Toby Jones joins Headline as editorial director

Toby Jones, formerly group marketing and publicity director at Simon & Schuster UK, is joining Headline's commercial fiction team next month as editorial director. 

Jones will start in his new role at Headline on 9th May, reporting to fiction publishing director Jennifer Doyle, where his initial focus will be on acquiring and publishing crime and thrillers.

Most recently at Simon & Schuster UK as group marketing and publicity director, Jones led the division responsible for promoting a wide range of bestsellers and critical hits, working with authors including Bruce Springsteen, Philippa Gregory, Lynda La Plante and Santa Montefiore. He left the publisher in January after 18 months in the role, saying at the time he was looking forward to his “next creative challenge”. His previous roles have involved high-profile creative projects with writers, musicians, actors and presenters at Penguin, Channel 4 and Fox.

Doyle said: "I couldn’t be happier to welcome Toby to the Headline commercial fiction team. Toby is incredibly talented, and combines a real passion for page-turning fiction with great commercial acumen. He brings with him a wealth of experience and expertise, and I can’t wait to see him bring those to bear at Headline."

Mari Evans, m.d. Headline Publishing Group, added: "I've been so impressed with Toby's publishing brain, he has a clear passion and instinct for identifying the elements that will set authors on the best path to a successful publication. His move into the fiction editorial team at Headline will bring a new dimension to the whole and I'm excited to watch him establish himself in this role."

Jones added: "I'm thrilled to be joining the talented team at Headline and being part of their exciting, ambitious vision for the business. I'm very much looking forward to working with a stellar list of authors and finding distinctive, captivating new voices."