The Bookseller.com

21st November 2008

All change at US Bloomsbury

29.08.08 Gayle Feldman

"People don't understand: it's not about America. You publish your authors to the best of your ability wherever people want to buy their books." So said arch-globalist Richard Charkin in July, speaking about the role played by Bloomsbury's New York operation.
It was his response to talk circulating earlier this year about shutting down the office, fuelled by a 10.8% sales downturn in 2007, by the seven jobs that were cut out of a full-time staff of 57 in January,  by Karen Rinaldi quitting the house that she had built in March, and by bestseller Tony Bourdain's decamping for Ecco.However, such talk was "absurd", Charkin insisted.

But Bloomsbury had not quite settled down. On the last day of July, Colin Dickerman left to join Rinaldi at Rodale. Dickerman was one of the quartet of US division heads who, along with chief financial officer Peter DeGiglio, had formed the new executive structure under Charkin. Reporting lines have changed significantly since then.

The new structure is not a return to the Rinaldi era. In Charkin's words, she was its "heart and soul". An overseas Brit, not an American, remains in charge: "Karen was president, and now I'm president," says Charkin. Yet he spends only a couple days a month in New York for meetings and "to fix things". He has come to realise that as well as a resident c.f.o., "you need a senior person on the publishing side who is local".

Gone is the quartet. Instead, George Gibson, head of the Walker adult division (until three-and-a-half years ago, he ran all of Walker as an independent company for the Walker family), is in Charkin's words, "overall publishing director".

Gibson will continue to run Walker adult, but a yet-to-be appointed Bloomsbury editorial director and Bloomsbury Press founder Peter Ginna also report to him. The combined Bloomsbury-Walker children's division under Melanie Cecka, which used to come under the c.f.o., will split its reporting between DeGiglio and Gibson, although Gibson admits that his involvement "hasn't been fully worked out".

Given all that's happened, it's not inconceivable that more change could occur. But whatever happens, "life will go on", Charkin asserts. Going forward, he wants "the emphasis to be more on publishing for the world". He points to Ben Schott and a recent worldwide deal for Anchee Min as cases in point.

Despite the flux, recent conversations do indeed show a house going about its business, albeit with some evidence of the strains of Dickerman's departure and being down an associate publisher and editorial, publicity and support staff. The children's group not surprisingly shows the least strain, given that even in this climate, it's an area where the Harry Potter publisher is, in Charkin's words, expecting "a lot of growth". This year, the division is projecting $13m in revenue, one third for New York as a whole.

Four years ago, 75% of the kids' list began in the UK. Now Bloomsbury publishes 70-75, and Walker 35-45 frontlist titles per year, 60-75% of which are US-originated. Yet Cecka says, "the number of titles we share with Britain and Germany remains the same". In other words, she and Sarah Odedina in the UK and Elisabeth Ruge in Germany work very closely. "I talk to Sarah more than I talk to my mother!" Cecka laughs.

The division is launching its first three graphic novels in the fall, all transatlantic: Bloomsbury's Rapunzel's Revenge (long-haired lass as wild-west superheroine) by bestselling author Shannon Hale, and two out of a projected eight Walker Twilight Zone titles adapted from the Rod Serling TV shows.

After Rinaldi's departure, with four division heads plus c.f.o. calling the shots, Ginna says that the decision-making process wasn't as rapid. The latest developments call for readjustment once again. For his part, Gibson clearly admires Ginna. "Peter's list," he says quite simply, "is superb". Ginna's books tend to be a bit more scholarly [than Gibson's non fiction] and fit within a discipline. Often projects are submitted to both and if both are interested, they work out who will bid.

Currently, there is a weekly editorial conference call involving London, New York and Berlin. In line with Charkin's global mantra, Bloomsbury will soon have a designated person in each city to look out for books on the other side of the pond. In the past, it was a marketing function, but the idea now is to have an editorial person involved.

Not everything will travel. "Maybe a third of my list of 15 hardcovers a year might be international," Ginna says, pointing to Jonathan Lyons' forthcoming The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Invented Western Civilization, which Michael Fishwick took for London. "I don't expect a book on the American Civil War to have a huge UK market."

As for the Bloomsbury list, its shape will partly depend on who joins from the outside, but Gibson says he wants to encourage the Bloomsbury editors currently in place to grow. "We need a lot of input; I'm not going to impose anything."

There's no doubt times are tough and Bloomsbury New York does not have the advantage of a long backlist to provide cushioning.

If being public has its disadvantages, being a small and very personal outfit but with an international outlook has distinct advantages. "We can act quickly, and politics don't get in the way as they often do in a much bigger house," Charkin asserts.

Gibson puts it another way. "We can do something co-ordinated, collaborative, and original. That's exciting," he says.

Like most publishers, he believes in luck, and seems genuinely optimistic and confident that Bloomsbury USA is "due for some".

US Flagship Feature Gayle Feldman Richard Charkin Bloomsbury Home Karen Rinaldi

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