Headline plans 'bumper year' for Neil Gaiman

Headline Publishing Group is planning a "bumper year" for Neil Gaiman with eight titles publishing in 2016, plus a live broadcast event scheduled in London for the publication of The View from the Cheap Seats.

The eight titles are: Neil Gaiman's Likely Stories (digital format, 26th May, £1.99), tying in with the Sky Arts series starring a host of British acting talent, including Tom Hughes and Johnny Vegas; a non-fiction title, The View from the Cheap Seats (31st May, £20 hardback); an adapted graphic novel for How to Talk to Girls at Parties (28th June, £12.99 hardback) with artwork by the Eisner Award-winning duo Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá; a new edition of Gaiman's first novel Neverwhere as illustrated by Children’s Laureate Chris Riddell (14th July, £14.99); and the American Gods collection (right), which includes two novels American Gods and Anansi Boys (3rd November, £20 in hardback) and two short stories Monarch of the Glen and Black Dog (3rd November, £18.99 in hardback), with each title illustrated by celebrated artist Daniel Egnéus.

The activity is part of Headline’s long-term strategy for Gaiman, with big campaigns planned across sales, publicity and marketing going forward into 2017. It comes ahead of the 2017 release of season one of the "American Gods" TV series from the producers behind "Heroes", "Hannibal" and "Smallville", and starring Ricky Whittle, Ian McShane and Emily Browning.

A film is also in the works for How to Talk to Girls at Parties, starring Nicole Kidman; and commitments by Gaiman to adapt Good Omens, his collaboration with longtime friend Terry Pratchett, for a six-part television series revealed at Sir Terry's memorial in April.

Jane Morpeth, chair of Headline, said: "Neil Gaiman is one of the brightest, most brilliant writers at work today. His career so far spans over thirty years of acclaimed, iconic and award-winning novels, stories, comics, scripts, articles, graphic novels and collaborations, to name but a few, and he is the recipient of numerous literary honours. This year at Headline truly is the ‘Year of Neil Gaiman’, with something for every kind of Gaiman fan and beyond – from illustrated classics to retelling short stories in new ways. As George R R Martin so aptly puts it, 'There’s no one quite like Neil Gaiman’."