HarperCollins expands global publishing program

HarperCollins has announced it will expand its international publishing program with the formation of four new international offices and the acquisition of thriller author Karin Slaughter in a multi-language four-book deal, reports the Bookseller. The deal is part of HarperCollins’ strategy of focusing on writers of commercial fiction, crime and thrillers and YA, with the aim of building a ‘co-ordinated, commercial publishing platform’. HarperCollins president and CEO Brian Murray said that ‘big commercial fiction authors are much more likely to travel—they show up in bestseller lists in many markets’. ‘Agents have traditionally tried to divide up the world as much as possible—but the world is changing. Facebook is not linked to territories or languages,’ said Murray. HarperCollins furthered its strategy of a coordinated global publishing program with its announcement of four new HarperCollins offices. Building on existing Harlequin operations that HarperCollins acquired in 2014, the four rebranded offices will be HarperCollins Holland, HarperCollins Japan, HarperCollins Nordic (which will cover Norway and Sweden, Finland and Denmark) and HarperCollins Polska (Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia). Each will publish a list of 30-50 HarperCollins books, as well as continuing existing Harlequin programmes. ‘We have seen great success in coordinated global publishing in the English language—lining up marketing, sales, and publicity in multiple markets simultaneously. Now, we are able to extend the effort even further to these foreign language markets,’ said Murray. As previously reported by Books+Publishing, HarperCollins recently also formed HarperCollins Germany, HarperCollins Iberica and HarperCollins Español.

Category: International news