WRITING INDUSTRY
The Publisher Behind Fourth Wing Just Hired a Former Tinder CEO. It Is Not Hiring a Publisher.
Faye Iosotaluno spent nearly eight years at Match Group, leaving as Tinder's CEO in July 2025. She has joined Entangled Publishing as President and COO in a newly created role. The Fourth Wing publisher is not trying to become a bigger publisher. It is trying to become a media company.
Entangled Publishing makes books. Its Red Tower imprint made Fourth Wing, Iron Flame, and Onyx Storm the kind of commercial event that traditional publishers spend decades trying to manufacture. More than 75 percent of Red Tower's releases since 2023 have sold over 100,000 print copies. For context, that figure sits below 1 percent across the top 10 traditional publishers.
The company that produced those numbers just hired a former Tinder CEO.
AT A GLANCE • Company: Entangled Publishing • New hire: Faye Iosotaluno • Previous role: CEO of Tinder; left July 2025 after nearly 8 years at Match Group • New role at Entangled: President and COO (newly created position) • Responsibilities: Operations, new products, brand development • Red Tower Books: 75%+ of releases have sold over 100,000 print copies since 2023 • Top 10 traditional publishers: less than 1% of releases reach 100,000 copies • Home of: Rebecca Yarros's Empyrean series (Fourth Wing, Iron Flame, Onyx Storm) • New YA imprints launching 2026: Mischief (younger teens), Mayhem (older YA) • Company direction: Expanding into a diversified media platform |
Who Faye Iosotaluno Is
Faye Iosotaluno spent nearly eight years at Match Group, the parent company of Tinder. She left her role as Tinder's CEO in July 2025 as part of a broader Match Group leadership restructuring. Before becoming CEO, she had served in multiple senior roles including Chief Strategy Officer.
Tinder is not a publishing company. It is a technology platform built around product development, user growth, and scaling digital experiences across a global audience. Iosotaluno's expertise is operational and strategic, not editorial.
Entangled created a brand new role specifically shaped around what she does. They did not give her an existing editorial position. They built something new.
What the Hire Actually Means
The phrase Entangled is using publicly is "diversified media platform." That is the language of a company that has IP and wants to do more with it than publish it. Fourth Wing has the kind of fandom that converts to other formats: merchandise, adaptation, live events, digital content. Running that kind of multi-format brand requires skills that come from platform management, not publishing. Hence Iosotaluno.
The hire also signals that the Mischief and Mayhem YA imprints launching this year are not just editorial expansions. They are audience development plays, building separate readership channels with different age brackets under the same umbrella.
More than 75 percent of Red Tower's releases have sold over 100,000 print copies. That figure sits below 1 percent across the top 10 traditional publishers. Entangled is not operating like a publisher. It is operating like a brand. WriteO News, July 2026 |
Red Tower's Numbers Are Not Normal
To say it plainly: more than 75 percent of Red Tower's releases since 2023 have sold over 100,000 print copies. Traditional publishers celebrate a book reaching that milestone. Red Tower is converting at that rate across the majority of their list. That is not luck. It is the result of selective acquisition and precise audience positioning.
Those numbers are what makes the media expansion credible. The company is not building a platform on ambition alone. It is building one on demonstrated commercial proof.
WHAT WRITERS CAN TAKE FROM THIS • Entangled's conversion rate shows what targeted acquisition and a deep understanding of a specific audience can achieve independently of major publisher infrastructure • The hire of a tech CEO into a publishing role is a direct statement that the company views its IP as platform-scale assets. Writers at Red Tower are signing with something that intends to operate like a media company • Fourth Wing's commercial success created the financial and reputational conditions for this expansion. A single breakout title can restructure the entire direction of a company • Two new YA imprints launching in one year means Entangled is actively acquiring in that space. Writers in YA should be paying attention • The shift from publisher to media platform is happening across the industry. Understanding what it means for rights, royalties, and author agreements is worth knowing before signing |
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Sources: Publishers Weekly, Jane Friedman, BusinessWire, Yahoo Finance, Publishing Trends, TechCrunch (Iosotaluno departure from Tinder), Publishers Marketplace