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Crimson buys White Ladder Press
White Ladder Press has been bought by fellow independent Crimson Publishing for a substantial six-figure sum.
Founded by Roni Jay and her late husband Richard Craze in 2003, White Ladder publishes around 15 practical and quirky lifestyle titles a year. Jay, who will continue to work on the White Ladder list as a freelance commissioning editor, said she sold the business to spend more time with her three children following her partner’s death in August 2006.
"It is great to have sold to another independent with very similar views to White Ladder and a similar entrepreneurial approach," she said. "It is just a delight to find such an ideal match—it is more than I had hoped."
David Lester, m.d. at Crimson Publishing, expects White Ladder to continue much as before, although distribution will move from Virgin to Portfolio, the sales and distribution company in which he owns a majority share. "It is not that we are unhappy with [Virgin], they haven't done a bad job at all, but my guess is that [the change] will happen around April time," he said.
White Ladder's suppliers are expected to remain largely the same. The list's publicist will become a Crimson employee, while Jay's PA will continue working for her. White Ladder's only other staff member plans to retire.
Lester said he intended to focus the White Ladder list slightly more on parenting, and will move three of Crimson's 2008 childcare titles into the White Ladder imprint. "About 50% of today's list is parenting, and we are going to grow that a bit," he said. He will also look at reformatting and relaunching various backlist titles.
Lester added that Crimson—which has already acquired Vacation Work, a publisher of gap year titles, and Trotman Publishing, a publisher of university and careers titles—might look to make further acquisitions in 2008. “I don’t think you will see half a dozen [acquisitions] this year, but I will be surprised if there aren’t one or two. We are always on the lookout for quality publishers of non-fiction,” he said.
