James Edmund Byng (born 27 June 1969) is a British publisher. He works for the independent publishing firm Canongate Books, where he is the CEO and publisher.

Early life

Byng grew up in the village of Abbots Worthy in

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

, England. The second son of the 8th

Earl of Strafford Earl of Strafford is a title that has been created three times in English and British history. The first creation was in the Peerage of England in January 1640 for Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, the 1st Viscount Wentworth, the clo ...

and Jennifer May, he is brother to the author Lady Georgia Byng, and through his stepfather, Sir Christopher Bland (the former chairman of the

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, British Telecom and

Royal Shakespeare Company The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and opens around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, Stratf ...

), he is the half-brother of Archie Bland, print journalist and former deputy editor of ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

''.

Education and family

Byng was educated at

Winchester College Winchester College is an English Public school (United Kingdom), public school (a long-established fee-charging boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) with some provision for day school, day attendees, in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It wa ...

, an independent boarding-school for boys in the

cathedral city City status in the United Kingdom is granted by the the Crown, monarch of the United Kingdom to specific centres of population, which might or might not meet the generally accepted definition of city, cities. , there are List of cities in the Un ...

Winchester Winchester (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs N ...

in Hampshire,

Southern England Southern England, also known as the South of England or the South, is a sub-national part of England. Officially, it is made up of the southern, south-western and part of the eastern parts of England, consisting of the statistical regions of ...

, followed by the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

."Jamie Byng: Great giveaway by the bad boy of books"
''

Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...

'', 5 December 2010. While attending the university, he ran a

funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African-American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African-Americans in the ...

, reggae, and rare groove night club named "Chocolate City" (after the

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

classic) at The Venue with his first wife, Whitney McVeigh, with whom he has two children – a daughter Marley and son Leo. Whitney McVeigh is the daughter of a

socialite A socialite is a person, typically a woman from a wealthy or aristocratic background, who is prominent in high society. A socialite generally spends a significant amount of time attending various fashionable social gatherings, instead of having ...

mother and her father is an American banker. Byng and McVeigh separated in 2001, and in 2005 Byng married literary agent Elizabeth Sheinkman, with whom he has two children, Ivy and Nathaniel. Byng separated from Sheinkman in 2016 and married Silvia Gimenez Varela in 2021 and they have one child.

Publishing career

After graduating, he convinced Scottish publisher Stephanie Wolfe Murray to give him a job at Canongate, then a respected but still somewhat marginalised Scottish company founded in 1973,Libby Brookes
"Posh and books"
''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', 1 November 2002. which he joined as an intern. When Canongate was on the verge of bankruptcy in 1994, Byng, then in his mid-20s, instigated a buyout, aided by his business partner Hugh Andrew, his stepfather (former

chairman Sir Christopher Bland) and then father-in-law (co-chairman of the multinational investment bank Salomon Smith Barney). His first move in overhauling the company's image was to establish the ultra-hip Payback and Rebel Inc imprints, dedicated to championing cult authors. '' The Pocket Canons'' (1998) published in partnership with Matthew Darby was Byng's first runaway success: selected books from the Bible individually packaged with new introductions by the

Dalai Lama The Dalai Lama (, ; ) is the head of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. The term is part of the full title "Holiness Knowing Everything Vajradhara Dalai Lama" (圣识一切瓦齐尔达喇达赖喇嘛) given by Altan Khan, the first Shu ...

among others. In the wake of the two-million selling, Booker-winning '' Life of Pi'' (2001), Canongate won Publisher of the Year at the

British Book Awards The British Book Awards or Nibbies are literary awards for the best UK writers and their works, administered by ''The Bookseller''. The awards have had several previous names, owners and sponsors since being launched in 1990, including the Na ...

in 2003, reportedly posting pre-tax profits of more than £1 million for that year. Byng is the initiator and chair of World Book Night, an event in which on 5 March 2011 (following World Book Day on 3 March) one million books – 40,000 copies of each of 25 carefully selected titles – were given away to members of the public in the UK and Ireland. It entailed 20,000 "givers" each distributing 48 copies of their chosen title to whomever they chose.

References

External links

* Sam Leith
"The Tao of Mr Jamie Byng"
(interview), ''Mr Porter'', 22 February 2018.
"The SRB Interview: Jamie Byng"
'' Scottish Review of Books'', 2 March 2012.
"Porter Anderson meets Jamie Byng"
''

The Bookseller ''The Bookseller'' is a British magazine reporting news on the publishing industry. Philip Jones is editor-in-chief of the weekly print edition of the magazine and the website. The magazine is home to the ''Bookseller''/Diagram Prize for Oddes ...

'', 29 May 2014. * Vicky Allan
"Canongate's Jamie Byng balances the books for 21 years"
''The Herald'', 19 September 2015. {{DEFAULTSORT:Byng, Jamie 1969 births Living people Byng family Alumni of the University of Edinburgh People educated at Winchester College Businesspeople from Winchester Scottish book publishers (people) British people of Parsi descent