Target Books
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| Parent company | Universal-Tandem Publishing Co Ltd |
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| Founded | 1973 |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Target Books was a British publishing imprint, established in 1973 by Universal-Tandem Publishing Co Ltd, a paperback publishing company. The imprint was established as a children's imprint to complement the adult Tandem imprint, and became well known for their highly successful range of novelisations and other assorted books based on the popular science-fiction television series Doctor Who. Their first publications based on the serial were reprints in paperback of three novels which had been previously published as hardbacks, ‘Doctor Who and the Daleks’, ‘Doctor Who and the Crusaders’ by David Whitaker, and ‘Doctor Who and the Zarbi’ by Bill Strutton. As these sold well further novelisations of the show were commissioned. In 1975 Universal-Tandem was sold by its American owners, the Universal-Award group, to the British conglomerate Howard and Wyndham. The company was renamed Tandem Publishing Ltd before being merged with the paperback imprints of Howard and Wyndham's general publishing house W. H. Allen Ltd to become Wyndham Publications Ltd in 1976. However, during 1977 and 1978 the Wyndham identity was phased out and, until 1991, Target books were published by 'the paperback division of WH Allen & Co.'
The most prolific writer in the Doctor Who range was Terrance Dicks, while actor turned writer Ian Marter, Malcolm Hulke, Philip Hinchcliffe and Nigel Robinson (who was for a time the editor of the range) were also contributors.
Almost every story from the Doctor Who series was produced in novelisation form; the exceptions being three scripts by Douglas Adams (Shada, The Pirate Planet and City of Death) and two by Eric Saward (Resurrection of the Daleks and Revelation of the Daleks). Saward was reluctant to novelise these scripts himself due to the large percentage of the author's royalties demanded by the agents of the creator of the Daleks, Terry Nation, for the inclusion of the creatures, and other writers were dissuaded for the same reason. Adams, when interviewed on video about his involvement with Doctor Who, stated that he was unhappy with the standard one-off fee offered by Target Books for the novelisations saying "I do have this tendency to be a best-selling author". The estate of Douglas Adams eventually permitted a novelisation of Shada to be produced in 2011. It was written by Gareth Roberts and published by BBC Books in 2012.
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