News 1 June 2006

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New Acquisition :

Mainstream is delighted to have acquired the rights to WHITE CARGO, America's Forgotten Slaves by Don Jordan and Michael Walsh. It is the forgotten story of the thousands of white slaves who lived and died in bondage in Britain's American colonies. Drawing on letters crying for help, diaries, court and government archives, Jordan and Walsh demonstrate that the brutalities usually associated with black slavery alone were perpetrated on whites throughout British rule. Some of the greatest figures of the time were directly or indirectly involved, including four of America's founding fathers and four British monarchs. Jordan and Walsh have an impressive pedigree. Walsh spent twelve years as an investigative reporter / presenter on the hard hitting TV programme World in Action and has won half a dozen national and international awards. Jordan has produced and directed numerous documentaries and dramas including co-producing and co-writing the feature film 'Love is the Devil' about painter, Francis Bacon. Mainstream will publish in Spring 2007 ahead of the 400th Anniversary of the founding of Virginia in May 2007. Bill Campbell bought world rights from Charlie Viney at Mulcahy & Viney. For further information contact fiona.brownlee@mainstreampublishing.com

Bestseller List:

We were thrilled to see that DON'T EVER TELL by Kathy O'Beirne which went straight in at No.5 on the non-fiction bestseller list is now up to No.2! It had been a success when it was published in trade paperback as KATHY'S STORY last year but with the backing of a national ad-shel campaign and fantastic PR coverage including extracts in The MIirro, interviews in Now and Good Housekeeping and reviews in numerous weekly mags the A-format paperback has stormed on to the bestseller lists.

Rights Deals:

Our big books of 2006, THE DAN BROWN COMPANION and THE PALACE DIARIES continue to sell well internationally. We recently confirmed sales of THE DAN BROWN COMPANION to de Boekerij in The Netherlands and to EST in Romania and THE PALACE DIARIES to Mondadori in Italy and Forum in Sweden. Further offers are on the table and a Dutch auction for THE PALACE DIARIES will close shortly.

Awards:

Wonderful news has just come in that UNDER AND ALONE by William Queen is one of six titles short-listed for THE CWA GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTON AWARD. The winner will be announced on 19 June.

Press:

Recent serialisations include the controversial MURDER IN SAMARKAND by former British Ambassador, Craig Murray in the MAIL ON SUNDAY and UK bestseller DON'T EVER TELL in The Mirror .

KITCHEN CON has been generating an enormous amount of interest with Arena, GQ and Observor Food Monthly all keen to feature the book and The Daily Mail and Sunday Telegraph interested in serialisation. BBC Radio Four's The Food Programme are keen to do an interview.

THE DAN BROWN COMPANION has been reviewed in The Finanacial Times

On 30 and 31 May, The Herald ran extracts from ANDY MURRAY: THE STORY SO FAR

Fred Eyre continues to attract press interest for his book. The Mirror photographed him in Borders in Manchester with the new books of Pele, Bobby Moore, Bryan Robson, Jose Mourinho and Fred with his book, illustrating that not only the world's greatest players have books out, even the world's worst have them out as well!

TV and Radio:

Simon Cox, author of THE DAN BROWN COMPANION, has been on numerous TV and radio shows surrounding the release of the film of THE DA VINCI CODE.

Charlie Cooke, former Chelsea and Scotland star, who has his autobiography coming out with Mainstream in October was seen by millions of television viewers recently when he was asked to carry the Premiership Trophy on to the pitch at Stamford Bridge. Earlier in the week Charlie had been on Sky News discussing why he believes that the USA can win this summer's World Cup and revealed he has had a five figure bet on that outcome!

Billy Kay's Radio Scotland series, The Scottish World, exploring major Scottish contributions to diverse parts of Europe, Africa and the Americas will be broadcast from 4 July - 8 August on Tuesdays at 11.30 and Wednesdays at 00.30. It can also be accessed via the internet for a week after broadcast.

Events:

Magnus Magnusson, author of the forthcoming FAKES, FORGERS AND PHONEYS, will be opening the Winter Words literary festival at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre on 25 January at 7.30pm. Graham Forbes, author of ROCK AND ROLL MOUNTAINS, will also be appearing.

Tetu, the leading French gay magazine is doing an 8 page story on SATURDAY NIGHT FOREVER, THE STORY OF DISCO and to celebrate Jussi Kantonen will be doing an event at the famous Nouveau Casino club on Saturday 5 August. He will be spinning records with DJ Aicha and images from the book will be projected on to a cinema screen. If you are proposing to be in Paris at that time, do go along!

And Finally...

Rights Director, Fiona Brownlee, has just returned from an extremely successful trip to visit publishers in New York and BEA in Washington.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to see her there, particularly Marga de Boer from Sijthoff, Lisa Keim from Atria and Marisa Tonezzer from Vergara (pictured) who were such fun at the Warner party.