11 July 2013

We’re new – but we’ve been around for a while! For nearly twelve years DFB has been run as an imprint – first as part of Scholastic, then of Random House. Since the summer of 2013 we’ve been set up as an independent business – joining our separate but sister company, which publishes the new children’s comic The Phoenix, to form a DFB Storyhouse. Exciting times!

We published our first titles as an independent company in the summer of 2014. We’ll let you know all about our new and exciting developments with announcements and information posted here and elsewhere. It’s the beginning, as I think someone once said, of a great adventure . . .

On this site – still developing – you’ll find information about all sorts of things, including some of the wonderful authors DFB has been associated with in the past. Although their books are published elsewhere we love to celebrate them here. You might be wondering why DFB has gone independent at all. Here are five reasons.

Freedom

Independence will give us the autonomy to follow our instincts and back our own judgments.

Flexibility

We’ll be able to act more quickly – to come to an immediate understanding with an author, or to get a bid in to an agent, or to react at once to developments in the market or a changes in technology.

This is really important. We think that our link with our authors will be closer and stronger. We value this relationship above all others. It’s the source of creative energy in a publishing house.

Attention to Sales

We want to give close, vigorous and thoughtful attention to every single book we publish to ensure that they all reach as many readers as possible, in the most compelling formats.

New Technologies

In a fast-changing digital world, we don't pretend to know all the answers. But we think that a small, nimble publisher unencumbered by weighty overheads and protocols is well-placed to take quick decisions, to spot new ways of publishing, to get something new off the ground.

David Fickling by Chris Riddell