Independent Publishers Group announced Monday that it is re-branding its professional and academic book distribution program to more effectively appeal to a wider audience beyond the academic market. IPG’s River North Editions will launch in March. While River North Editions titles will continue to be promoted to professors and educational institutions as books appropriate for course adoption and inclusion in research libraries, the list also will be promoted to appropriate trade outlets as “provocative titles for intellectual pursuits.”
IPG distributes 400 to 500 new releases each year from professional and scholarly publishers throughout the English-speaking world outside of the U.S. and Canada. Instead of promoting them in two catalogs, as the company was doing previously, River North Editions will be promoted quarterly, in four catalogs.
With four catalogs, rather than two, explained Paul Murphy, IPG’s director of professional and academic markets, IPG will be better positioned to take advantage of publicity for new releases in its client-publishers’ home markets.
“We’ll get closer to simultaneous release in [the U.S.] market,” Murphy added.
The spring 2011 River North Editions catalog will feature approximately 100 frontlist titles from its professional and scholarly client publishers. Select backlist titles from new client-publishers will also be featured in the catalog. The catalog will include select titles from IPG’s trade lists and from its other book distribution divisions, Trafalgar Square Books, which distributes U.K. titles for U.S. audiences; and Art Stock Books, which distributes European art books in the U.S.
IPG’s professional and academic program is one of the Chicago-based company’s six different distribution programs.
