Going South and Other New Additions

Fifty-year-old John F. Blair, Publisher in Winston-Salem, N.C., just added its 14th client, NewSouth Books in Montgomery, Ala., which has a backlist of 90 titles. "I think we complement each other," said Blair president Carolyn Sakowski, who noted that both houses were previously part of a sales consortium of five Southern publishers. Although Blair didn't begin handling distribution for other regional presses until 1994, Sakowski regards it as the best business decision she's made. "It allowed us to grow without extending ourselves financially," she said, adding, "I'm not going out and soliciting distribution clients."

One publisher that's been actively seeking new clients is Tuttle Publishing in North Clarenden, Vt. Starting in July, it will handle distribution rights for London-based Milet in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, South America, Central America and the Middle East. Milet publishes dual-language children's books as well as illustrated books on Turkish arts and culture and a line of English-Turkish dictionaries.

Diamond Book Distributors has been busy signing rights agreements with graphic novel and comic book publishers, including HK Comics Ltd. in Hong Kong; Troll Lord Games in Little Rock, Ark.; new publisher Silicon Times, which specializes in manga and manhua (Chinese/Korean comics); Fiery Studios, the main creative outlet for artist Jane Irwin; and eight-year-old MV Creations, which holds a number of comic books' licenses, including those for Masters of the Universe, Dragon's Lair and Tales of the Realm.