The Bookseller.com

1st December 2008

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Random inks Guardian Books deal

23.09.08 Benedicte Page

Random House Books has formed a publishing partnership with Guardian Books, the book publishing arm of the Guardian newspaper which publishes The Guardian Media Directory and has had recent hits with Kate Rew’s Wild Swim and A World Without Bees (Alison Benjamin and Brian McCallum).

RHB publishing director Nigel Wilcockson said the partnership, which comes into force in February next year, would be "conversational". "When new projects come up, we’ll discuss them with Guardian Books and offer our thoughts," he said. "The editorial impetus will come from them, and we are offering guidance, advocacy and sales muscle. They have access to an amazing stable of writers and great ideas, and we’ll also want to pitch ideas to them."

Guardian Books publisher Lisa Parnell commented: "Our new partnership with Random House offers us a fabulous opportunity to build on recent successes and to increase our visibility in the trade."

Wilcockson added that he expected the enterprise to grow "substantially" over the next two to three years, but without a major increase in title numbers. Guardian Books publishes around 20 books a year. "Part of their appeal is that they are hand-crafted. We don’t want to churn them out," he said. "Wild Swim was beautifully produced and you can’t do that if you are publishing 400 titles a month."

The first Guardian Books title to be published under the Random House umbrella will be The Official British Army Fitness Guide, with The Guardian Green Travel Guide and The Big Chill Guide to Summer Living also coming early next year.

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