--- Press release ---
11th May 2006
Snowbooks wins Small Publisher of the Year 2006
Three year old indie book publisher wins prestigious Book Trade Award; shares honour with Profile
Snowbooks, an independent publisher of fiction and non-fiction which has been trading for just two years has won the prestigious Small Publisher of the Year Award 2006 at the British Book Trade Awards. For the first time, this year the award was shared between two publishers, Snowbooks and Profile, publisher of Eats, Shoots and Leaves. The winners were announced at a glittering ceremony in Bournemouth this week at an event which has become the highlight of the publishing calendar. The report in Publishing News magazine, the organisers of the Awards, reads:
“Profile Books - a key member of the Faber-led Alliance sales and marketing initiative - was named joint winner of the Lightning Source Small Publisher of the Year. The company previously outright won in 2004 but this year shared the laurels with Snowbooks, a company founded just three years ago by Emma Barnes, whose involvement could be said to define the term 'hands-on'.”
Snowbooks’ alternative structure* and approach**, and the success these have brought, has made it stand out from its peers. Receiving the award Snowbooks’ m.d. Emma Barnes said “This award is a testament to the openness and approachability of UK book retailers whose support and willingness to take a chance on a tiny but innovative publisher has got us so far so quickly.”
Snowbooks publishes trade fiction and non fiction. Forthcoming summer paperback highlights include Ex Machina, the sequel to the bestselling Adept by Robert Finn and Plotting for Beginners by Sue Hepworth and Jane Linfoot.
For more press information, images, review copies of our books or interviews please contact:
Emma Barnes, Managing Director, Snowbooks
0207 837 6482
0790 406 2414
emma@snowbooks.com
www.snowbooks.com
Notes to editors:
Established in March 2003; started trading in July 2004; four full time staff; based in King’s Cross, London.
* We set out to be happy and proud, and these values define and permeate everything we do. It makes decision making very easy: we measure the problem and our solution against these values and the decision is made for us. (Financial success comes under ‘happy’!) An example of how these values manifest themselves is our structure. We have a project manager approach, whereby each of our three publishers buys a manuscript then does everything to do with it, from cover design and typesetting to editing and marketing. Moreover, we don’t outsource, so the person actually creating the cover is the one responsible for sales - an approach that produces a focused ‘package’.
** One of the most striking things about Snowbooks is that we are competing head on with the major publishing corporations and are widely considered to be doing as good as, if not a better, job than them. Our covers have received universal applause. Our customers tell us that our books have a higher sales rate on promotion than larger companies, and that we are more consistent: the majority of our books sell well. Where we have seen reviews, our books’ writing has been applauded as you can see from the quotes below. In short, we are competing for the general fiction and non-fiction reader - the readers who enjoy browsing the 3 for 2 tables - and winning. It is a high risk, but also high reward, strategy.
This year our forward publishing programme includes Ex Machina, the sequel to our bestselling Adept (which has sold 40000 copies and rights to more than 15 countries) by Robert Finn; The Death Artist by Jonathan Santlofer; Plotting for Beginners by Sue Hepworth and Jane Linfoot (a Bridget Jones for the over-50s) and Mama Lama Ding Dong by Ayun Halliday (a real life Bad Mother’s Handbook).
About Snowbooks:
Interesting facts:
Adept spent a year topping The Bookseller Small Publishers’ Fiction Chart, where Longing, The Other Eden & City of the Sun also featured.
We have sold foreign rights to Adept to more than 15 countries.
We have sold 83000 units to date and turned over more than £250,000
We have discovered and established seven new authors and introduced eight US authors to the UK
We are only the 49th publisher in the UK to become ONIX compliant (i.e. to provide bibliographic data to our partners in an acceptable electronic format)
Despite being told ‘it couldn’t be done’, we have, within two years, established a vibrant, efficient, successful publisher which takes pride in its books and ways of working and helps wonderful writing from new authors to reach readers.
Some reviews of our books:
“Hunter S. Thompson in a miniskirt” Wired magazine on Drugs are Nice
“A dip into the edgier waters of literature” The Guardian on The Edgier Waters
“One of my favourite new characters by one of my favourite new writers” Lee Child on Angel Fire
“Essential reading for all urban mothers” Library Journal on Mama Lama Ding Dong
“Charming, intelligent and side-splittingly funny” Lynne Barrett-Lee on Plotting for Beginners
“Pleasingly nasty” Washington Post on The Death Artist
Ends