Bloomsbury US is launching an in-house sales team for North America, selling all trade titles, including those published by its academic division, direct to key national accounts. The team, which is expected to grow to a total of six people by year’s end, is headed by Sarah Rucker, who comes to Bloomsbury from HarperCollins, where she was sales director for Usborne Books.
The move comes following eye-popping growth at the publisher year over year, attributable in no small part to its author Sarah J. Maas, who is at the head of the romantasy boom; Bloomsbury expanded further in the U.S. earlier this year with its acquisition of Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group’s academic publishing business.
Rucker told PW that her background—which includes selling books for adults and children, as well as in special markets—has given her “a really well-rounded view of the marketplace,” adding: “It's really exciting that I get to now come and kind of bring all of that experience together.” She reports to Valentina Rice, VP of sales and marketing at Bloomsbury, in the role.
Rice said that the move “felt like the natural next step to be able to build stronger relationships with our key accounts,” which include Amazon.com, Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble, and Ingram in the United States and Amazon.ca, Indigo Books & Music, and Raincoast in Canada. She added that Bloomsbury will continue to work closely with Macmillan, its longtime distributor to the trade in North America, “in many of the other channels.”
In addition to Maas, Rice noted a number of authors Bloomsbury has “built from the ground up” whose titles the team is excited to rep, including Susanna Clarke, Paul Hollywood, Samantha Shannon, Trang Thanh Tran, and Renee Watson. Among the house’s big publishing events for the rest of the year include the recent launch of Alan Moore’s series starter The Great When and the 20th anniversary of Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.
Joining Rucker on the team are associate sales manager Michelle Zeng and sales assistant Emelyn Ehrlich, each of whom reports to Rucker. Three additional sales reps will be announced later this year.
“We are thrilled to have reached a size that allows us to work directly with some of our largest customers in the U.S. and Canada,” said Sabrina McCarthy, president of Bloomsbury US, estimating that Bloomsbury is now the 9th largest publisher in the U.S. market. “We can now bring the enthusiasm for our books directly to our key buyers and develop a mutually beneficial relationship that brings us closer to what the consumers want.”
