News
Karmel goes indie, citing unfair royalties B
WORDS Lisa Campbell
ESTSELLING CHILD NUTRITION author Annabel Karmel is to leave publisher Ebury and self-publish her next title, Baby-Led Weaning Recipe Book. Karmel’s 1991 début, The Complete Baby
& Toddler Meal Planner, was sold to Simon & Schuster US by a book packager at the Frankfurt Book Fair, and was later signed by Ebury in the UK. To date, she has sold 1.93 million books, for £19.6m, through Nielsen BookScan UK, with The New Complete Baby & Toddler Planner her top seller (339,646 copies). The author told The Bookseller she was self-publishing as “an experiment” and remains on good terms with Ebury, which she did not rule out returning to at a later date, adding: “I will see how it goes.” However, she criticised the low royalties paid by legacy publishers, particularly for digital sales, where the tpical rate is 25%. “I feel that the cost of producing the e-book is quite low, but the author only gets a 25% royalt,” she said. “Publishers could pay the author more—that is one area they could be
more generous. [Authors] might just give up publishing otherwise, if they cannot afford to feed themselves. I feel authors don’t get a fair deal.”
Baby-Led Weaning Recipe Book, which encourages a flexible approach to wean- ing, is scheduled for publication on 25th May. Karmel will publish digitally through Amazon’s KDP platform and has set up her own imprint, Pindock Publishing. She has hired freelance editing, design, market- ing and sales help, and will print the book in Italy. Karmel said her long-time agency, Curtis Brown, will still get a cut.
Karmel, who also sells a range of baby food Annabel Karmel
into supermarkets in the UK, has already secured a “robust order” from Asda for the title, with another from Tesco in the pipeline, but she is keen for bookshops to stock it too. With a digital audience of some 4.3 million and an average weekly reach of 1 million followers on social media, she is confident of being able to market the book strongly. “This is something I’ve been thinking about for some time… books are very close to my heart. They are my first passion.”
Mills & Boon gets graphic in ‘sexiest’ series yet
HarperCollins imprint Mills & Boon has launched Dare, a new series of “sexually graphic storytelling [with] strong, indepen- dent women and sizzling hot heroes”, with “highly explicit sexual encounters”. It is billed as the “sexiest” Mills & Boon series ever. Four titles will publish a month, in print and e-book, from January 2018. Executive publisher Lisa Milton left said: “The stories will capture the imagination of readers by balancing graphic sex scenes with the relatable dilemmas and chal- lenges faced by the characters. They’re the perfect quick, escapist romance fix for 21st- century women.” Senior editor Kathleen Scheibling added: “The heroines are empowered, independent, fearless women who don’t need a man—but when they choose one, it’s on their terms.” Dare’s edi- torial team is acquiring manuscripts from its offices in London, New York and Toronto.
Tinder match for B4ME Short Story shortlistee
Seven Dials bags five Bikers
Orion’s non-fiction imprint Seven Dials has bought five cookbooks from The Hairy Bikers in a “major” deal, covering two “Hairy Dieters” trade paperbacks and three hard- backs. The first title, The Hairy Dieters Go Veggie, will be pub- lished in May. Publisher Amanda Harris bought world rights from Furniss Lawton’s Rowan Lawton.
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Tinder Press publisher Mary-Anne Harrington has acquired Guy Gunaratne’s début In Our Mad and Furious City from Sophie Lambert at Conville & Walsh in a two-book deal for UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, at auc- tion. The author, who was short- listed for the Guardian and Fourth Estate B4ME Short Story Prize, said: “I’m thrilled. [The novel] is bound to shake a few people up, and I could ask for no better publishing team to work with.”
Headline Home opens its doors
Headline has launched lifestle list Headline Home, with five new titles signed up. Publisher Muna Reyal and senior editor Kate Miles will work with publishing director Lindsey Evans on the imprint, which will publish a range of practical books on food, parenting, popular psychology, health/wellbeing and self-help. Evans said its name nodded to the “support and comfort from our busy lives” that can be found at home, adding: “We want our books to offer guidance, support, comfort—a safe place for readers to retreat to.” The list has signed Naomi Devlin’s Food for a Happy Gut from
PFD’s Tim Bates (April 2017); Rachel Roddy’s Two Kitch- ens (July) from United Agents’ Jon Elek; Live Well to 101 by Dr Dawn Harper from Ben Clarke at Lucas Alexan- der Whitley; Unplugged Parenting by Dr Elizabeth Kilbey (July) from Furniss Lawton’s Rory Scarfe; and journalist Lola Akerstrom’s Lagom, a “giſty hardback” about living well (August, rights signed direct from the author).
Bookseller signed—after pitching book at LBF ’16
Pan Macmillan has acquired book- seller Susannah Stapleton’s non- fiction début, signing UK and Com- monwealth rights from Tim Bates at PFD. The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective, which was pitched to the agency at LBF 2016 at a panel called “The Write Stuff”, will be published in 2019. Geor- gina Morley, editorial director of non-fiction, said: “I’ve never known a proposal elicit such shrieks of joy from my colleagues. I can’t wait to read the full manuscript.”
Felon and Devil to kick off Ink’s print Endeavour
Endeavour Press has snapped up two titles it will issue through its new print arm, Endeavour Ink, this year. World English-language rights were acquired from Bell Lomax Moreton Agency’s Paul Moreton for The Felon Pleader by Michael Jecks, and for The Devil’s Triptych (working title) by Imogen Robertson from Broo Doherty at DHH Literary Agency. The pair will be among the first titles to be published in print by the former digital-only publisher.
Bonnier’s Auschwitz ink tale makes its mark
Publishers across Europe have pre-empted translation rights to The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris from Bonnier Zaffre, which has world rights. The novel, based on the true story of Lale Sokolov, who is forced to tattoo numbers on his fellow concentration camp detainees’ arms, has been pre-empted in Germany (Piper), the Nether- lands (HarperCollins) and Poland (Marginesy), with an auction ongoing for Italian rights.
15th March 2017
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