Kirschbaum and Yapp step up while Fishwick departs in Bloomsbury adult consumer restructure

Bloomsbury has restructured its adult consumer division, splitting it into three including a new General sub-division, with Alexis Kirschbaum and Rowan Yapp stepping up as Michael Fishwick departs.

The division will now be organised into a trio of new sub-divisions—Bloomsbury Trade, Bloomsbury Lifestyle and Bloomsbury General. The publisher said the move was part of "a significant investment programme, creating a number of new roles, enabling the company to publish more authors across a broader range of genres, with a focus on amplifying voices from a wide variety of backgrounds".

Former associate publisher Kirschbaum has been promoted head of Bloomsbury Trade, while illustrated publishing director Yapp steps up as head of Lifestyle to helm that division. A new appointment will be made to run the General division. The new structure comes into effect immediately, with all heads reporting to editor-in-chief Paul Baggaley. Bloomsbury will also be making additional appointments and promotions across editorial, sales, marketing and publicity. The new structure has resulted in publishing director Fishwick leaving the business after 16 years.

Ian Hudson, m.d. of Bloomsbury’s consumer division, said: “Our new adult strategy builds on Bloomsbury’s incredible heritage and current success and will see significant investment in our authors, people and new talent across the business. We will expand into new genre and launch new lists as we continue to champion new writing and develop our existing author brands.

“We are hugely grateful to Michael who has contributed enormously to the success of Bloomsbury over 16 years,” he added. "Michael has published bestselling and prize-winning historians including William Dalrymple, Peter Frankopan, Ben Macintyre, David Kynaston and Frank Dikötter, a broad range of writers across memoir, biography and the arts, and a select fiction list, including the Booker Prize-winning The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson. We would like to thank him for his many years of service and wish him well for the future.”

The adult consumer division’s publishing strategy will combine the development of existing lists and expansion into new categories.

Bloomsbury Trade will continue to publish literary fiction and non-fiction, texts on history, politics, science, ideas, psychology, nature writing, culture, memoir and poetry collections.

At Bloomsbury Lifestyle, the team will build on the cookery publishing list and the development of more illustrated non-fiction, including wellbeing and books for the gift market. 

Bloomsbury General will incorporate the prize-winning crime imprint Raven and will expand into new key areas of commercial fiction, genre fiction, including science-fiction and fantasy, and popular culture.

“It is a reflection of the talent we have that we can ask both Alexis and Rowan to lead two of our new divisions," Baggaley said. "Alexis Kirschbaum has built an award-winning and commercially successful list of authors, including Lisa Taddeo, Rutger Bregman, Kiley Reid and Patricia Lockwood. Rowan Yapp has integrated the Bloomsbury and Absolute Press cookery lists and overseen a strategic review of the rest of the illustrated list with an exciting list scheduled for 2022. I am looking forward to working with them to expand our portfolio and publishing incisive, challenging books that are essential reading for a wide range of audiences.”

In a trading update this week, Bloomsbury announced it expected revenue and profits for the 12 months to 28th February 2022 to be well ahead of previous expectations and its record results of the previous year, hitting £212.5m and £22.3m respectively.