A man with curly black hair, glasses, and a light mustache and goatee, wearing a short-sleeve button-up shirt with a colorful floral pattern, standing in front of a bookshelf. The background includes a shelf filled with books.

Nicholas Ciani

A book editor, media strategist, and publishing veteran who has spent a career finding the voices and ideas that define the conversation before anyone else sees them coming.

In six years at Simon & Schuster, most recently as Executive Editor at One Signal and Atria, he built an acclaimed nonfiction list that includes titles like Jason Stanley's Erasing History, Dawn Staley’s Uncommon Favor, Kim Kelly's Fight Like Hell (New Yorker Best Books of 2022), Tamika D. Mallory's State of Emergency (Kirkus Best Books of 2021), Nathalia Holt's The Beast in the Clouds (Amazon Top 20 Books of 2025), and Karim Zidan's The Ultimate Strongmen, winner of a 2026 J. Anthony Lukas Works-in-Progress Award. Nicholas’ books have earned honors from The Economist, The New Yorker, Esquire, Kirkus, and more, including a Nautilus Gold Medal winner, an ALA Stonewall Prize honoree, and multiple Robert B. Silvers Grant honorees.

He helped build two imprints at Simon & Schuster from the ground up that have produced bestsellers from the likes of Brian Stelter, Katy Tur, Amanda Montell, Maggie Smith, Charlamagne tha God, Alice Randall, Katharine Hayhoe, and more. He was a 2020 Publishers Weekly Star Watch nominee.

Before that, he worked at The New Yorker and Vigliano Associates, where he represented authors including novelist Max Gross, whose The Lost Shtetl won the 2020 National Jewish Book Award.

He knows how to take a rough idea and turn it into something that soars.

Some of My Books

Book cover titled 'ErasinG History' by Jason Stanley, with red text on black tape strips that cover parts of the subtitle.

“Simply put, Jason Stanley has laid out the blueprint for the worldwide fascist attack on history. A must-read to fight authoritarianism and disinformation.”

—Anthea Butler, author of White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America

Book cover of 'Uncommon Favor' by Dawn Staley. The cover features Dawn Staley standing on a basketball court, wearing a beige hoodie and sweatpants, holding a basketball. The background is a basketball court with seating. The title is in large white letters, and at the top is a note that it is a "New York Times" bestseller.
Cover of a book titled 'State of Emergency: How We Win in the Country We Built' by Tamika D. Mallory. The cover features an illustration of the U.S. Capitol building in black and red, with a gray background and red accents.

“A masterful book.”

—Marc Lamont Hill

Book cover for 'The Beast in the Clouds' by Nathalia Holt, featuring a panda in a tree, traditional Chinese landscape in the background, and photographs of two men at the bottom.

“Beautiful and powerful.”

—Candice Millard, New York Times bestselling author of The River of Doubt

  • Amazon Top 20 Books of 2025

  • New York Public Library Best Books of 2025

Book cover titled 'The Untold History of American Labor Fight Like Hell' by Kim Kelly with a black background, large white, blue, and purple text, and a speckled design.

“The most important book on labor published in a generation."

—Shane Burley, author of Why We Fight

  • The New Yorker Best Books of 2022

  • Esquire Best Books of 2022

Book cover for 'Barbie and the Unauthorised History' by Tarpley Hitt, featuring the lower halves of five Barbie dolls' legs sticking out of a pink paper bag against a bright pink background.
Book cover of 'Torched' by Jonathan Vigliotti, featuring a scene of a city on fire with flames and smoke, with the title in bold orange letters.
Book cover featuring a man wearing a green jacket and pants, with the title "Get Honest or Die Lying" by Charlamagne Tha God.
Book cover for 'Gambling Man' by Lionel Barber. Features a silhouette of a man standing on a rooftop overlooking a city skyline at sunset, with a blue-green sky and pink clouds.
Book cover titled 'Invisible Generals' by Doug Melville, featuring a black-and-white photograph of a Black man in military uniform with a red banner containing the subtitle about rediscovering family legacy and honoring the first Black generals.
Book cover titled "Decored" by Charles Piller, with Pills spelling out "Decored" and the phrase "Fraud, Arrogance, and Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer's" at the top.
Book cover titled 'Kissing Girls on Shabbat' by Sara Glass, featuring a stylized illustration of a woman with dark hair, pink lips, and a pink shirt against an orange background.
The cover of a book titled 'My Black Country: A Journey Through Country Music's Black Past, Present, and Future' by Alice Randall, featuring illustrations of musical instruments, a horse, a cowboy hat, and a cowboy boot, with decorative floral and co
Book cover for 'A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls' by Margaret C. Anderson, featuring a black-and-white portrait of a woman with dark lipstick and short hair.
Book cover featuring a stylized, colorful illustration of a face created with pixelated text in pink, yellow, and blue colors, with the title 'The Fabulist' and subtitle about George Santos, authored by Mark Chiusano.
A sign with a blue arrow pointing left reads "GUILTY CREATURES." Below it, a marquee sign displays the message "SEX, GOD, AND MURDER IN TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA" in red letters. The background includes palm trees and a cloudy sky, and a crocodile is seen
Book cover titled 'Blood Money' by Kathleen McLaughlin, with a red graph line and subtitle about the blood industry in America.