Morrison teams up with Xou Creative to launch digital publishing business

24 July 2012 Books+Publishing

Former Picador publisher Rod Morrison has founded a digital publishing business with David Henley and Jon MacDonald from Sydney-based design business Xou Creative.

Morrison, who left Picador in 2011, told Bookseller+Publisher that Xoum was established in October 2011. The company’s first publication, the first issue of On Magazine titled ‘Pigeons’, was published in May this year.

Morrison said that Xoum will publish between 30 and 50 titles per year and the list will include commercial fiction, nonfiction and narrative-based and illustrated children’s books. The company will also produce some apps and games.

Xoum is a wholly owned subsidiary of Xou Creative, which offers a range of design services including book design, publishing and marketing. Xoum employs four full-time staff, one part-time staff member and one casual employee.

Morrison described Xoum as a ‘digital-first publisher’ with ‘secondary’ print-on-demand and offset printing capacity. Xoum titles are currently available through Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and a range of other channels through ebook distributor OverDrive.

‘Digital publishing is the most invigorating thing to happen to the written word in six hundred years,’ said Morrison of his decision to pursue this part of the industry. ‘David Henley and Jon MacDonald have been pioneering digital workflows and industry best practice for almost a decade and they presented me with an opportunity to collaborate on something that redraws the publishing map in profound and equitable ways.’

Morrison described digital publishing as ‘immediate, global and democratic’. ‘It puts readers and authors front and centre and does away with many arcane publishing practices,’ he said.

For more information about Xoum, visit the company website here.

Category: Local news