Publisher Daniel Kampa takes over Dörlemann Verlag
Zurich-based publisher Daniel Kampa is on another buying spree. He is taking over the literary publishing house run by his colleague Sabine Dörlemann, as Dörlemann Verlag announced on Monday.
The Zurich-based publisher Dörlemann founded her publishing house in 2003. Now her colleague Kampa will take over "100 percent of the shares" and thus Dörlemann Verlag in full, according to the press release.
This step fits in with Kampa Verlag's growth strategy. In November 2021, Kampa took over the publishing house Jung und Jung in Salzburg, followed a few months later by Schöffling & Co. in Frankfurt. Kampa Verlag also includes Atlantis and Atlantisliteraturverlag, as well as Aki and Oktopus.
"Visibility is the big problem for small and very small publishers," said publisher Kampa in an interview with Keystone-SDA after the takeover. It is almost impossible for them to "manage distribution" in the large German-speaking countries of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In the DACH region, "the challenge is to place a book - not to make one", Kampa said at the time.
Dörlemann Verlag is just such a small publishing house. Dörlemann has always published high-quality books and appealing literature, for example the Ivan Bunin Complete Edition and the Canadian Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro. "In its twentieth year of publishing, Dörlemann Verlag is a literary house that is renowned, highly regarded and successful, with a wonderful backlist and a constant stream of fantastic new titles," Kampa is quoted as saying in the press release. But in the end, the publishing house was probably too small to make the leap from Switzerland to the German-speaking world.
Like Jung und Jung or Schöffling, Dörlemann Verlag will continue to operate as an independent company with its own program and offices under the umbrella of Kampa. Dörlemann will leave its publishing house at the end of June. (SDA/swi)
