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Nikki Griffiths, former publishing director at Duckworth Publishing, has joined Melville House UK as managing director and will be based in the company's London headquarters.
Prior to joining Duckworth Publishers in July 2015, Griffiths was head of publishing at Hesperus Press, where she published The Hundred-Year-Old Man who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson, which sold over 1.5 million copies. She has also worked in international sales at Random House, and at Profile Books and Granta Books.
Publisher of Melville House Dennis Johnson said: "Nikki was the first person we asked to run Melville House UK back in 2013, but she had a mega-bestseller just breaking -- The Hundred-Year-Old Man -- and so our timing then wasn't fortuitous. But we're thrilled to finally hook up with her now. An experienced company head who's savvy at acquisitions, production, sales and marketing, her skill-set is formidable. Her guidance of our current break-out title, Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts, is a good hint at her capabilities, and of things to come."
Johnson and fellow publisher Valerie Merians started Melville House UK in 2013. The company was originally founded to publish and promote titles that originated in Melville House's Brooklyn office, but since then has begun to publish a line of its own, which Griffiths will expand.
Griffiths said: “I'm incredibly proud to have joined the Melville House team, extending our reach in the UK. The list is exciting and diverse and I look forward to contributing to the future of such a vibrant and respected independent.”
Griffiths is replacing previous Melville House UK m.d. Zeljka Marosevic, who left the company to join the publishing team at Daunt Books as co-publisher earlier this month.
Griffiths left Hesperus Press last year along with other staff members. Jonasson and Hachette Book Group USA subsequently engaged lawyers to pursue royalty payments owed to him by the directors of the business.