In 1949, Fawcett Publications senior executives devised a strategy that allowed them to get around the company's 1948 distribution contract with New American Library's Mentor and Signet imprints. This agreement prevented them from competing in the mass paperback reprint market. Fawcett's option was to subsequently establish Gold Medal Books, a line of entirely new and original fiction and non-fiction publications. Selling for 25 cents, the imprint became the first successful attempt at original paperback publishing at a national level in America.
Gold Medal provided emerging authors with an opportunity at book publication early in their careers and, as a result, some, including John D. MacDonald, Kurt Vonnegut, and Taylor Caldwell, went on to establish high-profile writing careers. For established authors such as William Goldman and MacKinlay Kantor, Gold Medal provided an opportunity to test out new creative ideas under pseudonyms. The generous terms offered by Gold Medal were also attractive to authors of both levels of experience. Within a year, the imprint was publishing eight titles a month.
The imprint continued to publish titles after Fawcett was acquired both by CBS Publications in 1978 and by Random House in 1982. Gold Medal Books, and all other Fawcett imprints, ceased operations around 2000.
While it is unclear how many Australian authors have been published by Gold Medal Books, a number of its titles were banned in the country, including Theodore Pratt's The Tormented (1950) and Handsome (1951).
