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Bonnier Publishing c.e.o. Richard Johnson has said that the relocation of Autumn Publishing, Weldon Owen and Red Lemon Press to join Templar in Dorking will not affect the imprints' respective publishing programmes.
The relocation, set for January, will mean illustrated and non-fiction publishing is concentrated in Dorking while fiction imprint Hot Key Books remains in London.
However Bonnier said Templar would continue to release a small range of fiction titles as at present. "Templar will still be doing fiction, that's not going to change," he confirmed. The departure of fiction commissioning editor Helen Boyle earlier this year was a result of internal changes at Templar, he said. Part-time publicist Jayne Roscoe has also left the company.
Johnson added: "At present, we have businesses in Dorking, Chichester and London, all close together, which doesn't make much sense. In Dorking we have the most space and it's closer to London, so we're putting our teams together in one location . . . This consolidation will be good for the company, and allow us to focus on what we are producing."
A "single figure" number of redundancies will be involved in the relocation, with the losses coming from marketing and production roles, Johnson confirmed.
Meanwhile, Hot Key Books is to up its publishing in the next year, producing around 60 titles instead of 50. Johnson said: "We launched Hot Key Books at a very difficult time for the market, but despite that, we've been very happy with how things have gone. We've seen great success, winning a prestigious award in our first few years [Sally Gardner's Maggot Moon won the Carnegie Medal in June 2013]. The good thing about Bonnier is that we are in things for the long term, and are able to invest and see the benefits of that."
Johnson added that Bonnier was growing increasingly interested in licensing as an area of growth. He said: "Traditionally we haven't done much in the way of licensing, especially in the UK, but it is something we have been looking much more at. I think it will be something that we do more of in future."