Revving Engines

MBI Distribution Services in St. Paul, Minn., a division of MBI Publishing Company, is gearing up for even stronger aviation, military history and enthusiast sales with two new additions. "Intentionally, our distribution mirrors what we do in our own publishing," MBI Distribution Services manager Brad Siqueiros told PW. "It helps us to broaden our breadth. We're more of a specialized distribution." Although MBI publishes 140 titles a year, its distribution arm accounts for more than twice as many books, or 350 titles a year. One new client is U.K.–based Cerberus Publishing, named for the three-headed dog that guards the gates of Hades; Cerberus is new to the U.S. market, but is expecting to make a strong landing this winter with its books that tie in with the Discovery Channel's Virtual History series that launched in December. The first one is The Secret Plot to Kill Hitler by Dunja Noack (Mar.), and the series is part of what trade sales director Dan Verdick refers to as "micro-history. Instead of the broad sweep of epic battles and military empires, they deal with the minutes and hours of a single event."

Earlier, MBI added Crécy, a U.K. aviation publisher with a 60th-anniversary D-Day tie-in: Above the Battle: D-Day: The Lost Evidence, in association with the History Channel. The book contains never-before-released aerial reconnaissance photos of the Allied invasion.