Nosy Crow brings export in-house

Nosy Crow has created an in-house export sales department with Kate Fragkopoulou joining from Simon & Schuster UK as export sales manager.

The independent children’s publisher has outsourced its export selling to Gunnar Lie Associates, a sales and marketing service, since March 2015 but from November this year will operate a solely in-house export sales department headed by Catherine Stokes, head of sales and marketing. Kate Wilson, Nosy Crow’s m.d, said that this year was the right time to "extend our focus on world rights" following a spate of prizes won by the London Bridge-based publisher.

Fragkopoulou has already taken up her new post, after previously being UK and export senior sales executive at S&S UK, but Gunnar Lie Associates will continue to represent the Nosy Crow list until 26th October.

“2018 is a year in which Nosy Crow has won a Queen’s Award for Enterprise for International Trade, won the Independent Publishers Guild Award for International Achievement, and been listed in the Sunday Times Fast Track 100 for Export," Wilson said. "So it felt like the right time to extend our focus on world markets beyond co-edition and rights sales to the export of our own editions of our books.”

She added: “We already know our books work brilliantly in other languages throughout the world, and we’re confident that they’ll be embraced in English too.”

Stoke said: “This is the next strategic step in our export sales development and I am delighted to welcome Kate to our new expanded team.  I would also like to thank Gunnar Lie and Associates for all their hard work in growing the Nosy Crow list thus far.” 

Fragkopoulou revealed that she was “absolutely thrilled to be a part of such a wonderful team”.

“I am looking forward to meet the challenges ahead and hope that I can contribute in making Nosy Crow’s export sales department reach new heights,” she said.

A Gunnar Lie spokesperson said: “The team at Gunnar Lie Associates Ltd is proud to have substantially grown the export business of Nosy Crow over the last three years and wish Nosy Crow all the best in the next phase of their development.”

The announcement follows the news in April that Nosy Crow was closing its in-house app department and making three members of staff redundant. Wilson told The Bookseller that the apps cost a lot to make and the market for them had not developed "in the way that we would have liked".