strategy at Bloomsbury USA
Publishers Weekly’s report on Bloomsbury’s US operation (now including the Walker Books firm, which provided the margin of profitability last year) notes a couple of new initiatives that might affect children’s writers.
1) The launch of a small mass-market paperback wing, which will reissue Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and Faerie Wars in conjunction with Tor. Holtzbrinck, Tor’s parent, is already Bloomsbury USA’s distributor.
2) A new trade paperback line. In the past, Walker has sold the paperback rights to a lot of its adult titles. Now the firm will republish them itself, which could also boost the children’s paperback line.
These investments seem to be made possible by Bloomsbury’s decision many years ago to buy the British rights to Harry Potter.
"To a Distant Land," watercolor, retelling of The Six Swans