SMP to Distribute U.S. List of U.K.'s Bloomsbury
Calvin Reid -- 5/4/98
Bloomsbury, the independent London publishing house, is launching a 10-title U.S list in fall 1998. St. Martin's Press has agreed to handle Bloomsbury U.S.'s sales and distribution, as well as book club and serial rights.Lisa Senz, SMP director of sales and marketing for distributed publishers, told PW that Bloomsbury U.S. will also set up offices in New York City, in the Flatiron Building (where SMP's offices are located), sometime this summer. Alan Wherry, a founding director of Bloomsbury, will move to New York to head Bloomsbury's U.S. operations and Lisa Gallagher, currently rights manager, will also move to New York to take over as the firm's marketing manager. Wherry told PW that a New York editor, to look for original American manuscripts, would ultimately be hired. Senz told PW that the Bloomsbury list has "built-in cachet. The books were a big hit with the sales reps at their first St. Martin's sales conference." Among the lead titles on the initial list are The Ventriloquist's Tale by Pauline Melville, which won the Whitbread first novel award; and The Spiritual Tourist: A Personal Odyssey Through the Outer Reaches of Belief, a nonfiction work by Mick Brown, which will be supported by a 10-city author tour. Both titles will be released in September. Morse Partners will coordinate publicity for Bloomsbury titles. Back To News---> |
