Category Archives: General

Pan Macmillan Australia has today launched a new digital-only imprint, Momentum. (Read the press release.)

The launch list looks fantastic and many congratulations to the team, especially Joel Naoum who is leading Momentum and is very close to our hearts as he helped us setup and launch our own Bello digital imprint when he was in the UK last year.

Pan Macmillan has launched today its new website – www.panmacmillan.com – designed for consumers, trade and the media.

The new site at www.panmacmillan.com delivers a web infrastructure on which to build and develop a growing range of direct-to-consumer platforms to support Pan Macmillan’s established and evolving brands, including picador.com and mykindabook.com.

The website was designed by design agency Root, selected after a four-way pitch for their original and striking design. MMT Digital was selected after a five-way pitch for the technical build.

A content-rich Home Page enables visitors to find out about new titles, featured authors and books, with carousel Showcase, Brand New and Featured bars which spin and highlight particular themes and subjects guiding readers to relevant books and authors.

A stand-alone Children’s Home Page takes visitors directly on a journey through Macmillan’s wide range of bestselling children’s titles.

News and Events pages with regular updates about author readings and events, and a host of other Pan Macmillan-related activity, take visitors straight through to comment and trailers.

A range of subject pages such as ‘Crime & Thrillers‘, ‘Women’s Fiction’ and ‘Science Fiction’, drive visitors to other content and titles around the site. A new “Books You Might Like” feature encourages readers to explore new authors. The site is e-commerce enabled but also features links to a range of retailers.

Sara Lloyd, Digital Director, Pan Macmillan said today:

We’re delighted to launch this important first phase of the new panmacmillan.com. We’ve created a hub for our authors, readers and trade customers. We wanted to demonstrate our passion for our authors and titles, and create an environment where readers can find the best information and conversation about our books and authors. The site will act as a place for readers and writers to come together to talk about books when we introduce additional social features into the next phase, and it also delivers us a modular toolkit for quickly developing a dedicated web presence for any campaign or author.

For trade and media, there is a comprehensive “one stop shop” section, offering sophisticated online resources for sales customers, media and rights’ buyers. In this section customers and media can view book pages for forthcoming titles and high resolution book jackets, download book catalogues, order forms, translation and rights’ guides, check rights’ availability for specific titles and, if registered for a bookseller account, access advance information sheets.

Today, Friday 16 December, Pan Macmillan publishes the first twenty titles from its new digital imprint Bello, reviving 20th century classics for a 21st century audience. All launch books are drawn from the prestigious backlist of the Curtis Brown Literary and Talent Agency.

Featured in the launch e-book list are 10 titles by one of the country’s best-loved naturalists, Gerald Durrell, whose stories about his globetrotting adventures with animals have enchanted generations of children and adults. Amongst the titles are much-loved favourites such as Beasts in my Belfry, Catch Me a Colobus and The Drunken Forest as well as Ark on the Move, which inspired a television series which was broadcast around the world and brought Durrell’s pioneering rescue and breeding programmes with the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust to international attention.

Also in the launch list are five titles by poet, novelist and gardener, Vita Sackville-West. 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the author’s death, and sees Macmillan’s Bello imprint revive her critically-acclaimed first novel, Heritage; two novellas, Seducers in Ecuador and The Heir; a novel, Family History, a wonderful evocation of the complexity of 1930s high society mores and values; and The Eagle and The Dove, a biography, long regarded as a classic, of Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint Thérèse of Lisieux.

A crime novel from behind the Iron Curtain by Andrew Garve, Murder in Moscow is also available in ebook format from today, along with three novels from the prolific writer (and wife of CP Snow), Pamela Hansford Johnson (the centenary of whose birth is 2012), and Madensky Square, a rare novel for adults from children’s author, Eva Ibbotson.

Lee Durrell, Gerald Durrell’s widow and Honorary Director of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, says:

”I am utterly delighted at this development. Everybody has been asking me when Gerry’s backlist is going digital, and it’s great that this is now happening.”

Sara Lloyd at Pan Macmillan says:

“It’s a pleasure to be able to republish some great writers of earlier generations and to introduce them to modern audiences in 21st century style.”

The publication of these titles in ebook format is against the backdrop of a massive expansion in the market for ebooks. Pan Macmillan expects their ebook sales to have more than tripled in 2011 compared to 2010.

Bello has been launched in partnership with Curtis Brown, one of Europe’s largest and most prestigious literary agencies. The imprint is designed to bring long out of print books by iconic authors to a new readership in the 21st century, and more than 500 more titles will be made available in ebook format during the next twelve months.

Bello will also make all titles available in Print on Demand (POD) editions.

Forthcoming titles to be published in the Bello imprint next year include books by Francis Durbridge, author of classic detective fiction; novelist and critic D J Taylor, who featured on this year’s Man Booker Prize long list; and a revival of the fiction of Gillian Tindall, now acclaimed for her miniaturist histories.

Pan Macmillan announced today a partnership between its new digital imprint, Macmillan Bello, and Curtis Brown, one of Europe’s largest and most prestigious literary agencies.

Macmillan Bello was previously known as Macmillan Compass, the working title for the imprint when its forthcoming launch was first announced in June this year. Pan Macmillan’s Managing Director, Anthony Forbes Watson, says, “Why Bello? Because Bello is an African footballer, Spanish intellectual, Venezuelan poet and American bass guitarist as well as a big and beautiful modern font, and the way an Italian expresses admiration: Bello is hidden talent discovered – and admired!”

From November 2011 to the end of the year, Macmillan Bello will publish 120 ebooks drawn exclusively from Curtis Brown’s list, with a further 400 titles to follow later next year.

Macmillan Bello will publish in digital format and its ebooks will be distributed through Pan Macmillan’s standard channels. It will also make all titles available in Print on Demand (POD) editions.

Macmillan Bello is an imprint designed to use new digital technologies and harness the expertise, supply chain relationships, and editorial and marketing teams at Pan Macmillan to bring long out of print books by iconic authors to a new readership in the 21st century.

The launch list includes novels from Gerald Durrell, bestselling conservationist author and founder of the Durrell Wildlife Trust; the iconic English writer and gardener Vita Sackville-West; Francis Durbridge, author of classic detective fiction; novelist and critic D J Taylor, who recently featured on this year’s Man Booker long list; a revival of the fiction of Gillian Tindall, now acclaimed for her miniaturist histories; and a novel for adults from the much-loved and award-winning children’s author Eva Ibbotson. Further titles in the launch list will be announced in due course.

Anna Davis, agent for literary estates and Head of Book contracts, comments,

“At Curtis Brown we have been researching the best ways to revive our authors’ out-of-print books, and were hugely impressed with Macmillan’s plans, their ambition, vision and commitment to neglected writers. We’ve greatly enjoyed partnering with them on the launch of Macmillan Bello, and are excited about the future and making available great writers from yesteryear.”

Sara Lloyd says,

“We’re excited to have our first partnership established. We have had such a lot of fun working with Curtis Brown to get the business underway and are looking forward to working with them further to grow the list and the business in the coming months.”

Jeremy Trevathan says,

“The moment we started talking to Curtis Brown we realized what an extraordinary list of authors and estates they managed. It’s a personal pleasure to me to be able to bring back into print some great writers of earlier generations, including some of the great names of crime and thriller writing. Working with Curtis Brown has been a real delight and we’ve been really impressed by the commitment and speed with which they have moved to make this partnership possible.”

Macmillan Bello is managed by Pan Macmillan Fiction Publisher, Jeremy Trevathan, and Digital Director, Sara Lloyd. The initiative received seedcorn funding from the Macmillan ‘Innovation From Within’ Programme.