ThorsonsElement Reorganizes U.S. Office

In a tightening of operations on both sides of the Atlantic, Greg Brandenburgh is out, and former director of sales and marketing Steve Fischer is in as head of ThorsonsElement U.S. in Boston. As part of the reorganization, Fischer was named vice president and will report directly to managing director and publisher Belinda Budge at ThorsonsElement U.K., a division of HarperCollins Publishers U.K. Fischer will continue to oversee sales; Richard Smith's role as sales executive remains unchanged.

For the mind, body, spirit publishing community, it's déjà vu all over again, given the close resemblance between the new team at Thorsons U.S. and the Boston office of Tuttle Publishing, dismantled in 2001, where Fischer headed sales. Former Tuttle publicity director Chris Ahern will assume the newly created position of director of marketing and publicity early next month. And Tuttle's former marketing director Chris Wold joined Thorsons U.K. this winter as development director, sales and marketing, and will take over proprietary publishing, previously handled by Brandenburgh.

But the changes in staffing are only one piece of a much broader shift in publishing strategy, which includes cutting the company's output by nearly two-thirds. "We're publishing fewer titles so that we will be able to focus more," Budge told PW. "Two years ago we published 220 books worldwide. In our fiscal year starting July 1, we'll publish 80. Last year we published 75 books in the U.S., this coming fiscal year we'll publish 40 to 45."

Although sales have been good in the U.S., according to Fischer, the company plans to leave National Book Network, which has represented it to the trade since 1997, and go with a combination of rep groups and HarperCollins in Scranton for fulfillment starting August 1. "The whole distribution piece is so critical," said Fischer. "I needed more access to key accounts. And we're going to make it pretty simple to combine orders with HarperCollins books. My hope is that we see an increase in reorder activity for frontlist and backlist."

Thorsons U.S. has had a couple of strong titles recently. "We've had real successes in the past six months with Josh Baran's collection 365 Nirvana Here and Now: Living Every Moment in Enlightenment and Judika Illes's The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells, which is going into the One Spirit Club," said Budge. Fischer expects to see sales take off for the newly released Why I Am a Muslim: An American Odyssey by American-Pakistani Asma Gull Hasan.