Completing the rebranding of its Harlequin publishing subsidiaries in Europe, HarperCollins has created HarperCollins France, consisting mainly of Harlequin SA, which has operated for 30 years and was a joint venture between Harlequin and Hachette Livre. Now fully owned by HarperCollins, the business will continue to publish romance under the Harlequin imprint as well as expand its commercial trade publishing with titles from HarperCollins and local authors.
"Hachette has been a fabulous partner for many years and we look forward to a great ongoing partnership for distribution and sales as we move forward with an expanded list in the coming months," said Brian Murray, president and CEO of HarperCollins. "There is a long and successful history of publishing in France and we look forward to growing the program further and providing our authors with a global, multi-language publishing platform."
Emmanuelle Bucco-Cancès, managing director of the former Harlequin SA, who is becoming managing director of HarperCollins France, said, "We are thrilled to become HarperCollins France and expand our publishing program in mainstream fiction under the HarperCollins imprint. We will leverage our strong experience in publishing and our commercial strengths to develop HarperCollins authors locally, while continuing to grow our position in romance under the Harlequin imprint."
The move follows similar HarperCollins efforts, after its purchase of Harlequin two years ago, to consolidate and build foreign-language publishing in Germany, Poland, the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Brazil and Japan.
