Publishers Partner Across the Pond to Launch New Imprint: Soho Press’s Laura Hruska Talks About Her Company’s New Venture with British-based Constable & Robinson

Soho Constable, a new mystery imprint from Soho Press, will bring a line of British mysteries back into the hands of U.S. readers. The New York-based independent publisher is teaming up with Constable & Robinson, a British-based publisher who lost its previous U.S. partner when Carroll & Graf was purchased by Perseus Book Group last year. Soho will begin releasing Soho Constable titles in April.

Soho Press Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Laura Hruska spoke with Book Business Extra about the genesis of this new imprint, which will constitute about a third of the publisher’s titles this year.

Book Business Extra: How did you form this partnership with Constable & Robinson?
Hruska: … We were approached by [Constable & Robinson Chairman] Nick Robinson. … He approached me at BookExpo and said my company had been recommended as a possibly appropriate company to work with. We were thrilled to get the opportunity to co-publish these books. These are the types of books we’d like to originate ourselves. We’re really pleased to have our name connected with them.

Extra: What made Soho Press an appealing partner?
Hruska: When you’re an independent publisher, which we are and they are, you don’t want to be swallowed up by an enormous entity where you would get lost, and [you] don’t want someone so small that they don’t have the resources to publicize your books.

Extra: What are the challenges facing smaller independent publishers, such as Soho Press, in the coming year?
Hruska: I think we all feel that books are not, unfortunately, as significant to people as they were 100 years ago. … At one time, the book was it. It was the only way to get a wider experience than what you saw in your daily life. We’re [now] in competition with other diversions that offer that experience. On the other hand, there is a hardcore, devoted group of people who want that reading experience, and it cannot be substituted by any of these other diversions. The hardest and the saddest thing is that there are people who don’t make that leap to read for pleasure. … We’re in the business of providing books. We hope it will always be out there. I don’t think there is a huge, mass audience [for Soho Press titles]. I don’t expect to sell millions of copies of a title. We hope to sell a few thousand.