An Enlarged Orbit

The Hachette Book Group in the US -- the one we in publishing are still trying to remember not to call "Warner Books," even after about two years -- has announced a new division. The new Orbit division will be made up of the existing Orbit Science Fiction/Fantasy imprint, plus the Yen Press imprint for manga (and manwha, and other similar things).

To quote the press release:

Tim Holman, who relocated from London to New York in 2006 to help set up Orbit, has been appointed VP and Publisher of the new division, reporting to CEO and Chairman David Young. Reporting to Tim Holman will be Kurt Hassler, Publishing Director of Yen Press. Kurt will be assuming responsibilities previously shared with co-Publishing Director Rich Johnson, who will be leaving the company at the end of October. Alex Lencicki has been appointed Marketing and Publicity Director for the new division.

Congratulations to both Tim and Alex on their new roles -- I don't know Kurt, except by reputation, but it's an excellent reputation, so congrats to him as well. I'm sorry to hear about Rich Johnson leaving, but it always sounded odd that Yen had two co-equal heads; that kind of structure usually doesn't last for very long.

This isn't the first SFF imprint, and it's probably not the first such imprint to have other groups reporting into it -- but it may be the first division of a US publishing company to be named after its SFF line. (Can anyone think of an earlier example?)

And I hope this means that my friends at Yen and my friends at Orbit are already playing well together, to publish more swell books in their overlapping areas. Good luck to all of them...and keep me on your publicity lists!