On the Farm With Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square Books is a unique operation. Founded in 1973 by Caroline and Ted Robbins, the distributor and publisher is located in rural Pomfret, Vermont, on a working farm complete with Thoroughbreds, shaggy prize-winning cows, ducks, and geese. Trafalgar distributes nearly all of the major U.K. divisions of American publishers, including Random House, Simon & Schuster, and Time Warner, along with many medium-sized and smaller independent British presses. Trafalgar Square Publishing offers equestrian and craft titles. A Book Sense Publisher Partner since the program's beginning, Trafalgar Square recently signed on to the BookSense.com Co-op Reimbursement Program.

Caroline Robbins, the company's co-owner, president, and publisher, who is originally from England, moved from Manhattan in the late 1960s to the farm in Pomfret. In 1973 Robbins was approached by publisher David & Charles to distribute an obscure title on the British Railways. She agreed, and Trafalgar Square Books was launched. By the mid-80s, Trafalgar Square was carrying 50 British publishers, including all the major houses except Penguin. Currently, Trafalgar's staff of approximately 30 handles 13,500 titles that span a range of subjects, including film, travel, bridge, fiction, classics, and mysteries.

Deborah Sloan, director of marketing and promotion, said that Trafalgar's catholic subject coverage is part of its appeal. "What's so interesting about Trafalgar is we distribute such a wide range of publishers that we get a very diverse list." A hot title right now, Sloan said, is Four Inches, a photography collection of 44 women -- including Kate Moss, Iman, Veronica Webb, and Elle MacPherson -- wearing little more than four-inch Jimmy Choos. All proceeds support the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

During the mid-1980s, Trafalgar Square expanded into publishing with its first title, Centered Riding, the top-selling equestrian title of all time, according to Trafalgar managing director Paul Feldstein, whose office window happens to overlook a riding ring. Branching into publishing, and publishing an equestrian line in particular, was a natural development for Robbins, a horsewoman who hails from a publishing family. Her father, Clarence Paget, founded Pan Books, the original publisher of the James Herriot novels. Trafalgar Publishing continues to focus on horse books, including titles from equestrians Monty Roberts and Sally Swift, while also publishing co-editions on gardening, knitting, and, occasionally, photography.

Trafalgar Square was one of the first distributors to join the Book Sense Publisher Partner Program, said Sloan. "We participate in many of the Book Sense programs -- Advance Access, White Box mailings, everything that comes under the Book Sense umbrella." Sloan said that although Trafalgar could send out advance reading copies on its own, the company prefers partnering with Book Sense to facilitate bookseller communication. "We get great, solid feedback from the mailings," she said. "We hear from booksellers about what works, and what doesn't. It's a great way for us to find out how things are selling."

Trafalgar recently began participating in the BookSense.com Co-op Reimbursement Program, which streamlines the process for booksellers to collect co-op from publishers. It is currently offering $50 in newsletter co-op to booksellers who purchase a minimum of five units of Four Inches, and/or The Asti Spumante Code, a Da Vinci Code parody.

Trafalgar has "no grand expansion plans," said Feldstein. "We've always had a slow steady growth, and right now we feel we have the right number and right mix of clients. We don't plan to take on any U.S. clients. We focus on the U.K., and we believe this allows us to better understand the market, in terms of importing U.K. books, so we can best advise our publishers about what works here and what doesn't. We have our niche, and our ultimate goal is to make U.K. books as acceptable in the U.S. as U.S. books are." --Karen Schechner