From the press release:
PAN MACMILLAN AUSTRALIA announced today the launch of MOMENTUM, its new digital-only imprint. Momentum will publish an exciting and vibrant list of new works from established and emerging authors, as well as partnering with agents and individual copyright holders to digitally republish titles that are currently unavailable in print. Publishing ebooks and utilising print-on-demand (POD) technology, Momentum aims to make new and old books more accessible than ever before.
Momentum will combine all the editorial expertise of a traditional publishing house with strong and highly focused marketing and promotion, at the same time embracing the international potential of the digital market by making its ebooks available globally.
The Momentum list will go live in February 2012, with new titles from John Birmingham (author of Without Warning, After America, and the forthcoming Angels of Vengeance), Andy Griffiths (The Just series, The Day My Bum Went Psycho, The Bad Book and the forthcoming The 13-Storey Tree House), Rusty Young (Marching Powder), novelist and academic Liz Byrski (Last Chance Café), as well as a new iOS app from baby whisperer Tizzie Hall (Save our Sleep).
Birmingham says, ‘This is so cool, so inevitably going to be awesome, that if Pan hadn’t gone there, I was totally gonna go all wildcat and do it myself. It means writers can experiment in ways that just aren’t possible when you’re betting the mortgage on a book that took four years to write. It’s almost an insurgent style of doing things that you wouldn’t expect to see from one of the older and most successful publishing houses. But because Pan are so long lived and successful they bring skills and possibilities to the process that garage-based publishing can’t match. This is the stuff the reader never sees, the editing, the production, the marketing. It feels like the future just caught up with us.’
Momentum will be run by Pan Macmillan director Tom Gilliatt and the list will be managed by publisher Joel Naoum.
Gilliatt says, ‘The growing Australian and global market for ebooks opens up major opportunities for publishers and authors. Momentum, with its digital-only focus, is a hugely exciting new venture that’s been created to capitalise on these opportunities. In Joel Naoum Momentum has a new generation of publisher – innovative in his publishing vision; a true native of the global digital age in his outlook; and a highly skilled and passionate advocate of traditional editorial values.’
Naoum says, ‘Digital publishing provides a highly accessible way for new and established authors to have their voices heard across the globe, to experiment with form and content and to communicate with readers in new and interesting ways. Although print books will continue to be a major part of the publishing industry for the foreseeable future, we are aiming to change the perception of digital as a purely secondary format. Momentum is committed to the highest quality of editing and production, global accessibility and to fostering a relationship with the readers and authors who make publishing books possible.’
What precisely is an “impring”?
A bookseller that charges twice as much as anywhere else in the world. 🙂