Tomorrow's long tail... THE BODLEY HEAD
This week sees the relaunch of The Bodley Head, a list with an impeccable pedigree and high aspirations.
Publishing Director Will Sulkin explains its raison d'être:
In January 1965, Max Reinhardt, then running The Bodley Head in its earlier incarnation, wrote to a fellow-publisher: “One bestseller would help. Last year it was Chaplin, this year it will be Frederica by Georgette Heyer and The Comedians, a new serious novel by Graham Greene.”
The newly minted Bodley Head, launched this month, won't publish celebrity autobiographies; nor will it publish fiction, serious or otherwise. In fact its resemblance to the imprint that shut up shop nineteen years ago pretty much starts and stops with the name - and the knowledge that bestsellers do indeed “help”. But what are the chances of big sales these days for a list devoted to quality non-fiction? History, science, current affairs, issues and ideas of the first importance…
They'll all be there - and all written about, naturally enough, by the best possible people. But what does the market look like in 2008? Is there anyone out there? Does anyone care? In November 2006, the distinguished social scientist Anthony Giddens compared the British non-fiction bestseller lists with the American, Italian, French and German. We didn't come out of it well: he wrote about “a politically illiterate Britain” and concluded that “the British don't much esteem intellectuals”. That may be true enough but whether or not it's a new or necessarily corrosive phenomenon - whether it's an explanation for what's happening now - seems less certain. Philistine-bashing has deep and enduring roots in the UK while a dash or two of Philistine blood is surely good for the cultural mix. But Lord Giddens was undoubtedly right about the stuff that sells - or doesn't sell - these days: it's clear as day that for the past few years Britain's bestseller lists have contained a smaller proportion of quality non-fiction than those of any other country anywhere. So why The Bodley Head? Why now? What does Random House think it's doing? Well, for a start, if you're a major player in any field then you need to know you're playing with a full deck. We didn't have a World's Classics list, so we started Vintage Classics. (And what a success that's turning out to be.) We haven't had a Penguin Press, so we're launching The Bodley Head.
And this, for the first time, allows Random House to concentrate its formidable resources on the acquisition, design, marketing, publicising, production and selling of quality non-fiction - to become a specialist in the field. It gives the likes of Misha Glenny, Jonathan Powell, Roger Penrose, Karen Armstrong, Simon Schama, Nicholas Stern, Stephen Greenblatt, Norman Davies, et al a purpose-built platform for their wares - somewhere the texts can be hand-crafted and polished by a peerless editorial team and sent out into the world in the best shape and with the best chance of reaching the broadest possible readership.
In addition, situated as it is within CCV - berthed alongside the likes of Jonathan Cape, Chatto & Windus and Harvill Secker - The Bodley Head extends Random House's commitment to excellence - partly for its own sake; partly for the entirely pragmatic reason that the best-made stuff lasts longest.
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