The Bookseller - Features - Orbit reaches for the stars

There is probably no better way to ring in a 50th anniversary than how Orbit is poised to do it: with a record-breaking year, and that stacked on top of a run of best ever results.

Little, Brown's dedicated Science Fiction and Fantasy (SFF) imprint has had 52% growth in revenue since 2019, with last year up 8.5% versus 2022, and 2024 already "definitely set to beat" 2023's sales, publisher Anna Jackson tells me as we talk in Orbit's offices. A number of factors are contributing: some acquisition and publishing schedule serendipity, a booming SFF market - but perhaps the main ingredient is the work put in by the small but mighty team, which has expanded under Jackson's leadership.

Jackson succeeded Tim Holman as publisher in 2020 and has spent her entire publishing career at Orbit, first joining as an editorial assistant in 2008. Holman, also an Orbit-lifer who started as Orbit's editorial assistant in 1991, now oversees the US arm after 13 years leading the combined Orbit UK and US businesses, following the American imprint's launch in 2007.