Pan Mac lands two new business books

Pan Macmillan has snapped up rights to two new major business books, with plans to publish in 2021. 

Pan Macmillan non-fiction publisher Robin Harvie acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to Working Backwards…and Other Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon, by Colin Bryar and Bill Barr and The Character Edge: Winning the Right Way, co-authored by General Robert Caslen and Dr Michael Matthews from St Martin’s Press in the US. Both books are scheduled for publication by Pan Macmillan in Spring 2021. 

Working Backwards… will be the first trade book about Amazon written by two top-level, former Amazon executives. During their combined 27 years at Amazon, Bryar and Barr served on the “S-team”—the executive leadership team that met with Jeff Bezos every week, and were a part of the rollout for key ventures including Prime, AWS, Music, Video and Books, and Kindle. 

"Now they share what they consider the best practices and behind-the-scenes stories that will help readers create work environments as efficient and focused as Amazon’s," said Pan Macmillan. "Weaving together the principles, tools, and processes Amazon uses to make decisions, as well as sharing first-person, behind-closed-doors narratives, Working Backwards is the first insiders account of the meteoric rise of one of the biggest companies on earth."

The Character Edge, by retired three-star General and former Superintendent of the US Military at West Point Caslen and professor of engineering psychology and West Point Dr Matthews is a leadership book grounded in real-life experiences and empirical research.

Harvie said: "We expect these two brilliant new acquisitions to appeal to the market of readers – both in the UK and internationally – who read our books to help them get ahead and do their jobs better. They will join Pan Macmillan’s significant business list, developed since 2015, that appeals to both UK and international readers, particularly in South Africa, India and Australia markets where we have seen an exponential growth in appetite for bestselling business books such as Talk Like TED, Radical Candor and Range."