Spanton joins Unbound as it moves into genre publishing

Former Gollancz associate publisher Simon Spanton is joining crowd-funding company Unbound as it moves into genre publishing.

Spanton's brief is to develop a science fiction and genre list for the publisher, which has also hired three part time editors to work across music titles, illustrated books and graphic novels.

The crowd-funding platform also is recruiting a further three editors as it continues to expand.

Spanton left Orion, where he was associate publisher of its science fiction arm Gollancz, in November 2015 after 19 years "by mutual agreement". He will now work full time for Unbound from Edinburgh.

Spanton said: “I am really looking forward to giving readers new and exciting books from the authors they love. This is such an exciting new direction for my career and I couldn’t be more thrilled to be joining the Unbound team.”

John Mitchinson, co-founder and publisher of Unbound added: “We are always looking for opportunities to build books around strong communities. Genre publishing is unique in that the connections between its readers and authors are very close – this makes it ideal for us. I have known and admired Simon for a long time and am very happy that we are bringing him into the Unbound fold at such an exciting point in our development.”

The three part-time editors Unbound has hired are: Charlie Mounter, previously a freelance editor for publishers including Thames and Hudson and Little, Brown, will be specialising in illustrated books, Mark Brend, who previously worked for Foruli and Jawbone Press and will be working on music books and Lizzie Kaye, previously at Titan, will be developing a graphic novel list.

Unbound is also hiring three more editors.

Spanton can be reached on simon@unbound.com.