Charkin slams 'absurd' claims
This story from The Bookseller, 28.04.08

Bloomsbury executive director Richard Charkin today dismissed as "absurd" the claims made in the Daily Telegraph that the reason Joanna Trollope (left) has taken her hardback publishing to Transworld was because she was unhappy at Bloomsbury's focus on superstar J K Rowling.
Charkin refused to comment on the reasons for Trollope's move, saying "We said to Joanna we'd keep this between us", but he added that it was "not surprising" if authors wanted their hardback and paperback editions published by the same house. Trollope's paperbacks are already published by Transworld imprint Black Swan.

In response to allegations made in the Daily Telegraph that Bloomsbury faced growing author unrest over its favourable treatment of Rowling, Charkin said: "It's a ridiculous story and could be damaging. Who the hell [are they talking about]? I've no idea who they talked to. It's absolutely absurd and I can't think where it came from or why the Daily Telegraph considered it a story worth running."

A statement from Bloomsbury declared: "At no time has the backing of our other authors been anything less than 100% as evidenced by the great success of new and established authors such as Margaret Atwood, Susanna Clarke, Justin Cartwright, William Boyd, David Guterson, Kate Summerscale, Louis Sachar, Jeffrey Eugenides, Donna Tartt, Jon McGregor, Khaled Hosseini, Ben Macintyre and many others."

Charkin added that Bloomsbury did not plan to take any action against the Daily Telegraph.