THIS WEEK
The Lead Story The Bookseller 150
Ann-Janine Murtagh HarperCollins Children’s Books Executive publisher
Stalwart HCCB author/illustrator Judith Kerr was named Illustrator of the Year at this year’s British Book Awards, before sadly passing away in May. Murtagh was among the many trade figures to pay tribute to the children’s book legend, who had worked with the publisher since her début The Tiger Who Came to Tea in 1968. Murtagh also signed a new four-book deal with David Baddiel, but another David remains HCCB’s star author: this year David Walliams crested the £100m mark through Nielsen BookScan’s TCM.
Belinda Rasmussen Macmillan Children’s Managing director
Macmillan Children’s behemoth The Gruffalo turned 20 this year and, as ever, creators Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler (alongside Donaldson’s other illustrators) were among the publisher’s top earners, as were fellow staple best- sellers Rod Campbell and Andy Griffiths. Other hits for the publisher included award-winning The Umbrella Mouse by début author Anna Fargher and illustrator Sam Usher, and the paperback edition of Hilary McKay’s 2019 Costa Children’s Book Award-winner The Skylarks’ War.
Rebecca Smart DK M.d., publishing
After a successful four years heading Ebury, Smart moved across town to DK in January to take on the newly created role of m.d. for publishing. Smart now oversees the UK’s five publishing divi- sions, design, UK marketing and PR, publishing operations and the Alpha business, which is based in Indianapolis, Indiana. Although her overarching remit has been to expand DK’s new business and digital footprint. She is also expanding the team, luring Mark Searle from Quarto to lead the licensing division.
Lis Tribe Hodder Education Managing director
Even as sales in the overall education sector were hit hard by declining government and schools’ budgets in 2019, Tribe held the good ship Hodder Education sector steady, marginally increasing the division’s overall market share from 21.2% to 21.9% in the UK as of its latest third-quarter results. Using her voice to rally for a more inclusive book trade in 2019, the former Publishers Association president also argued for concrete targets and auditing to tackle the gender imbalance in the industry’s top jobs.
18 13th December 2019
Oliver Rhodes Bookouture/Hachette C.e.o./digital publishing director
Rhodes’ Bookouture—built on the model of being primarily digital, with open submissions and a 45% digital royalty rate—has continued to expand as part of Hachette UK, making new hires of Sphere’s Lucy Dauman and HQ’s Cara Chimirri for its commissioning team. In August, the company recorded cumulative sales of over 30 million copies since it was founded by Rhodes in 2012. Almost four million of those sales have been purchases of books written by the list’s superstar crime author Angela Marsons.
Melanie Tansey Hachette UK Group HR director
New Entry
Tansey joined at the end of last year at a crucial point in Hachette’s expansion, to support “ambitious growth”
and increase diversity across the group. In a shake-up that saw several old hands leave, and a number of new hires made from outside the industry, Tansey set up a new model, giving six heads of HR responsibility for strategic areas such as diversity and inclusion, talent manage- ment and leadership capability. New policies focus on the recruitment and retention of “the best of British talent”.
Jeremy Trevathan Pan Macmillan Publisher, adult books
Pan Macmillan’s adult divison is very much at the fore of a stellar 2019. Those figures have been buoyed by the spectacular success of Pinch of Nom and the perennial appearance of Adam Kay’s This is Going to Hurt in the bestseller lists. Picador was named Imprint of the Year at the Nibbies, and the publisher capped it all off with the release of Elton John’s Me, an anecdote-packed autobiography Trevathan had tried to land for decades. With another Nom... title on the way and a festive Kay follow-up, the publisher is on course for a record year.
Kate Parkin Bonnier Books UK M.d., Adult Trade
New Entry
Parkin was elevated to her newly created role—in which she oversees adult publishing over eight imprints—just over a
year ago. Since then, she has been build- ing and refining the senior team: Elise Burns came over from Bloomsbury as the trade sales and export director after James Horobin’s departure to Welbeck, Matt Phillips was made publisher of non- fiction imprints Blink and John Blake, while Margeret Stead was named publisher of Zaffre and the new literary “conversation creator” imprint Manilla.
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