M ichael O'Mara Books is one of the last truly independent publishers in the UK, and one that punches well above its weight. This small, but noisy, privately owned house was actually founded in the O'Mara family home in London in 1985. The firm's very first publication, Alastair Burnet's biography of the Queen Mother, topped the Sunday Times bestseller list in 1985.
N ow in its twenty-second year, Michael O'Mara Books has established a reputation for high-profile autobiographies and biographies (including Anything Goes by John Barrowman, the soon to be published autobiography of Roger Moore, My Word Is My Bond, and Andrew Morton's Diana: Her True Story, the second highest-selling book of the 1990s, and still in print), innovative humour and non-fiction (such as the bestselling I Before E (Except After C), The Timewaster Letters and The Book of Senior Moments), as well as highly commercial children's books published under our Buster Books imprint (The Boys' Book, The Girls' Book and Children's Miscellany 1, 2 and 3).
O ur ability to react very quickly to market trends is something of which we are very proud. The Sudoku craze kick-started our range of puzzle books, which have now sold over a million copies, while the hugely successful 'Best of Everything' series tapped into the nostalgia trend which is still going strong.
A mong the list's triumphs are the The Mums' Book: How To Be Best At Everything and The Dads' Book, both Sunday Times bestsellers, reaching numbers one and two respectively. These books are part of the same 'Best of Everything' series as The Boys' Book and The Girls' Book, published by our imprint Buster Books. I Before E was the sleeper hit of Christmas 2007, and sold over 200,000 copies reaching number three in The Sunday Times hardback non-fiction chart. Michael O'Mara's inventive and highly commercial list continues into Spring 2008 with the release of Anything Goes, A Real Boy and fantastic humour and gift titles from The Lovers' Book to The Original Highway Code and the follow-up to I Before E, I Used To Know That: Stuff You Forgot From School, to be published in June 2008.