Leon Shimkin

Leon Shimkin (April 7, 1907 – May 25, 1988) was an American businessman who helped to build Simon & Schuster into a major publishing company. Shimkin was responsible for many self-help bestsellers turning Dale Carnegie's lectures into the bestselling book How to Win Friends and Influence People and J.K. Lasser's tax books. Shimkin co-founded Pocket Books and was a pioneer by distributing mass market paperbacks through newsstands and drugstores. Shimkin became the third partner to Simon & Schuster's Max Schuster and Richard L. Simon and remained as an executive after Simon & Schuster was sold to Field Enterprises, Inc. in 1944. Shimkin rose to become chairman of the board and owner of Simon & Schuster until he sold it to Gulf + Western in 1975.

Biography Early life Leon Shimkin was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1907 to Lithuanian Jewish immigrants. Shimkin had just completed his first year at New York University when he joined Boni & Liveright and then Simon & Schuster as a bookkeeper at age 17. Shimkin continued his studies at New York University in the evenings. Dick Simon called Shimkin "Our Little Golden Nugget" for his creative approaches to solving their money problems. He made incremental income for the company by selling rights to its books—such as selling rights to Hollywood studios and selling parts of company's crossword-puzzle books to newspapers. He also persuaded the IRS to adopt a new rule for book publishers that allowed them to reinvest book earnings for the benefit of future books. Shimkin determined the distribution for the new line of paperbacks—instead of distributing through the book channels it was distributed through magazine channels.

In 1961, Shimkin, along with Herbert Alexander, established Trident Press in order to publish hardcover titles for Harold Robbins. According to Michael Korda, this changed the publishing industry as paperback publishers realized they "didn't have to pay second fiddle to the hardcover publishers or bid themselves silly over the rights to "major" fiction from them." The family had a home in Larchmont, New York, a home in Pound Ridge, and an apartment in New York City. Shimkin and his wife Rebecca had two children:

Emily Shimkin Gindin Michael W. Shimkin

Honors and awards In 1960, the Alumni Association of New York University's School of Commerce presented Leon Shimkin with its Madden Memorial Award for outstanding achievement in business. In 1966, Shimkin pledged $2 million to New York University's capital fund in part to renovate and modernize the school of Commerce building. The building (which Shimkin had studied in) was then renamed as the Leon Shimkin Hall.