Michael O'Mara Books started its life as an international company.
Its namesake is a Philadelphia-born Temple University grad who found his way to the U.K. courtesy of the U.S. Air Force in the 1960s. He liked it so much, he made London his home and met his wife Lesley while the pair were working in publishing. They founded MOM books in 1985 in a spare bedroom in London, concentrating on adult nonfiction.
They found a real niche in books about the royal family. Then Michael hired Andrew Morton, a young journalist, to do research on the royals, and he was approached by Princess Diana to write the truth about her dysfunctional marriage. Diana: Her True Story caused a sensation and was a bestseller. The U.S. rights were sold to Simon & Schuster, and it continues to sell to this day.
There are many ways for U.K. publishers to reach U.S. consumers, and today we use all of them—rights deals, clubs and fairs, direct-to-consumer export distribution, and third-party distribution. Despite rising print and shipping costs, we are bucking the trend and holding our ground by staying nimble and finding new ways to get our books out to market. Our trend-led titles are published quickly to meet market demand, generally on a shorter lead time than traditional trade titles. The export distribution of U.K. editions via Trafalgar Square has become ever more important as a further route into the North American market.
We were one of the first publishers to produce coloring books aimed at adults, and this continues to be a very strong line for us. The beautiful and intricate titles by Kerby Rosanes have been bestsellers, and our commitment to quality and discovering new illustrators has set us apart, enabling us to build publishing strands with U.S. houses.
Straightforward licensing was always the classic way to do this and highly successful, but over the years, differences in publishing schedules in the U.S. and U.K., coupled with the need to be simultaneous, mean we must plan an extra year into the process on titles we believe will work well in the U.S. This is not just a matter of changing Mum to Mom and taking the u out of colour. Despite us all speaking the same language, there are big differences in words, perspective, visual styles (covers and titles are often different), humor, and culture. With the U.S. publisher, we create Americanized proprietary editions for retail, book clubs, book fairs, subscription boxes, and catalogues, amending the text, often repositioning the cover elements, and sometimes changing the design entirely.
We carry out specific U.S. publicity activities and marketing campaigns to support our publishing program in the U.S., and always consider our U.S. audience to ensure that our distributed titles travel. This is particularly important for Buster Books, our children’s list: maths (not a typo!) typically doesn’t work for obvious reasons, weights and measures must be avoided, and correct spelling is important for early learning. Juvenile history can be a particularly tricky topic: local biases, cultural sensitivity and appropriation, and curricula have to be handled very carefully.
We also have very strong sales through gift and specialist accounts, which seem to appreciate the diversity and relevance of our nonfiction list. To enable this, we search out U.S.-based on authors and illustrators, or those with U.S. platforms. 3D Street Art, out this month, is written by Florida-based Erni Vales, one of the earliest founders of this movement. And while the book covers artists from around the world, the launch took place at the Museum of Graffiti in Miami, rather than in London.
The success Michael O'Mara has had in its near-40-year span has allowed us to spread our wings. As one of the few truly independent publishers remaining, we not only pride ourselves on our ability to publish a diverse program, which remains current and topical, but also on our ability to reach readers all around the world. Naturally the U.S. is our most important market outside of the U.K., and we continue to work closely with all our publishing partners.
Katie Arora is the U.S. sales and marketing director of Michael O'Mara Books.
Correction: A previous version of this article misspelled the name of the publisher. It is O'Mara, not O'Meara.
