Text to take Classics to UK and North America

10 January 2013 Books+Publishing

Melbourne-based publisher Text Publishing has announced that it will publish books in the UK and in North America for the first time next month.

Text said in a statement that it will launch publishing programs in these markets with its popular Text Classics series. The Text Classics list will launch with six titles in the UK in February, with Turnaround Publishing Services handling sales and distribution for the titles. The launch titles are: The Watch Tower by Elizabeth Harrower, Wake in Fright by Kenneth Cook, Careful, He Might Hear You by Sumner Locke Elliott, The Mystery of a Hansom Cab by Fergus Hume, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony by Henry Handel Richardson, and They’re a Weird Mob by Nino Culotta.

Text will then launch with four Text Classics in the US and Canada in April via Consortium. The launch titles are: Careful, He Might Hear You, Wake in Fright, The Getting of Wisdom by Henry Handel Richardson and Dark Places by Kate Grenville. Text will also publish four other fiction and nonfiction titles in the US and Canada in April. These titles are: Romulus, My Father by Raimond Gaita, Tom is Dead by Marie Darrieussecq, Unzipped by Nicki Reed and The Vintage and The Gleaning by Jeremy Chambers.

Text sales and marketing director Kirsty Wilson told Bookseller+Publisher that publishing books in these territories is a first for the publisher. ‘We have a very successful international rights program but we have never before published Text-imprinted books into UK and North American markets,’ said Wilson. ‘It’s gratifying to know there will soon be even more international readers for these great books by the most-loved authors from Australia and New Zealand.’

Wilson said the Text Classics will retail for £8.99 (A$13.70) in the UK and US$14.95 (A$14.24) in the US and Canada, with ebook editions also available. In Australia, Text Classics retail for $12.95. The Text Classics book bags will also be sold in the three territories.

‘We’re working with a dedicated publicist in the US and the terrific team at Turnaround in the UK for media coverage,’ said Wilson. ‘We are also developing good direct relationships with key media and retailers over email and phone from here in our Melbourne office.’

Text publisher Michael Heyward told Bookseller+Publisher that Text has decided to publish the Text Classics titles in other markets because ‘we wanted international readers to have access to these books, and we wanted to keep the series together, as much as we could’.‘Text has always taken great Australian writing to the world [and] we have earned our reputation for selling international rights,’ said Heyward. ‘We now have an opportunity to give Text a visible footprint in other key English-language markets.’

As previously reported by Bookseller+Publisher, Text launched the Text Classics list locally in May 2012. Heyward said that Text originally launched the list ‘in response to our collective neglect of so many great books’ and the new editions of the books ‘put themselves on the map at once’, partly because of their ‘extraordinary’ design by Text designer Chong Weng Ho.

The Text Classics list now includes 50 Australian and New Zealand titles, many of which were previously out of print. Each title includes a specially commissioned introduction and is available in print and ebook formats.

Category: Local news