Simon & Schuster has added another distribution client to its ranks, reaching an agreement with Millbrook Press to assume fulfillment and billing services for the children's book publisher beginning June 1. Millbrook has been using Mercedes Distribution Services to perform those functions.
Millbrook president Dave Allen said the change to S&S will improve its services to its existing customers and will "open a pipeline to increase our breadth of customers." He said the move was prompted in part by the success of Millbrook's new Roaring Brook Press imprint, which has made the company a "bigger player" in the retail market. S&S will assume all warehousing, order processing, fulfillment, billing, returns processing, customer service and credit and collection for Millbrook's frontlist and backlist titles. Dick McCullough continues to oversee Millbrook's sales operation as senior v-p, sales and marketing.
The success of Roaring Brook has also led Millbrook to discontinue its publishing agreement with the U.K.'s Templar Publishing to publish Templar's Snappy pop-up series in the U.S. Allen said Millbrook wants to devote all of its resources to its core business, which in addition to Roaring Brook includes Twenty-First Century Books and Copper Beech Books. Templar said it expects to find another U.S. publisher/distributor soon.
Hemingway Goes E
In other S&S news, the company has added to its e-book backlist with the announcement that it will publish electronically all 23 of Ernest Hemingway's books. The titles, to which Scribner holds the rights, will be sold on Simonsays.com, the company's Web site, as well as through other e-book outlets.
S&S cited the desire to appeal to a digitally oriented audience as well as increasing ease-of-use for scholars as motivating factors. With efforts from publishers new and old, classics have been getting a boost from the digital world; Kurt Vonnegut, Truman Capote and others have recently gotten the e-treatment.
