Following an acclaimed first year of publishing, the revolutionary science fiction imprint Angry Robot Books has parted company with HarperCollins UK. It will now run as an independent publishing imprint, with the full backing of niche publishing experts, Osprey Publishing.
Angry Robot will continue to operate from its Nottingham base and with its existing team under Marc Gascoigne, its founder and publisher. Marc said: “With the support of HarperCollins UK, my team and I have worked very hard on Angry Robot since it was founded. We have a great publishing programme in place and a dedicated bunch of supporters, the Robot Army, as well as some excellent sales of our first titles in the UK and an imminent launch into the USA. We are very pleased to have become part of the burgeoning Osprey empire. They understand our business and the enthusiasts who drive it.”
Chris Michaels, HarperCollins Digital Publisher, Fiction/Non-Fiction, who helped set-up Angry Robot, said: “Having helped build the foundations for a successful future, we are delighted that the Angry Robot team has found a new publishing partner in Osprey. We believe this will help them develop their niche offering, supported by Osprey’s specialist sales and marketing teams. We wish them good luck for the future.”
Marc Gascoigne added, “Our publishing programme for 2010/11 will be basically unaffected by these changes. There will be a short break while the transition is sorted out, but we will be re-launching in September 2010 and then it will be business as usual.”
Osprey’s move is a reflection of the company’s continuing strategic drive into niche communities that share a deep enthusiasm for their interest or hobby, whether it be military history (Osprey Publishing), heritage (Shire Books), or science fiction and fantasy.
Richard Sullivan, Marketing Director at Osprey commented: “We have a great deal of experience of serving specialist niches with a very tight product focus. Angry Robot is a great fit with our existing businesses. We are very excited about the opportunity to enter into a new market and we are looking forward to helping Angry Robot, its authors and its readers go to some exciting places.”Make of that what you will...I do wonder why HarperCollins were willing to sell up if Angry Robot had indeed had an 'acclaimed first year' of publishing, but they can't have done that badly if Osprey were interested in taking on the imprint.
Will be interesting to see how things develop.
2 comments:
Odd, that. Angry Robot doesn't yet have a presence in the US, but this reminds me of Solaris being sold by Games Workshop.
Yeah, it reminded me of the Solaris sale as well. Though I suspect Solaris were performing better than Angry Robot have been, though that is total speculation of course. But as I said, Osprey must be confident that they can steer the imprint in the right direction and get results.
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