Bloomsbury Archer is the latest string to the bow of Rising Star alumna Vicky Leech Mateos
The Rising Stars 2022 honouree discusses her dream job of building a new science fiction and fantasy list from scratch, and coming full-circle at Bloomsbury.
Rising Star of 2022 Vicky Leech Mateos has achieved new heights since she received The Bookseller accolade three years ago as commissioning editor at HarperVoyager. Following her recognition as one of the industry’s up-and-comers, Leech Mateos rose through the ranks to editorial director at HarperVoyager before leaving in 2023 to helm Bloomsbury Archer, the publisher’s new science fiction and fantasy (SFF) imprint, as publishing director.
Chatting to Leech Mateos in the authors’ green room at Bloomsbury’s offices, the publisher’s “magical heritage”, as she dubs it, is all around us. Sarah J Maas’ romantasy oeuvre bedecks the walls, alongside epic fantasist Samantha Shannon, while their fantastical companions Alan Moore, Susanna Clarke and JK Rowling are on display elsewhere. Maas’ 161% sales increase, alongside a sales uplift for Shannon and children’s writer extraordinaire Katherine Rundell, helped Bloomsbury post a record-breaking profit in 2023–24. Having banked another stable year of profit and bagged Publisher of the Year at The British Book Awards earlier this year, Bloomsbury is expanding its SFF offering when Bloomsbury Archer officially launches this September.
Leaving HarperVoyager while it was “at the height of its powers” – shortly after it won The British Book Award for Imprint of the Year – to “start something from scratch” was a challenge for Leech Mateos. But returning to Bloomsbury represents a full-career orbit. “It feels very special to be back” at the publisher where she worked as an assistant editor in the children’s department from 2014-17 before beginning a six-year stint at HarperCollins.
In her 2022 Rising Star interview, Leech Mateos said she left Bloomsbury for her “dream job” and explains that she returned in 2023 because “I felt like my dream job was created for me again”. She continues: “It feels like only I could do the job I’m setting out to do… I really felt like my quest was ready to continue once I gained all my armour and my swords and got to go to the next stage.”
Leech Mateos leads Bloomsbury Archer with her belief and commitment to “quality storytelling and fan culture. [I want to make] sure that I’m offering something of real worth, whether that feels like homage or something new, it’s something that feels really valuable to the community that I care about”. She adds: “That feels like the most important thing to me.” Leech Mateos has been acquiring diligently, winning multi-publisher auctions with hefty advances. Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson, previously published by Gollancz, has moved to Bloomsbury Archer in a six-figure deal following a nine-way auction. Leech Mateos also won Brittany Arena’s debut and paid six-figures for Sarah Mughal Rana’s first novel, signed as part of a three-book deal.
The imprint’s lack of backlist is both a boon and a challenge. Having no precedence means “we will try new things, we will be experimental”, but backlist is also “such an important part of most SFF publishing. It underpins and allows frontlist to function”. One of the challenges Bloomsbury Archer faces is to make “our frontlist work as hard as possible”.
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Leech Mateos intends to “build something that lasts” and hopes Bloomsbury Archer will become a “byword for quality and delighting readers, be that for genre newcomers or existing SFF fans”. She describes the imprint as a “love letter to fantasy and science fiction”, but I would also argue that it will become a monument to Leech Mateos’ love for the genre. When I ask why she has stayed within SFF publishing for most of her career, the answer is simple: “I love it. I think that there is no genre like it for its capacity to speak truths and to invent. I think it is uniquely capable of addressing history and the future, while also entertaining and uplifting. It can treat the most serious topics with real magic.” Keeping the SFF community at the heart of her publishing strategy is crucial for Leech Mateos, who wants to make sure “that community, homage and fan service are at the heart of what we do” while drawing new people in. “I’m such a recruiter. I’m really evangelical about fantasy. I really don’t believe that there isn’t a story that couldn’t be made better for everyone with a bit of magic.”
In 2022, Leech Mateos said: “Quality and clarity are key, but schedules are the reigning kings of all publishing.” This speaks to the publishing director’s continuing commitment to brilliance and careful time management. Bloomsbury Archer’s annual output will be kept intentionally small, peaking at 12 hardbacks a year. “We want all our books to complement each other and not compete with each other,” Leech Mateos explains. “When you do a smaller number of books, you can be creative. When you are publishing in a trend-led way, you are at the mercy of the market and have to move faster. We are choosing to be more bespoke in our approach.”
Leech Mateos intends to maintain contact and conversations with her authors. “I want happy, creatively fulfilled authors. Personally, I think it’s really hard to do that when you have a lot of authors. Maybe someone else can manage it, but for me time is how I show I really care. It’s time in editorial. It’s time in publishing and it’s time with the author.” She adds: “The team is growing, but it’s so exciting to be able to give that time as a publishing director. Normally, when you get to be a publishing director, you lose touch with your authors more and more, you end up having to work on strategy and at brand level because of the sheer weight of the number of titles.”
The SFF industry has changed since Leech Mateos began her publishing career. She praises how subscription boxes have gone from “strength to strength”, becoming huge players in the market, and celebrates new dedicated championing spaces retailers have created, such as Waterstones’ SFF book of the month slot. SFF is now mainstream, and the appetite for beautiful stories and beautiful products is ferocious. “It’s amazing to see SFF consistently at the top of the charts.
If you had said that to me at the very start of my career, I would never have believed it… I’m excited to start dominating the chart with Bloomsbury Archer.”
For Leech Mateos, “starting a new imprint in this booming space and making it feel organic and true is always on my mind”. She is setting her sights on “adding to the fantasy and science fiction culture without losing that Bloomsbury ‘thing’”. What is this Bloomsbury “thing”, I ask? “It’s a deft mix of quality and classic with the unexpected, and new,” she replies. “I think it’s the sort of place where you could publish anything as long as it was brilliant.”
