MILD Group launches new publishing venture: The Indigo Press ltd
The MILD group CEO Susie Nicklin has today announced the launch of a new publishing house - The Indigo Press - as the latest addition to a portfolio of book businesses, which includes long-established international rights specialists The Marsh Agency, award-winning independent bookshop Dulwich Books, and a successful live events series, including two annual literary festivals.
Appointed as Publishing Director is Ellah Wakatama Allfrey OBE, former senior editor at Jonathan Cape and former deputy editor of Granta magazine, who will lead commissioning. The Indigo Press will publish fiction and creative non-fiction to bring together a conversation-starting curation of books offering bold ideas and beautifully-crafted stories. It will be open to writing from around the world and literature that explores radical thinking and literary innovation in both form and approach.
Commenting on this latest venture, Nicklin said:
“Over the past twenty-four months the MILD team has expanded our foreign rights client base and increased retail sales revenue and expertise in the shop. We have also curated and produced four literary festivals and numerous events across a wide range of venues in which we have seen a renewed interest in printed books focussing on universal stories, on politics, and on the environment. I am convinced by these commercial and artistic successes that there is space for a new, independent publishing house that will explore the best in international contemporary thought, across all genres.”
Speaking of her ambitions for The Indigo Press, Allfrey commented:
“Indigo, the fabric and the dye, with its world-altering, continent-crossing history, is the inspiration for a press that seeks to be at the forefront of innovative publishing which reflects and creates culture. Writing that is brave, bold and beautiful from the best of today’s minds and tackling the most urgent issues – inspired by the belief that our readers want their reading adventure to be global as well as local.”
Headquartered at the legendary John Murray building in Albemarle Street, London, The Indigo Press will be supported by a freelance production and design team, with Michael Salu as Art Director. A sales and marketing manager is under recruitment. It will benefit from the foreign rights expertise of The Marsh Agency, headed by Camilla Ferrier, from the Dulwich Books team headed by Cathy Slater (herself a former sales rep) to advise on retail, from the LiveLit manager Harry Coath to programme and promote authors’ events, and from a formidable, well-established group of colleagues and consultants handling functions including PR and social media, contracts, accounts, and IT/web development. The first titles will be published in 2018.
ABOUT SUSIE NICKLIN
Susie, CEO of the MILD group, began her career at The Bodley Head publishers and co-founded The Marsh Agency, before becoming Director of English PEN and subsequently Director of Literature at the British Council. She rejoined The Marsh Agency in 2014 and acquired Dulwich Books Ltd in 2015. Tweet her @SusieLiterature
ABOUT ELLAH WAKATAMA ALLFREY OBE
Ellah is a former senior editor at Jonathan Cape, Random House and former deputy editor at Granta magazine. She has commissioned stories for BBC Radio 4 and has written for publications including The Daily Telegraph, the Guardian and The Spectator, as well as reviewing and presenting for BBC Radio 4 and NPR.
She has a served as a judge on a number of prestigious literary prizes including the Man Booker, Dublin International Literary Award, Commonwealth Short Story Prize and The David Cohen Prize. She currently sits on the Advisory Council of Art for Amnesty and the advisory board of the Johannesburg Review of Books. She is a trustee of the Caine Prize for African Writing, the Jalada Collective (Kenya) and Writers’ Centre Norwich. Tweet her @epwa66
ABOUT THE MILD GROUP
The Group’s name is an acronym of the first letters of the four organisations: The Marsh Agency, established in 1994, The Indigo Press, inaugurated in 2017, Livelit, established in 2016 and Dulwich Books, established in 1982. They are four separate entities working together to harness the talents of the team.
Tweet the teams: @TheMarshAgency | @DulwichBooks | @dulwichlitfest | @balhamlitfest
