I’m delighted
to welcome Oliver Rhodes in this year’s first post in our Chatting with
Publishers series. Oliver is the founder and managing director of Bookouture and
winner of our very own Publisher of the Year Award for 2016.
Starting one’s
own company is a huge venture. May I ask about your personal journey in
publishing and what decided you to establish Bookouture?
Prior to starting Bookouture
I was the head of marketing at Harlequin UK.
I’d worked in publishing for more than ten years and I was incredibly
excited about the opportunities for digital publishing.
I had a vision of an
author-centric digital publisher with a strong marketing focus and realised
that could be achieved just as effectively by a start-up as by a larger
organisation. It felt like a ‘now or
never’ moment and I decided to take the chance.
How long was
it in the planning stage before the company became established?
It was something that I’d
been planning for around a year before Bookouture officially started.
How do you
think the industry reacted to a new publishing company?
I’d say the initial reaction
was very positive – we had a very high standard of submissions from
authors. I was always aware though that it
was important for us to build on that initial interest and to establish a
reputation for successful publishing.
That doesn’t happen overnight, but with everything that we’ve achieved
in the last four years – and over 8 million sales – I think we’re getting
there.
The award must
surely be affirmation of your success. How did you feel when you learned you’d
won?
Absolutely. It was a wonderful surprise, and it was particularly
heartening to hear so many positive comments from authors in the room. My aim for Bookouture was for us to be a very
author-focused publisher, so it was really encouraging to hear that we’re heading
in the right direction.
What are you
looking for at present and what do you think is next for Bookouture?
We’re looking for authors
who create page-turning stories that will keep readers coming back for more –
whether that’s romance, women’s fiction, thrillers or historical novels – or
indeed any other fiction genre.
In terms of what is next for
Bookouture, we’re in the process of adding to our publishing team, which is
very exciting for us. Jenny Geras has
just joined us from Arrow, as Publishing Director, and we’re expecting to add
several new faces over the coming year.
Expanding the team will
allow us to increase the number of titles that we publish, so we’re also actively
looking for new authors right now.
You cover many
genres. Do you have a personal favourite?
I’ve always enjoyed working
on a broad range of genres – I think having variety across the list is very
important – I wouldn’t say I have a particular favourite.
You’ve built
quite a team. Should submissions be made to individuals or initially to the
company?
We ask authors to send
submissions through our website at: www.bookouture.com/submit
We have a new system which
makes it easy for us to share submissions internally and make sure they find
the best home. We’ve also improved our
turnaround time, so all submissions should receive a response within four
weeks.
What one
particular piece of advice would you give to anyone submitting a manuscript?
Really just to focus on the
quality of the story – that’s what we’ll be judging submissions on. I always say that there needs to be a clear
reason there that people will want to read the next book from the author.
Thank you for
joining us today, Oliver. It’s easy to see why you received the award for you ‘vision,
drive and passion’. It’s infectious.
If you would like to write for the RNA blog please
contact us on elaineeverest@aol.com
