|
|
| Mark Smith | |
With a wide range of titles--including thrillers, women's literature, children's books, translated literary fiction, narrative and illustrated nonfiction, and sci-fi, fantasy, and horror--Quercus is launching its first U.S. list in September. The company aims to replicate its success in the U.K. by creating a publishing house here that is just as diverse in its offerings, with a mix of both U.S. and international titles. Quercus CEO Mark Smith said of the venture, "We are truly excited to be bringing both our new and established authors to this dynamic and fast-moving marketplace."
"Representing the best of what Quercus has to offer," as publishing director Richard Green said, Quercus is starting with some 40 titles in the U.S. this fall. Next year, Quercus will publish 90 titles here, with plans to publish an increasing number of titles over subsequent years. As Green put it, "We're here for the duration. We have been planning this move for over two years and have carefully researched the market and listened to advice from a range of industry experts. The list has been carefully hand-picked for the North American market, and we will be supporting all our titles with substantial marketing and publicity campaigns."
|
|
| Richard Green | |
The initial list demonstrates Quercus's range: Loss of Innocence by Richard North Patterson, a novel that takes place in the turbulent year of 1968 and set mostly on Martha's Vineyard; Alex by Pierre Lemaitre, a thriller introducing a Parisian police commandant searching for a kidnapped young woman named Alex; U.K. bestseller Thursdays in the Park by Hilary Boyd, dubbed "granny lit," about a 59-year-old woman who finds an unexpected second chance at love; George Washington: Gentleman Warrior by Stephen Brumwell, which last month won the George Washington Book Prize; Sanctuary Line by Jane Urquhart, a novel of loss and love set on Lake Erie; The Deliverance of Evil by Roberto Costantini, an internationally bestselling literary thriller set in Italy; and the multiple award-winning Unhooking the Moon by Gregory Hughes, a middle-grade novel about an unforgettable road trip that takes two orphans from the plains of Winnipeg to New York City in search of a mysterious uncle. (For more about these and other forthcoming Quercus books, see below.)
The current publishing program consists of about two-thirds fiction, another third nonfiction. In time, the company aims to increase the number of American authors on the list to around half of the total. Smith said, "We want to keep an international flavor, take on American authors like Brian Freeman, Corban Addison and Richard North Patterson, as well as find debut authors here and nurture them."
Random House Publisher Services is distributing Quercus in the U.S. and Canada. Both Smith and Green praised RHPS, noting that having to tie into the distributor's systems and meet its deadlines has helped Quercus improve its own internal processes--lessons about business practices that it will take back to the U.K. "Random's supply chain and inventory management systems are really impressive," Green said. Smith added: "I'm surprised at how much they share. They're very enlightened. They say, 'If you're successful, we're successful.' It really is a partnership."
|
|
| Eric Price | |
The Quercus team in the U.S. includes Eric Price, director of sales, marketing and publicity, who worked at Grove/Atlantic for more than 20 years, most recently as associate publisher and COO. Quercus associate publisher Nathaniel Marunas was executive editor-at-large at Sterling Publishing and before that was associate publisher at Black Dog & Leventhal. Anna Hezel is digital marketing manager and an editorial assistant. The team will expand, and Green promised, "You won't hear a British accent. This is absolutely going to be an American operation."
Quercus sees a lot of potential in the U.S. market. "We are well aware that these are challenging times for book publishers everywhere," Green said. "But coming from a tough U.K. market, we see an enormous upside to operating in the U.S. This is a tremendous opportunity to establish a flexible and proactive publishing business in North America. We have amazing books, are hiring a great team, and will work closely with RHPS to develop the business into one that has scale, diversity and ambition."
Quercus was founded in the U.K. in 2004 by Smith and Wayne Davies, who is executive director of digital. Originally an illustrated book publisher, Quercus sold co-editions around the world to retailers, including Barnes & Noble and Borders. "It was a reasonably low-risk way of doing business, and a great success," Smith said. After a while, realizing it was "missing a trick," the company decided to become an "all-round trade publisher," expanding into fiction. Its first trade list in 2006 included many crime thrillers and such American authors as Joseph Wambaugh, Andrew Klavan, and Thomas H. Cook.
 |
|
| Nathaniel Marunas | |
The company had some early successes, including, in 2007, The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney, which won the Costa Book of the Year Award and was longlisted for the Orange Prize. In 2008, Christopher MacLehose, who has his own imprint at Quercus, began publishing Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy, which has sold many millions of copies in the U.K. alone. (Quercus fortuitously bought English-language rights and licensed them to Knopf in the U.S. and Penguin in Canada.) Larsson's titles helped the company fund its expansion and the U.S. launch. "It has allowed the company to broaden and not rely on one thing," Smith said. "Its legacy has been used wisely, invested in authors and in different categories."
In the U.K., the company now sits "right in the middle between small indies and large conglomerates," Smith said. Unlike many independent publishers, which have done well finding and nurturing new and debut authors only to lose them to large publishers, Quercus has not lost any of the new and debut authors it has nurtured and wanted to keep.
In part, this is because, Smith said, the house puts authors at the center of its business. "All else is set up to support that," he continued. "We're publishing authors, not titles. Without authors we don't have a business." He called Quercus "very much editorially driven," in contrast to some publishers that have a sales focus or are run by accountants. "Our authors are so important, I always find time to see them, no matter what I am doing," Smith said. Green added, "It feels like an indie but has the support and leverage in the market of a big player."
And now, with the opening of its U.S. offices and its distribution arrangement with Random House firmly in place, Quercus can offer its authors the opportunity to be published in North America with the same indie attention to detail coupled with the market reach of a major.