Springer, Heinrich Bauer Verlag, Lühmanndruck Harburger Zeitungsgesellschaft and Morgenpost Verlag.