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The founders of the US independent publisher Melville House are to open a London-based publishing business with the aim of forming a “distinctly British company”.
Dennis Johnson co-founded the US company with Valerie Merians in 2001, as an activist publishing effort aimed at opposing the Bush administration. The duo will now open a UK publisher, with the intention of responding to demand for Melville House titles in Britain, as well as growing a new list.
Melville House UK has recruited director of marketing Zeljka Marosevic to run the business, joining from Fourth Estate. Johnson said the British arm would at first concentrate on marketing its 60 frontlist titles, as well as selected backlist, distributed in Britain through Turnaround. The intention is to appoint an editorial director by the end of the year, reporting to Johnson and “responsible for crafting a list distinct from that of the US company”.
“Our classics series, The Art of the Novella, has always done well in Britain, but sales of our other US titles have grown explosively over the last few years,” Johnson said. “Some of the best writing we’ve published lately has been by British writers, such as Lars Iyer and Lee Rourke; we’re winning British book awards, and I hear more and more from British booksellers and media about our books.”
Johnson continued: “There’s much that’s familiar to us about the British book market, but there’s much that’s extremely different from the US, which is why it was critical for us to have a UK company with a British staff . . . But even from Brooklyn I could see that, compared to the US, there is still vibrant discussion of books in British culture, and an appreciation and excitement that is reflected in the media. We’re keen to join that conversation.”
Johnson said he had been “actively hunting for and discovering British titles for quite a while now”, but added that he was “also excited about reprinting older, out-of-print British books that deserved another chance, such as Doris Langley Moore’s The Late Lord Byron, several titles from the wonderful William Gerhardie and, in the US, Derek Raymond’s Factory series”.
Marosevic will also contribute to the publisher’s widely read blog MobyLives.