How to build a publisher

Former Booktruster Meg Farr returns to tell us about the birth of Hot Key Books - an exciting new children's publishing house, which launches its first titles this month

When an old friend and colleague first told me that Sarah Odedina was starting a new children’s publishing house called Hot Key Books under the Bonnier Publishing umbrella and would be looking for a PR Manager, I just looked politely interested. I had long left the world of publishing and PR to work for Booktrust, where I had worked as an events coordinator and web editor, learning about the mysteries of local government, literacy, social media and websites. I’d learnt how to write reviews and blogs, how to edit for the web, and how to deal with the receiving end of persuasive PRs.

But when Sarah said they were still looking after Christmas, I decided to investigate. Who exactly were Bonnier Publishing and Hot Key Books and who was this mysterious Sarah Odedina who had started it up? And the more I looked the more excited I became.

Bonnier was a huge Swedish-owned publishing house – the ‘Penguin of north Europe’ – with ambitions to become the sixth largest children’s publisher in the UK. They already owned Templar Publishing, Autumn Publishing, Five Mile Press, Piccolia and Weldon Owen … Hot Key Books was going to be in very good company.

And Sarah Odedina was one of the brightest minds in children’s publishing. She had headed up the children’s division of Bloomsbury for 15 years, publishing JK Rowling, Louis Sacher and Neil Gaiman and many more incredible authors. She had already created an impressive management team around her at Hot Key Books bringing in Publisher Emily Thomas and Editorial Director Sara O’Connor from Hodder, Sales and Marketing Director Kate Manning from Harper Collins and Rights Director Ruth Logan from Bloomsbury. The Art Director Jet Purdie had come from a background in film and publishing, the Production Director Dominic Saraceno and Finance Director Jon Pedoni already long-standing staff members at Bonnier Publishing . All extremely talented, knowledgeable and creative professionals. This was a very serious business – they really knew what they were doing!

A chat with Sarah Odedina convinced me that Hot Key Books was going to be an incredibly exciting place to be. The vision was to create a boutique publisher of fiction for 9-19 year-olds, publishing a maximum of four books a month so that every book would be given complete attention in all aspects of its creation, from the editing process, cover design and production through to the sales, marketing, PR and rights.

The books were to be refreshingly different – the editors looking for great stories, not following trends … with something for everyone.

By the time I joined at the beginning of March, Sarah Odedina, Emily Thomas and Sara O’Connor had already acquired the nine launch titles. An eclectic list of debut and established authors including Sally Gardner and Alex Shearer, with stories about 17th century dwarves, reimagined terrifying regimes from the 1950s, future worlds made up of floating islands, teens controlling warring robots and political romances set in the Spanish Civil War. There was something for everyone.

There were also many amazing books already acquired for 2013 from authors including Dawn Porter, Ellen Renner and Matt Whyman. With 35 books already acquired, 2013 looked set to be a very exciting year with many more fantastic stories to look forward to.

It takes a lot to move jobs in these uncertain times, but the lure of Hot Key Books was irresistible – a brand new company with fantastic authors and books to be promoted with lots of anticipation of what was coming next.

So after a lot of hard work, a real team effort from everyone at Hot Key Books, the vision is becoming a reality with our first two books publishing this month – Angel Dust by Sarah Mussi, a twist on the paranormal romance, and Insignia by SJ Kincaid, the start of an exhilarating sci-fi trilogy. We are already getting that thrill of seeing books in the shops and reviews appearing in the papers and blogs.

This month also sees the launch of our new website, our iBook sampler and our first enhanced iBook, Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner.

We have charted every step of our publishing journey on our blog, from finding the office, hiring the staff, acquiring the authors and books to our launch day and you can keep up to date with our progress on Twitter and Facebook. I hope you will enjoy being part of this publishing adventure.