Product Launch

Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
21 January 2005


21 January 2005

                           Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
                                 Product Launch

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc announced today that it will be undertaking a major
publication to raise money for Indian Ocean tsunami earthquake charities.  A
collection of first chapters from forthcoming books yet to be released by major
world novelists, many of them not published by Bloomsbury, will be issued on 3
March  -World Book Day - priced at £5.  The project  will be earnings neutral as
Bloomsbury is  donating its publishing  services free as are the authors, the
agents, the distributors, the carriers, the booksellers, wholesalers,
supermarkets and bookclubs.  The printers and the paper merchants are
undertaking the work at base cost and it is hoped that this will be off-set by
sponsorship, including from the financial community, to enable the full £5 of
the  retail price to reach the tsunami charities.

The authors contributing their first chapters to the book, entitled New
Beginnings, include three Booker Prize winners and one Nobel Prize winner.  They
are Margaret Atwood, Maeve Binchy, Tracy Chevalier, Harlan Coben, Paulo Coelho,
JM Coetzee, Nicholas Evans, Mark Haddon, Nick Hornby, Marian Keyes, Stephen
King, Alexander McCall Smith, Ian McEwan, Vikram Seth, Joanna Trollope and Scott
Turow.

New Beginnings will be published by Bloomsbury around the world in the English
language through Bloomsbury UK and Bloomsbury USA. The book  will be published
in German by the company's  subsidiary, Berlin Verlag and  in many other foreign
languages by other publishers Bloomsbury  deals with around the world.

Severe damage was inflicted on Bloomsbury customers in the region including the
Vijitha Yapa Bookshop in Galle, Sri Lanka.

Bloomsbury has also made a donation of £100,000 to the tsunami appeals. £96,000
has been donated on behalf of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, A&C Black Publishers
Limited and Bloomsbury USA to the Disasters Emergency Committee ('DEC') and
£4,000 will be donated to German UNICEF by Berlin Verlag.


                                      ENDS


Enquiries re the tsunami book New Beginnings
Katie Bond                                            020 7494 6012
Bloomsbury Publishing
[e-mail]

Enquiries re Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Tim Spratt/Michelle Morton,                           020 7831 3113
Financial Dynamics



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