The Bookseller – News – Ebury partners with Steven Bartlett on new imprint, Flight Books, to ’empower extraordinary voices’

Ebury is partnering with entrepreneur and author Steven Bartlett on a new imprint, Flight Books, dedicated to “empowering extraordinary voices on a global scale” using an “AI-powered, data-first, growth-focused” strategy. 

A collaboration between Ebury and Bartlett’s Flight Group, a media, marketing and investment company, Flight Books will continue Bartlett’s strategic ventures into publishing. It follows the success of his own two books, recent bestseller The Diary Of A CEO (Ebury, 2023) and Happy Sexy Millionaire (Yellow Kite, 2021), and the WHSmith “Steven Bartlett Recommends” partnership.  

Joel Rickett, managing director of Ebury and Quadrille, negotiated the deal with Bartlett’s literary agent Adrian Sington at Kruger Cowne.  

The imprint will publish books from various guests on Bartlett’s “The Diary Of A CEO”, Apple’s number one UK podcast of 2023. It will launch with the memoir of recent guest and athlete Russ Cook, whose ultra-marathon raised over £1m for charity. Hardest Geezer: Becoming the First Person to Run the Entire Length of Africa will be published on 24th October 2024. 

Next will be the debut from Codie Sanchez, founder and chief executive of financial advice enterprise Contrarian Thinking. Main Street Millionaire: How to Make Extraordinary Wealth Buying Ordinary Businesses is scheduled for 5th December 2024.  

Additional imprint authors include Dr Tara Swart, a managing director, neuroscientist, author of The Source and guest on the most-listened-to episode of “The Diary Of A CEO”, and Kristen Holmes, global head of human performance and principal scientist at health tracker brand WHOOP. 

Flight has also acquired the next two books from relationships expert, TV presenter and author Paul C Brunson, with the first, Keep Love, scheduled for February 2025.  

Bartlett said: “This new imprint, Flight Books, is dedicated to empowering extraordinary voices on a global scale. We want to leverage our experience in compelling storytelling to create a global platform for groundbreaking narratives and inspirational stories.  

“Our authors and their impactful tales have the power to inspire, educate, and ultimately, shape a better tomorrow. With our AI-powered, data-first, growth-focused strategy together with cutting edge social media marketing, data-science and testing capability, we will enable great authors and their books to get the credit and reach they deserve.”  

Rickett said: “Steven is the ultimate connector and talent-spotter, and we’re loving the way he’s discovering potential authors to build the list. The opportunity is to approach the whole publishing journey in a fresh way, working with Steven and his Flight team to use data and insight to help shape the books, and then find untapped audiences for them. We can’t wait to see where this Flight story takes us all.”