Marvel Books

Marvel Books refers to prose books licensed by Marvel Entertainment or its division in the 1980s that published coloring books and sticker books. Marvel Publishing/Worldwide also twice launched twice its Marvel Press prose novel imprint, in 2004 and in 2011.

Licensed
Marvel first licensed two prose novels to Bantam Books, which published The Avengers Battle the Earth Wrecker by Otto Binder (1967) and Captain America: The Great Gold Steal by Ted White (1968). Pocket Books pick up the license in 1978, publishing nine books. Beginning in 1994, Berkley Boulevard and the since-defunct Byron Preiss Multimedia Company joined to publish Marvel prose novels until Byron Preiss' legal troubles caused a temporary halt to the line in June 1999. Berkley completed the line in 2000 with a total of 45 novels and seven anthologies. Byron Preiss also teamed with Pocket Books from 1996 to 1997 for a young adult books line, including two choose-your-own-adventure books. In 2000 Preiss' BP Books/iBooks launched a new book line, distributed by Simon & Schuster, that ended in 2002. This line compete author Adam-Troy Castro's "Sinister Six" trilogy and published 11 other novels. Also, with the various licensed films being released beginning in 1997, various publishers put out movie novelizations.

Division
A previous Marvel Books division was set up in 1982 to initially published coloring books and sticker sets, and was intended to also publish prose novels. In 1986, Marvel agreed with Fisher Price to launch a Fisher Price line with 15 books in 1986 and 32 books in 1987.