Trade Agency Announcement

New Delhi, July 9, 2018: HarperCollins India is delighted to announce the acquisition of exclusive representation rights for Oneworld, MMS and Bonnier Zaffre in India. This is an important acquisition for HarperCollins India.

Oneworld Publications was founded in 1986 as an independent publishing house focusing on high quality, accessible narrative non-fiction across a range of subjects from popular science and history to big ideas. This remains the heart of the company.

In the Autumn of 2009 a literary fiction list was launched and Oneworld has now won the prestigious Man Booker Prize For Fiction twice, with Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings in 2015 and Paul Beatty’s The Sellout in 2016. Oneworld places a strong emphasis on showcasing a rich diversity of voices and stories from around the world. And translated fiction now makes up around half the fiction list. In 2017 Samanta Schweblin’s Fever Dream was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize, as was Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad in 2018. Point Blank was set up as a literary crime/thriller list in 2015, and in 2016 Rock the Boat was launched for children and YA, encompassing picture books, early readers, Middle Grade and YA.

On the non-fiction side, Oneworld titles have received numerous prestigious prizes and nominations. In 2013 The Particle at the End of the Universe by Sean Carroll won the prestigious Royal Society Prize for Science Book of the Year, for which Mary Roach’s Gulp was also shortlisted the following year; Greg Grandin’s The Empire of Necessity was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, while Serhii Plokhy’s The Last Empire won the Pushkin House Russian Book Prize for 2015. In the same year, The Rise of the Robots by Martin Ford won the FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year.

Oneworld now publishes around 100 titles a year and was the winner of the British Book Industry Independent Publisher of the Year in 2016.

“We are delighted to be starting our partnership with the distinguished team at HarperCollins India. India is a significant market for Oneworld titles and one we hope we can expand with the help of the HarperCollins very impressive team.” Novin Doostdar, Founder, Oneworld

MMS (Macmillan Marketing Services) is an independent children’s publishing sales agency privately owned by Tricia and Andrew Macmillan.  MMS currently represents over 20 different publishers in the UK market with school and trade sales teams and is currently growing its list of agents and distributors around the world.

International Sales Director, Andrew Macmillan said, “HarperCollins India is a perfect partner for MMS to take its mix of non-fiction, reading schemes, fiction and picture book titles from our independent publishers into the Indian market.  After Tricia and my trip to New Delhi in January 2018, we’re very much looking forward to achieving great sales with this new working relationship.”

MMS believes that this new arrangement with HarperCollins India will take its publishers’ children’s books into a far greater marketplace. For further information on MMS, please email info@mms-publishing.com or view the website www.mms-publishing.com

The deal, which comes into force on September 1, covers Bonnier Zaffre’s adult imprints Zaffre and Twenty7 and its children’s imprints Hot Key Books and Piccadilly Press. HarperCollins India will be responsible for sales, marketing, publicity and distribution in the territory, replacing Bloomsbury India.

Julian Shaw, Group Commercial Director at Bonnier Publishing, said “Our business continues to grow across the globe and we are delighted to have reached agreement with HarperCollins India. Their track record in local sales and marketing is second to none and they are best placed to make a huge success of our growing commercial list, starting of course with new titles from our brand authors Wilbur Smith and Lynda La Plante (Zaffre). We would like to thank Bloomsbury India for their work over the past two years.”

About Bonnier Zaffre:
Bonnier Zaffre is a division of Bonnier Publishing which encompasses the children’s imprints Hot Key Books and Piccadilly Press and adult fiction imprints Zaffre and Twenty7. Bonnier Zaffre combines brand new voices with established storytellers to bring a broad spectrum of high quality and innovative fiction to all ages.

Zaffre was established in 2014 and publishes commercial fiction of all genres, taking established authors and providing dedicated care and attention to grow their audiences around the world.

Hot Key Books was formed in 2012 and quickly established itself for publishing genre-defying and critically acclaimed books including the Carnegie Medal winner MAGGOT MOON. They have published bestselling and award-winning authors such as Sally Gardner, Benjamin Zephaniah, Garth Nix, E. Lockhart, Dawn O’Porter, Maureen Johnson and Guillermo del Toro.

Piccadilly Press has been publishing for over 30 years, selling more than 6.5 million books. They have won a prestigious list of awards, including the IPG Children’s Publisher of the year. Piccadilly Press became part of Bonnier Publishing in 2012.

Twenty7 was also established in 2014, and focuses exclusively on debuts across all fiction categories from high-octane crime thrillers to the most heart-warming romances, finding innovative ways to launch new authors into the market. As their careers develop authors will move into the Zaffre list.

Bonnier Publishing
Bonnier Publishing is a major book publisher with group sales of £128m. Inspired by the aim to ‘publish for everyone,’ the group creates entertaining content across all genres, formats and price points. It is owned by Bonnier Books, a top 15 world publisher with global sales of £724m.

Speaking on the partnerships, Rahul Dixit, Sales Director, HarperCollins India, said: “We are thrilled to have these three distinguished publishers on board with us. Bonnier Zaffre, MMS & Oneworld are highly regarded publishing brands known for their range and depth of the list. HarperCollins is a growing force in Indian publishing and we are delighted to be representing these English-language publishers in the Indian Subcontinent. These lists fit in very well with our own publishing programme and we look forward to be working with them and taking those lovely books to the readers in India.”

Please send any enquires to Upasna Lal, HarperCollins India: Upasna.Lal@harpercollins.co.in