Egmont to Open U.S. Children’s Office
by Jim Milliot -- Publishers Weekly, 11/13/2007 2:47:00 PM
Egmont, one of Europe’s largest publishing companies, is forming a new American children’s publishing subsidiary, which will launch its first list in fall 2009. Egmont USA will be headed by Douglas Pocock, 
currently group sales director of Egmont UK, who is moving to the U.S. in January to set up an office in New York. Pocock will be executive v-p of Egmont USA.
The company will publish in the areas of young adult and middle grade fiction as well as picture books. Pocock said the “hot spot” in the U.S. will likely be middle grade fiction, an area of strength in the U.K., and the company will limit itself to doing “a few picture books.” Egmont is the originating publisher of books by a number of authors that have done well in the U.S., including Jenny Nimmo and William Nicholson. Pocock said Egmont will not interrupt any deals U.S. houses have for ongoing series, but that the company does intend to publish as many of its own authors in America as possible. “One reason we’re doing this is that our authors have told us that if we had a U.S. presence they would love to work with us,” Pocock said.
The size and shape of the launch list will be decided by Pocock and the still to-be-named U.S. publisher. Pocock said while the U.S. list will likely include titles originating in both the U.S. and U.K., “we won’t push product from the U.K. One thing our research showed is that U.K. companies do best in the U.S. when they focus on publishing titles specifically for that market.” The creation of the American office, however, will give Egmont the opportunity to acquire more world rights.
Pocock estimated that the U.S. office will have eight employees within one year and could expand to 13 within a few more years. Expansion after that “will depend on how we do,” he said, but the goal is to become major player in the U.S. market in five years. In the U.K., where Egmont publishes about 400 titles annually, it has about a 10% market share.
