ORATIA MEDIA & BLOOMING TWIG BOOKS INK PUBLISHING & DISTRIBUTION DEAL

AUCKLAND & NEW YORK

23 APRIL 2010

INDEPENDENT PUBLISHERS Oratia Media Ltd of Auckland, New Zealand and Blooming Twig Books of New York, USA, today signed a cooperation agreement that will greatly expand their respective reach and publishing capacity.

With immediate effect, Oratia Media will represent titles from Blooming Twig Books in New Zealand, Australia and the South Pacific. Blooming Twig Books will represent titles from Oratia’s Libro International and Rock Your Life lists in the USA and Canada.

Both companies are to promote each other’s titles and will manage printing and distribution through print-on-demand and offset printing arrangements.

Oratia Media managing director Peter Dowling and Blooming Twig Books operating manager Kent Gustavson welcomed the announcement.

“Blooming Twig Books is an innovative young publisher that has many synergies with our publishing, with us both committed to children’s books, self-help and general non-fiction,” Dowling said.

“Having guaranteed North American distribution is a major plus for our authors and we look forward to working with Kent to maximise sales in bookstores as well as through Amazon and other online retailers, and to taking Blooming Twig Books’ titles to market Down Under.”

Gustavson anticipates great interest for the Oratia Media titles in the American market: “I am excited to have the chance to work with the diverse front and backlist that Oratia Media has to offer, and we are looking forward to reaching a new market in New Zealand and Australia.”

First releases in the Australasian market for Blooming Twig will be Dr John Molidor’s brilliant take on inter-generational mix-ups, Psycho Generations: How Each Generation Drives the Other Crazy and What You Can Do About It; and Jennifer Powers’ Oh Shift!, a hilarious guide to handling change in a rapidly changing world.

Blooming Twig will start with Libro International’s outrageous TV tie-in Outrageous Fortune: The West Family Guide and Tim Tipene’s classic junior novel Kura Toa, to be followed by the first two titles from the Rock Your Life series, Damian Milo’s Recession-Proof Your Life and Mike Handcock’s What if you were God?

ABOUT ORATIA MEDIA – www.oratiamedia.com • http:// librointernational.blogspot.com

Oratia Media is a publishing and communications services company with bases in Auckland, New Zealand and Brescia, Italy. Its book division, Libro International, publishes quality children’s, history, Maori studies, business and general nonfiction titles, and it is launching a comprehensive self-help series this year in association with Rock Your Life.

ABOUT BLOOMING TWIG BOOKS - www.bloomingtwigbooks.com • Blooming Twig Books is a publishing company located in New York, specialising in creative new titles in several genres, including motivation, business, psychology, children’s, history and general nonfiction.

For further information contact:

Kent Gustavson

Blooming Twig Books, PO Box 4668 #66675, New York, NY 10163-4668, USA

Tel: +1 866 389 4668 Email: kent@bloomingtwigbooks.com

Peter Dowling

Oratia Media, 783 West Coast Road, Oratia, Auckland 0604, NZ

& Via A. de Gasperi 2B, 25047 Darfo Boario (BS), Italy

Tel: +64 27 6148993 / +39 345 0936547 Email: peter@oratiamedia.com

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Not the London Book Fair

Europe is still reeling from the closure of airspace caused by the ash cloud from the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull. My heart goes out to the hundreds of thousands of travellers around the globe stranded by the suspension of flights.

In a sense it was fortunate not to be able to get off the ground in the first place. I was booked to fly to the UK on Saturday to attend this week’s London International Book Fair, but by that stage no flights were going anywhere in Europe, and the impact on the fair itself was evident. It’s been a quiet few days at the fair’s Earl’s Court venue.

Instead of face-to-face meetings, then, it’s back to emails and phone conferences – today several phone link-ups with people I would have met in London, talking rights and co-editions. Among the books we’re representing or publishing under Libro International, there is good interest in Marguerite Laing’s biography of the great psychologist R.D.Laing, Tim Tipene’s Warrior Kids manual, and Nick Theobald’s Instant! phrase book series (expanding to French, German, Italian and Spanish).

Like most publishers, it’s now about being thankful for technology and looking ahead. With a table in the book forum at next month’s Salone Internazionale del Libro in Turin next month we’ve got some good meetings planned, and then can think ahead to the major book fair of the year, Frankfurt, in October.

Cheers,

Peter

Not so bad to be on the ground when it’s a sunny day in the Val Camonica

From Silence to Voice in Turin

The impressive Mole Antonelliana, architectural symbol of Turin

I’ve just returned from an invigorating visit to Turin, where our author Paola Della Valle is based.

Paola finished her doctorate on the history of Maori literature at the Università degli Studi di Torino in 2007, and has now transformed that into a book for a school and university readership. Due out from Libro International in October, From Silence to Voice (ISBN 978-1-877514-11-1) will be the first book-length history to look at representations of Maori, and the emergence of Maori writers, in New Zealand.

Turin is a cultured city of porticoes, elegant cafés and bookstores. From 13–17 May it plays host to the annual Salone Internazionale del Libro di Torino (http://www.salonelibro.it/ ) – Italy’s largest book fair, open to both book professionals and the general public.

After this first taste of the city, we’ve committed to being back for the book fair. It will provide an unequalled opportunity to talk books with publishers, agents, booksellers and authors from all over Italy as well as international visitors (India is this year’s feature country).

So there’ll be more news from Turin next month.

Ciao

Peter

Author Paola Della Valle on home ground

Putting the Libro back into Europe

The view from our window, Boario Terme, Valcamonica

For the next four months Libro International is working from the beautiful Italian town of Darfo Boario, north-east of Milan.

Having a firm base in New Zealand, it’s now time to ground the other arm of our Kiwi-Italian company where it belongs. After all, our name comes from the Italian word for ‘book’.

For 2010 we have two firmed-up releases with a distinctive ‘Kiwitalian’ flavour – a pioneering history of Maori literature by Torino-based writer Paola della Valle, and a celebration of grappa being produced in collaboration with Distilleria Bottega, one of Italy’s greatest grappa distilleries.

We’ll be at the London Book Fair from 19–21 April, taking NZ and Italian authors to the world, and will work to build the Italian business once back in the beautiful Val Camonica.

Ciao

Peter & Alessandra

Italy mobiles:

Peter - 345 0936547

Alessandra - 345 0929872

Running man, rock drawing, Capo di Ponte, Valcamonica