The former head of Amazon Publishing’s UK crime and thriller imprint Thomas & Mercer has joined Bonnier Books to set up a new digital-first genre publisher.
Jane Snelgrove will be the publishing director of the new UK imprint, to be called Embla Books. The imprint will focus on publishing high-quality commercial genre fiction.
During her four years at Thomas & Mercer, Snelgrove signed and published best-selling authors, including Teresa Driscoll, with more than a million copies sold of her crime debut I Am Watching You, and T E Kinsey, with a million-selling historical mystery series. She had previously been head of content for Amazon Music and set up an editorial business in 2019.
Emilie Marneur, Digital and Business Development Director at Bonnier Books UK, says: ‘Jane is a seasoned editor, with great strategic thinking and commercial nous, and an incredible eye for spotting talent. She was instrumental in shaping the Thomas & Mercer UK list. She has demonstrated exceptional editorial and publishing vision time and time again, has a knack for discovering amazing writers and working with them to create long-term bestsellers.’
Jane Snelgrove said: ‘I am beyond delighted at the chance to launch a digital-first imprint at Bonnier Books UK — the opportunity I feel I have been working towards since my years at Amazon Publishing, and in my editorial business. I have high hopes for the imprint, which I am confident will become a home for top authors in commercial genre fiction, both well established and new voices.’
The new imprint is named after one of the first humans in Norse mythology, Embla, who was said to have been crafted by the gods from a tree trunk.
An internet search for Embla Books at present, however, brings up mainly entries for Helene Tursten’s Detective Inspector Embla Nystrom Swedish mystery series published by Bonnier rival Penguin Random House.
Scandinavian-based Bonnier set up Type & Tell in 2017 as an ebook distributor offering ‘100% royalties’ to self-publishing authors but shut the business down after just eight months.
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