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IMPRINT OF THE YEAR
OVERVIEW This Imprint of the Year shortlist is an intriguing mix of large and small, new and old. Four nominees are well-established trade names, while the other half are less than seven years old—and only two of the eight were shortlisted last year. What they have in common are distinctive personalities, tight- knit teams and a determination to shake off the challenges of Covid to deliver bumper years in 2021.
BLUEBIRD Pan Macmillan’s Bluebird is just six years into life, but it has already been shortlisted for this award three times. It published four of Pan Macmillan’s top six titles of 2021, and its latest Pinch of Nom bestseller topped the all- titles list at both the opening and close of the year. Nancy Birtwhistle, Jay Blades and Joe Wicks provided more hits from the imprint.
GALLERY BOOKS UK Gallery has grown out of Simon & Schuster’s recent success in non-fiction, and it established a strong identity in its first full year. Ed Balls, Jess Phillips, Anchal Seda and Sophie Mort above gave its compact list a good hit rate, but the real star was national treasure Bob Mortimer, whose memoir And Away… was 2021’s top celeb- rity memoir, and the seventh- bestselling book overall.
ROCK THE BOAT Rock the Boat is the sole chil- dren’s imprint on this shortlist. Six years on from launch, it is a major contributor to Oneworld Publications. TikTok-propelled title Girl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow right, issued by the imprint, was the publisher’s biggest book overall last year. Its commissioning was ambi- tious and diverse, with margin- alised voices and translations to the fore.
VIKING Viking is a consistently excellent performer for Penguin Random House—it’s a contender for this award for the fifth time in the past seven years—but 2021 may have been its best year yet. Richard Osman right gave it first and fourth place on the year’s over- all TCM bestseller chart, but 16 other titles hit the top 10 and it hoovered up numerous prizes and shortlistings.
VIPER BOOKS Viper hit the ground running in its first full year at Profile Books. It published just 11 titles but made all of them count, including three six-figure sellers in Laura Dave, Janice Hallett and Catriona Ward. Acquiring Dave above and Hallett showed Viper’s eye for débuts, while Ward’s success shows how it can reinvigorate authors who may have been overlooked elsewhere.
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HEAD OF ZEUS The 2017 Independent Publisher of the Year, Head of Zeus had a landmark 2021, with record sales—and it was acquired by Bloomsbury. It was powered by bestsellers includ- ing Elodie Harper’s The Wolf Den and Powers and Thrones by Dan Jones above, and refreshed big backlist brands, all backed up by exceptional digital marketing to create some solid sales figures.
PIATKUS The Piatkus imprint has flown under the radar for some time, but it smashed sales and profits targets at the Little, Brown Book Group in 2021. Julia Quinn’s TV-adapted Bridgerton books had a lot to do with that, while Louise Redknapp, Kate Silverton and Anna Mathur left delivered excellent returns in non- fiction. Audio and rights sales at Piatkus rose as well.
TOR UK Pan Macmillan’s Tor UK publishes in the same field as last year’s Imprint of the Year winner Gollancz—confirma- tion of the vibrant health of speculative fiction. Its TCM sales more than doubled in 2021, and débuts by Shelley Parker-Chan and Freya Marske below both made the Sunday Times bestseller lists. It’s an imprint that commands great loyalty from its authors.
ANCHAL SEDA WAS A STAR
PERFORMER FOR GALLERY BOOKS
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