Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group has bought the assets of Sundance/Newbridge Educational Publishing from Haight's Cross Communications. Sundance/Newbridge's president and CEO Paul Konowitch will remain with the company and manage it as a separate business at its offices in Northborough, Mass.
In a statement, Rowman & Littlefield president and CEO Jed Lyons said that "with over 2,400 titles, Sundance/Newbridge's highly respected imprints provide a terrific entry for us into the K-8 educational marketplace. Until now, we have focused on the academic and college markets. In addition, through our book distribution business, National Book Network, we believe there are many attractive NBN juvenile trade books that can be used to enhance the existing selection of trade books that Sundance distributes through its popular 'Sundance Picks' core classroom library collections."
Konowitch said that Rowman & Littlefield "intends to aggressively support the Sundance/Newbridge imprints by rebuilding and expanding the sales team with independent reps and actively promoting its large number of titles through catalogs, exhibits, direct mail and web activities. Sundance/Newbridge has a very strong backlist of titles and we plan to move forward and continue with the development of new products."
The company's national sales organization will continue to be run by John Atkocaitis, senior v-p of sales, from Rowman & Littlefield's Ivan R. Dee office in Chicago. Order fulfillment and customer service remain in the Northborough office.
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Random House South Africa and Struik Publishing have merged to create Random House Struik, which will be led by Stephen Johnson, formerly managing director of Random House South Africa, and be owned 50.1% by New Holland Publishing and 49.9% by Random House Group, London.
About half of Random House Struik's list will be local and include titles in Afrikaans and English. Founded 47 years ago, Struik publishes primarily nonfiction African titles under the Struik, Zebra Press and Oshun Books imprints. Random House South Africa's local imprint, Umuzi, founded three years on the company's 40th anniversary, will continue to publish fiction and nonfiction.
The companies said that the merger will provide "a stronger platform for the company to move into digital publishing and gain access to new audiences worldwide. Struik's well-established trading network also means the company is well placed to reach markets on the African continent."
International Publishers Marketing, which distributes Struik in the U.S. and Canada, will continue as the distributor for the merged company. IPM's Jean Westcott said, "We will be bringing on the combined list over the next few months."