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Ragged Bears aims for £3m sales in three years

03.01.08 Caroline Horn

Ragged Bears Publishing is looking to triple its £1m turnover by 2010 by bringing its sales and distribution in-house. The independent publisher is also considering offering the service to other independent publishers within a year.

Ragged Bears' titles are currently distributed by PGUK, but m.d. Henrietta Stickland said she felt "the time was right" for the publisher to support its own sales. "Having canvassed opinion in the trade, we found there is potential to develop our sales ourselves rather than having our books represented by a third party alongside other adult and children's lists," she said.

The company already has a 10,000 sq ft warehouse in Wincanton, Somerset, which it uses to support a small direct sales operation. It will appoint four freelance reps in the UK and one in Ireland to start selling its titles in February.

The sales and marketing team is headed by Roy Johnson. Stickland said: "There is a feeling in the trade that booksellers don't want to talk to small publishing houses, but in fact both the chains and independents are very open to seeing our reps."

Ragged Bears' backlist of 100 titles is focused mainly on the nought to six years age range, including picture books and novelty books. Top titles include Dinosaur Roar!, Mike Brownlow's Little
Robots, which was an animated TV series on CBeebies, and Ragged Bear's Book of Stories.

Developing a third-party distribution will depend on how its own sales develop, said Stickland. "Our focus initially is very much on Ragged Bears but, depending on the sales record we achieve in the first six-to-12 months, other companies may want to discuss the distribution service we could offer."

Caroline Horn children's Ragged Bears

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