The 2005 acquisition of Stonebridge Press by Japanese distributor Yohan is certainly providing the hoped-for growth for the Berkeley, Calif., publisher. Stonebridge, which specializes in books on Japanese popular and traditional culture, is dramatically increasing the number of titles it publishes, including a new line named for Cody's Bookstore, which Yohan—one of the largest distributors of English-language material in Asia—acquired in 2006.
Peter Goodman, founder and publisher of Stonebridge, said the press will publish 50 books in 2007, up from 18 last year and will add several employees to its current staff of seven. The press is also planning to move its offices to a space shared with Cody's back-office staff of about 15. The bookstore will remain at its current location.
Goodman said the press will launch three new book lines. One series will be named after Cody's Bookstore and aimed at a “Berkeley, San Francisco sensibility”; it will include Street-Smart College Essays, an anthology of unusual admissions essays written by “kids with real-life urban experience,” said Goodman. The Origrafix line will be a series of books with colorful, preprinted tear-out origami art; it will launch with Origrafix Japan and Origrafix Fun. And the Shikosha Design series, aimed at working designers, will present full-color traditional Japanese textile patterns, supported by a Web site offering a combination of free downloadable patterns and other design material available for a fee.
The house is reorganizing its fiction list (formerly called Rock Springs) under the name Stonebridge Fiction. The Stonebridge Classics Line will also debut this year. It features repackaged 19th- and early—20th-century public domain titles on Japan that are popular in Asia; prices for the line's 20 paperback titles will range from $9.95 to $16.95. Stonebridge is also releasing its first book on China, China for Business Women, with two more books on China to follow this year. “The book tells what to do when everyone seems to be speaking only to your male assistant,” said Goodman.
Stonebridge's big book of the year will be The Astro Boy Essays, an examination of the life and work of the late manga and anime master Osamu Tezuka by manga and anime expert Frederik L. Schodt. The book will be published to coincide with “Tezuka: The Marvel of Manga,” an exhibition on Tezuka's manga legacy opening at San Francisco's Asian Art Museum in June. Stonebridge will also join publishers Viz, Vertical, Tokyopop and Dark Horse to supply manga titles to the exhibition's reading room, the Manga Lounge.
“We're committed to offering detailed information on Japanese culture,” said Goodman, “and we want to do the same things for China. The acquisition by Yohan has helped us in many ways. It's been a good relationship.”
