The Quirky Side of Publishing
● How do you remain competitive in this environment?
Borgenicht: … After the first couple of years, we made a very conscious shift in the type of titles we published. The first couple of seasons of Quirk Books were much heavier on the impulse [books] than the last several seasons. We had great success with [impulse] titles that were very front-list driven, but it was a short life cycle. … Those kinds of books don’t backlist. The books that we’ve seen really backlist, like “The Baby Owner’s Manual,” are books that we’ve consistently sold like 50,000 or 60,000 [copies] per year. … [Therefore,] we’ve very consciously shifted the balance of Quirk from 50-percent impulse and 50-percent irreverent reference to more in favor of the irreverent reference that we create so well. … We also made a conscious shift to find the high end of quirky. Most of the books in our first few years were under $20, and, over the past couple years, we’ve found ways to publish Quirk books at $25 and $40 and higher price points, which obviously helps a lot. We don’t sell 150,000 copies of those titles, but selling 40,000 [copies] of a $40 book is just as good.
- Companies:
- Quirk Books