NOTE: Thiis article is reprinted with kind permission from Bookseller+Publisher, where it orginally appeared.
Bloomsbury Publishing will launch a new literary imprint called Bloomsbury Circus in Australia and New Zealand this year.
Bloomsbury Australia managing director Kathleen Farrar told the Weekly Book Newsletter that the publisher is 'delighted' to be launching the imprint locally, as well as in the US and the UK.
Farrar said that Bloomsbury Circus will launch locally with a new novel from New Zealand writer Emily Perkins called The Forrests in May. The publisher likened Perkins' novel to The Waves by Virginia Woolf in a statement this week, as the novel 'chronicles a life from cradle to grave'. The Forrests will be published under the new imprint internationally, although the UK list will be launched with The Trapeze Artist by Will Davis, 'a dazzling novel of circus life and gay love', which will be available locally in June.
Farrar said Bloomsbury Circus in the UK will also publish That Deadman Dance by Australian writer Kim Scott later this year. Picador holds the Australian and New Zealand rights to Scott's novel.
Bloomsbury said that the new imprint will publish 'mostly fiction' titles and expects to publish nine titles in its first year, with the list growing to up to four new titles per month after the first 12 months. 'Bloomsbury Circus books will be published as unusually-sized trade paperbacks with photographic covers, wide flaps and colour printing inside the cover,' said the publisher. 'They will have all the beauty of a hardback with the ease-of-read--and price--of a trade paperback.'
Farrar said Bloomsbury Circus titles 'are designed in this digital age to remind us that the book is still a covetable object' and will be priced in Australia at $29.99. 'We wanted to keep the price under $30 whilst still keeping the beautiful packaging,' she said.