Hachette Book Publishing India Opens; Orbit Expands
By Lynn Andriani -- Publishers Weekly, 5/8/2008 2:38:00 PM
Hachette Book Publishing India is now in business. The group is a subsidiary of Hachette Livre UK, based in New Delhi and led by managing director Thomas Abraham. Its first titles will be released nationwide in India today. They are The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch and Jeffrey Zaslow (Hodder) and Cold Steel by Tim Bouquet and Byron Ousey (Little, Brown). Pricing will be in Indian rupees and all books will be in English.
Abraham said, “This is a dream start, and the team has done a great job. We’re very upbeat when we look at what’s to follow.”
Hachette India currently has a staff of seven with two more signed on to join by the end of the month, and the company plans to up staff numbers to between 20 and 25 by the end of the year. In the first phase of its development, the new venture will concentrate on sales and marketing for Hachette’s trade lists from around the world. Hachette Book Publishing India will launch its local list in early 2009.
The expansion at Hachette doesn't stop with its Indian outpost, though. The publisher is also expanding its its science fiction and fantasy imprint, Orbit. Launched in the US in 2007 and the UK in 1974, Hachette plans to double the imprint's list in the States over the next three years, bumping it up 70 or 80 titles. In the UK the expansion is less aggressive--there the goal is to increase the list by about 10% over the same time period.
Following its successful launch in the US in 2007, and a record year for the imprint in the UK, Orbit announces its intention to expand both lists. In the US, Orbit is going to double the size of the list over the next 3 years, taking its title output to 70-80 titles per year by 2011. In the UK, where Orbit is already the biggest SFF imprint, it will increase the size of the list by approximately 10% each year over the next three years. With the growth, Hachette will hire an additional editor in New York while recent additions in the UK have already been made.
Orbit publisher Tim Holman said the expansion is integral to the imprint's success, as is "the ongoing collaboration between our publishing teams in the US and the UK, as well as Australia, where Hachette Australia will start to publish SFF titles under the Orbit imprint later this year."
