Orion’s Merritt to join Ebury as senior commissioning editor

Ru Merritt is joining Ebury in the newly created role of senior commissioning editor, acquiring food and drink, lifestyle, wellbeing, gift and humour titles across Ebury Press, Happy Place Books and POP Press.

She joins on 28th March after four years at Orion, where she moved from editorial into commissioning across both Orion Spring for health and wellness, and Seven Dials for entertainment, food and drink, and true-life stories. She acquired and published Sunday Times bestseller You Deserve Better by Anne-Marie and Perfect Pasta at Home by Pasta Evangelists. 

As a member of Ebury’s lifestyle hub team, Merritt will work alongside publishing directors Lizzy Gray and Laura Higginson, commissioning editor Samantha Crisp, and editors Celia Palazzo and Emily Brickell.

Gray said of the appointment: "Ru has a wonderful reputation for acquiring and publishing successful lifestyle non-fiction, developing IP projects, and building trusted author and agent relationships. We are hugely excited about Ru joining our growing Lifestyle and Cookery team ensuring that we continue to broaden our publishing while also delivering superb quality and depth on the list."

Merritt added: "I’m immensely excited to be joining Ebury’s phenomenal team. Their publishing in the past couple of years alone has showcased how brilliantly they can bring an author’s words and vision to the page, and I can’t wait to start building my list with them.

"With Lifestyle’s generous commissioning remit, I’m really looking forward to finding fresh, creative and innovative voices across the category who I can put all my energy behind to help create the most impactful books possible."