Dorchester Inks Deal With HarperCollins

Dorchester Publishing, parent company of mass market paperback publisher Leisure Books, is creating a new sales and distribution operation that will go into effect this September. Under the new operation, HarperCollins will handle the customer service, billing and credit functions, and Dorchester is hiring its own sales force to sell to the ID market.

George Sosson, president and publisher of Dorchester, said the moves were prompted by the decision of COMAG, the Hearst Corp. division that had conducted both back-office and sales functions for Dorchester, to abandon the book business. After getting the news from COMAG, Sosson said, "We decided we would be better off selling our titles ourselves." Dorchester then hooked up with HC to handle back-office functions. He said, "They have an impressive IT system, and they are already tied in to OPM [Offset Paperback Manufacturers]," Dorchester's printer.

Dorchester is in the process of hiring five or six reps, mainly from COMAG, to cover various geographic regions. The new sales team will report to Tim De Young, senior v-p for sales and marketing, who will also continue to direct Dorchester's sales efforts to the bookstore chains.

Sosson said Dorchester had a "decent" year in 2001, and that sales have picked up "dramatically" in the first part of 2002. The company's backlist and horror lines have done particularly well, Sosson said. Dorchester is keeping to its traditional schedule of releasing 15 books per month.