Faber brings back forgotten classics
02.05.08 Alison Flood
Faber is creating a new imprint that will make out-of-print classics available through print on demand. Faber Finds launches on 2nd June with 100 titles, and aims to publish a further 20 titles every month.
The initial list has been selected by Faber authors including Wendy Cope, Andrew Motion and Brian Friel. It includes books by P H Newby, winner of the first Booker Prize in 1969, along with a range from novelist Angus Wilson, historian A J P Taylor, and literary critic F R Leavis. Further authors brought back into print will include children’s author Nina Bawden, crime novelist Celia Dale and Russian translator Constance Garnett. Only some were previously published by Faber.
The books, priced from £9 upwards depending on length, will be printed by Anthony Rowe Ltd, with text reset by Libre Digital. The cover designs will be automatically generated, with an algorithm creating illustrated borders around the title.
Faber has been clearing rights for the list with agents and estates. “We’ve already cleared hundreds of books,” said c.e.o. Stephen Page. Faber is offering a “good royalty” on the books, but “because there is such a large number of titles, we wanted a simple agreement to cover our bases”.
The books will be available through customer order from booksellers and through all the major web players, as well as from a new wiki-style website at www.faberfinds.co.uk, which will encourage a community to form around the project.
Page said that one of the big challenges for the project was to reduce the level of cost for each title to as low a threshold as possible. He believes Faber will start to make “a reasonable return” once 50 to 100 copies of a title are sold, but that “as the project aggregates and gets bigger, it will become more affordable”. He said initial conversations with booksellers had been positive. “Obviously this can’t operate like front-of-store promotional titles—it requires more gentle handling. But everyone has been very supportive.”
The imprint will be headed up by editor John Seaton, with no limits other than quality on the number of titles brought back into print. “People have tried to do this before, but the thing about the Faber Finds project is our ambition,” Page said. “If you’re going to do something like this it has to be at the heart of the literary and bibliophile world.”
Faber Finds will be publicity-led, starting with a preview of the series in the Guardian Review tomorrow (3rd May), in which writers including Julian Barnes, Margaret Drabble and David Mitchell champion titles that form part of the series.
Stephen Page Faber classics Home Alison Flood Wendy Cope Andrew Motion Brian Friel John Seaton
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