A LITTLE ABOUT THE COMPANY Macmillan is known for its high-quality academic, scholarly, educational, fiction, non-fiction and reference publishing. In southern Africa its divisions include Macmillan South Africa, Lesotho , Swaziland , Botswana , Mozambique , Clever Books, Guidelines and Pan Macmillan. Visit www.macmillan.co.za for more information on the Macmillan Group. Macmillan is one of the world's best-known, privately owned, publishing groups. The principal shareholder is Verlagsgruppe Georg Von Holtzbrinck - Germany 's largest educational publishing house.
The company was founded by Daniel Macmillan who, together with his brother Alexander, published their first book in 1843.
Daniel's grandson, Harold Macmillan, joined in 1923 and contributed to the company's success over a period of more than 60 years. He was Prime Minister of the UK from 1956 to 1963.
Harold Macmillan's famous "winds of change" tour of Africa in the 1960s not only changed the political face of Africa, but also provided the grand old man of publishing an opportunity to expand the Macmillan publishing empire throughout the continent - from oil rich Nigeria to diamond rich South Africa .
Harold Macmillan's winds of change continued to blow throughout South Africa in the 1970s and Macmillan Boleswa emerged as a fresh breeze from the old, conservative style of southern African publishing - and soon became a potent educational publishing force in the region.
The winds of change altered the way in which Macmillan perceived its publishing objectives in southern Africa . Macmillan very quickly discarded the conventional view that the difficult South African market should be challenged head on, and the focus was changed to the BLSM countries (Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique), where few publishers ventured.
From a relatively small Swaziland base, unfettered by apartheid constraints, Boleswa grew rapidly and became the first affirmative action publishing company - long before it was fashionable. With strong editorial and production support from the UK , Boleswa developed fresh, innovative products, which were light years ahead of the competition.
The winds of change which gave birth to Boleswa were often tempestuous and frequently unpredictable, but they resulted in the creation of a major publishing undertaking in the southern African region. Today, Boleswa and its subsidiaries are a group with a strong, diverse publishing team - able to operate independently of the parent UK company. Pan Macmillan South Africa is the trade division of Macmillan South Africa and is a major South African publisher and distributor. It distributes a wide range of titles under group imprints including Macmillan, Pan, Picador, Priddy Books, Macmillan Children's Books, Kingfisher (from April 2008) ,St Martins Press, Tor, Forge, Griffin and Sidgwick & Jackson. It also handles sales and distribution for Walker Books, Guinness World Records, Wayland, Franklin Watts, Hodder Consumer Education, Frances Lincoln and Hachette Children's Books (from June 2008) and Rollerbird Press locally. Pan Macmillan also has an established local publishing program. In 2004, Pan Macmillan SA launched two new local imprints: Picador Africa (literary African fiction and memoir) and Giraffe Books (illustrated children's books in all South African languages). Its local publishing program also includes general fiction and non-fiction titles, published under the Macmillan imprint. A team of 16 includes sales representation in Gauteng , Western Cape , Eastern Cape and KZN. We are distributed throughout southern Africa by Booksite Afrika. |
