Santa Barbara philanthropist Sara Miller McCune’s SAGE Publications has purchased CQ Press, the book publishing unit of Washington-based Congressional Quarterly Inc. The sale was announced jointly by Robert W. Merry, CQ’s president and editor-in-chief, and Blaise Simqu, SAGE’s president and CEO. Terms were not disclosed.
Earlier this year, CQ’s corporate parent, Times Publishing Co. of St. Petersburg, Fla., announced it would divest CQ Press to direct investment resources to other opportunities, notably the core CQ publishing business and the company’s award-winning newspaper, The St. Petersburg Times.
CQ Press serves the library, college and professional markets with a diverse array of print and online products. It publishes about 100 new titles each year, with a growing and authoritative list of textbooks and reference titles focusing on political science, mass communication and related disciplines.
SAGE plans to keep CQ Press intact as a separate division based in Washington, D.C., bearing the CQ Press imprint, and retaining all CQ Press employees under the senior management team that will remain in place, including publisher John A. Jenkins, who also will carry the title of president of CQ Press.
“We’re very pleased CQ Press is joining the global SAGE family,” said Simqu. “CQ Press and SAGE enjoy a shared mission and values. Both are driven by a passion for scholarship and innovation that impacts education and public policy. John Jenkins and the rest of the CQ Press executive team have created an impressive publishing enterprise that will further enhance SAGE’s presence in the marketplace.”
SAGE, founded in 1965 as a publisher of academic journals, has expanded into a global education publisher of books, journals and electronic products. In four locations around the world, the privately held, Thousand Oaks-based company publishes more than 500 journals and 700 books a year encompassing 40 disciplines within the academic and scholarly arena.
Mary Kay Jezzini is a communications official at SAGE Publications.