Joanna Reynolds tells it like it is (The Guardian)

As an "old white man" (through no fault of my own) I was very interested to read this advertorial about the trajectory of The Folio Society from the horse's mouth. (Guardian article but free access below.)

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/tiktok-meets-tolkien-how-the-folio-society...

>1 boldface: Oh dear: your OWM prejudices are showing again. The mare's mouth, surely.

>1 boldface: Thanks for the link, it is an interesting read.
“We’ve completely changed the sort of books that we sell. We developed fantasy, sci-fi and more children’s. Particularly the fantasy and sci-fi have made a massive difference to us. Game of Thrones was literally a gamechanger … It made so much money for us.”
Well, I think it's safe to say the FS is not on the verge of collapse.

Reynolds said that for younger generations, even those who mostly use e-readers, “they’re happy to pay for a wonderful edition of books they love. There’s something very exciting for them about the physical book.”
Yeah, and don't forget the "older generations" who have always purchased physical copies.

flip cases - perhaps a Grauniad typo, perhaps what Reynolds calls them.

Interesting that the FS groups their customers by skin colour as well as sex and age.

Also: "The publisher, which produces illustrated editions with elaborate covers, has seen sales soar 55% since 2017-18."

I wonder if there was a once in a lifetime event shortly thereafter where people were indulging in unprecedented free time and disposable cash?

Also, small pet peeve, but "unboxing" doesn't have to be in quotation marks.

“We thought: will it work because we’re going to be more expensive than anything else? But it’s actually worked well." 😭

I'm happy for them though. I hope we still get beautiful classics every now and again.

Also, apparently Circe by Madeline Miller will be published next year.

>1 boldface: Thank you for the free access link!

Very interesting article and I understand why they are publishing more modern editions for a change of pace and to lure in younger buyers. But at the same time, not only do I love the classics and fall in between the two age groups, but I also know a lot of young people are devouring classic literature now, and crave nice editions of them. Part of the Dark Academia/Light Academia and Cottagecore aesthetic groups lean heavily on classic mythology, Victorian Lit, Shakespeare, 19thC Russian Lit. So I hope they find some middle ground where they publish some fresh classics that I've never seen by them (Gissing, Dead Souls, Emerson's Essays, Washington Irving's Sketchbook) alongside the newer works.

Is this the same character as Mrs Omnichannel?

I do wonder how far she will go to chase the pound? Will it always be just about what's in vogue?

Cue manga, erotica...

Hopefully nothing here surprises anyone, as this has been discussed ad nauseum - if they didn’t pivot, they’d be dead by now.

>5 PartTimeBookAddict: Only those that are successful.

>8 LesMiserables: When she first arrived with a mandate to increase membership (!) she did poll members as to their favourites in various niche markets she intended to explore, niches chosen by herself, of course, and I don't recall oor Wullie or other graphic delights being in the package. Her previous experience with Readers Digest may well have aroused a commendable rapport with readers with a short attention span. So we were warned. (I'll bet she pronounces it to rhyme with nouveau riche)

Thank you for highlighting the article, but the Guardian is free to read, is it not?

https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/sep/08/tiktok-meets-tolkien-how-t...

>11 FitzJames:

It is in the UK. I wasn't sure about elsewhere.

>8 LesMiserables: For the record, I’d love for FS to do nice editions of manga with stories that match their current output (as opposed to whatever is most popular and well known)*. I hear that Curious King may also be doing manga or something manga-related in the future according to a FB post.

*I do realize that some portion of their recent output is the popular and well-known, but hopefully it’s clear what I mean.

>9 What_What: if they didn’t pivot, they’d be dead by now.

Adapt yes. But a company can do so without necessarily losing its mission.

I do think sometimes in our hyper capitalist mindset that we think if a company isn't expanding it's dying.

There are so many examples of small independent bespoke companies that have modernised practice and strategy but retained product offering.

FS had been around for 70 years before she took over. I believe whether the new direction will be for the better will only become clear in a few years. A quick search shows that Reader’s Digest and Time Life didn’t fare well, so her track record doesn’t offer much to judge her by either way.

>15 LesMiserables:

That concept has nothing to do with capitalism and is just a good old fashioned fact for many industries.

Quote from link in OP:

Reynolds likened the appetite for “artisanal” books to the resurgence of vinyl. “We thought: will it work because we’re going to be more expensive than anything else? But it’s actually worked well. You can see that trend and love of art and artisanal. It’s a bit like going back into vinyl.”

Love of art? Perceived "art" maybe and "artisanal" gimmickry like star-spangled towels, satin ribbon-markers, bookmatched multi-volume covers, spray-painted page edges and internally illustrated slipcases +/- peepholes to name a few.

All this may be acceptable or deplorable in the name of profit, but 'a bit like going back to vinyl'?? You don't say!
More like going back to the days of Jezebel... or Lady Macbeth for the prudes!

PS: Those interested in Ms. Omnichannel - the beginning: https://www.librarything.com/topic/265581

I have to say that the title of this group--"Folio Society Devotees"--now makes my skin crawl a bit. Are people still happy to class themselves as devotees of a company that prints the latest YA fluff to satisfy the TikTok/Instagram crowd?

>16 bacchus.: Trying to keep lights on in a decades-old, once-relevant company struggling to adapt as society, technology, taste and demographics all change seems like exactly the kind of resume you’d want for this role. She’s been at the helm for 9 years, how much longer will the jury deliberate?

>18 mr.philistine: What a great presentation; the FS’ turnaround under her leadership should be required reading in business school. Bravo.

>19 ubiquitousuk: I think the term "Folio Society Devotees" is still fine as it covers past and present FS books. Even if you are not a fan of the current output there is still the back catalogue to enjoy.

How many copies/editions from FS of Jane Austen/Dumas/etc. are you all buying that you think a company can survive on that alone?

In Folio’s entire history, it has only just now started printing more contemporary works? I think not.

Things change. Companies are in the business of staying in business. Customers speak with their money and nobody owes old customers - who aren’t buying anything - the maintenance of stock of products that they’ve already got on their shelves.

I buy Folios now, I bought them then, I expect to buy them in the future. As long as they keep making books that I’m interested in, they are getting my orders.

Folio is my favorite publisher because they make, or have made, lovely editions of books I enjoy reading for relatively affordable prices.

>19 ubiquitousuk: Doesn't bother me. Isn't it basically the same as printing Alice In Wonderland?

Its like your favorite speciality cheese shop clears the shelves and starts selling sugary breakfast cereal and takis, kind of. Post membership FS took a radical turn from offering books for readers of literature, a cohort including all ages and colors, to targeting the casual reader with bestsellers, dad friendly history books, famous classics and popular genre titles. Unfortunately, current FS is a sham version of the dearly departed.

To be fair, the YA stuff is a very small percent of the catalog (less than 15%) and almost all of it is vintage (Jones, Blyton, Dahl, Le Guin, etc.). The most modern appears to be Noughts and Crosses (from 2001), the Philip Pullman books (which start in 1995) and tomorrow's Book Thief LE (2005).

To date this year through the first three catalogs, they have three vintage YA books (by Jones, Blyton and Le Guin) and one children's book (Moomins) out of 29 standard edition titles. I'm all for the diversification it if it helps to keep the lights on...

That said, I also would like to see more classics. So far this year, we've only had the Darwin and Dunsany LE's and the Gitanjali poetry collection, so hopefully they throw some more bones in the Festive collection.

>18 mr.philistine: Thanks for the link! Glad they kept slipcases.

You could argue that YA and other popular modern genres being printed by Folio bring new customers, who then want to explore more of the range either through Folio themselves or the secondary market, broadening their reading interests and helping younger generations discover a much broader literary world than they have previously. Folio classics are cheap and plentiful secondhand, which must be a factor when you're thinking about printing a new version, you're competing with £10 copies of books that were made to last a lifetime with a £50+ book that has new pictures in it. New translations or reprinting books that had short runs and have become difficult to find secondhand is important, otherwise just encourage people to go get them from used bookstores or online retailers, otherwise what was the point of printing them to last?

I found Folio because I was looking for a special edition of hitchhikers guide for my partner as a gift, I fell in love with the presentation of the books and have been collecting them since, mostly on the secondary market. I'm quite broadly read but it's still meant that I've picked up books that I wouldn't have before because there was an affordable edition available on eBay and I've really been enjoying discovering new works in the folio society format. I read modern sci-fi/fantasy, ancient greek philosophy and everything inbetween and the fact that I can have beautiful versions of all them is great, I get to collect and then pass on my favourite books in their best form, whether its an easier comfort read like the earthsea series or a difficult Russian epic like The Brothers Karamazov.

Printing a YA book might delay a deeper literary work from getting printed but the people that come buy them might also pick up something new and challenging to tackle.

My final 2c is that I also think some classics just havent aged well and dont resonate with the lived experiences of a lot of people today, myself included, whereas some are scarily prescient. Sometimes its good to explore those historical works with their differences or similarities and sometimes its ok to acknolwedge their place in the canon, move on and engage with the works that have built upon them.

>19 ubiquitousuk: I admit to having no exposure to those social media sites, so my question may be off, but FS has a long history print YA content, is there a big recent shift to the YA content in your POV?

I personally still appreciate FS, even if I don’t buy all of what they print.

My highly opinionated evaluation of the literary quality and cultural importance of Folio's best selling fiction releases at the time I'm writing this comment:

1) Established classics for the ages:

Divine Comedy SE
Frankenstein
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Dracula
Alice in Wonderland

2) Literary fiction with potential to join the pantheon:

Blood Meridian
Gormenghast SE (at least the first two novels in the trilogy)
No Country for Old Men
The Road
Invisible Cities

3) Important books with outsized influence, archetypal appeal, and at least some admirable literary qualities:

Dune (and Dune Messiah)
The Hobbit
The Lord of the Rings
The Other Wind
Roadside Picnic
The Wind in the Willows

4) Books of cultural import but maybe not the literary pinnacle:

Jurassic Park
The Shining
DC: Batman
Winnie-the-Pooh
Foundation
Game of Thrones
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

5) Haven't read/not enough personal familiarity to have an informed opinion:

Player of Games
The Shadow of the Wind
The Neverending Story (suspect 4)
Weird Tales (probably 3 or 4)
The Dogs of Riga
Howl’s Moving Castle

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is barely fiction? I guess; probably category 3 if I had to place it.

It's true pop culture dominates the charts. Even the established classics (Dracula, Frankenstein, Alice). Nothing even like Gatsby or Crime and Punishment or Austen.

(Data from here.)

I'm personally quite happy there are nice editions of many of these, and let's not forget that Shakespeare and Dickens were the pop culture of their day.

I suspect the current volume oriented Folio model has to drive the catalog toward pop culture if they follow the finances at all. Suntup, for one comparison, perhaps surprisingly, has a higher percentage of established classics probably, especially if you consider more recent releases. This is probably due to how the rights system works.

(Also notable: I think only four of the Folio fiction bestsellers are works in translation, so very English-original dominant.)

For me it's not about so much, what they are printing, but more to do with the classics they have never printed to date.

>27 anthonyfawkes: My final 2c is that I also think some classics just havent aged well and dont resonate with the lived experiences of a lot of people today, myself included

I would imagine that this is because they are from a different age.

>25 HonorWulf: A great point, and several of these aren't even YA but children's. Noughts and Crosses was a surprise favorite with me and I'd love to see similarly great books published by FS.

There are amazing books at all age levels.

We shall see how FS's fortune fares as unsustainable debt consumes the discretionary income of Gen Z and others. FS's pivot under Ms. Omnichannel has resulted in this proud middle-aged white man spending his discretionary income elsewhere. My infrequent purchases of FS editions are now exclusively on the secondary market.

>33 ultrarightist: This is a very good point. Middle aged+ consumers have generally more disposable income, and more consistency in purchasing consumables in well-established hobbies and pastimes.

>10 Jayked: "I'll bet she pronounces it to rhyme with nouveau riche"

That's the standard pronunciation in the UK (slightly unexpectedly, perhaps, as I think it's normally American English which more closely preserves original French pronunciations).

>23 InVitrio: >28 RRCBS: I should say that the point of my (slightly tongue-in-cheek) rant in >19 ubiquitousuk: was to lament not the publishing of YA per se, but rather the cynical pursuit of social media clout. One has the impression that if TikTok were dominated by septuagenarian Latin scholars showing off their rubricated bling then Folio would immediately ditch the YA and SciFi and begin issuing 50 incunable facsimiles a year. It's completely cynical.

Now, the hard nosed among us (of which I am one) might say: yes, old boy, that's capitalism. Businesses are interested in printing one thing only: money. This is a fair objection. But the same principle works both ways. If the relationship with Folio is merely transactional then I am in no respects a devotee. I'm merely a customer (and increasingly an erstwhile customer).

>36 ubiquitousuk:

Your relationship has always been transactional with them whether you admit it or not. The very admission that you are becoming an “erstwhile” customer makes that self evident. The transaction terms are changing.

>37 User2024:

Transactional, perhaps, but far from solely transactional. I think. Speaking for myself here, of course.

Edited for speling.

>35 PeterFitzGerald: The standard pronunciation in the UK was "nitch" until recently when those with a smattering of French gave it a spelling pronunciation. Its basic meaning was an alcove in a wall designed to hold a statue. Like many architectural terms it came into English from Italian at a time when Italian architecture predominated.

>36 ubiquitousuk: Now, the hard nosed among us (of which I am one) might say: yes, old boy, that's capitalism. Businesses are interested in printing one thing only: money. This is a fair objection.

I agree with your overall sentiment, but the notion that businesses exist solely to maximize profits is a relatively modern, and in my opinion (if the hard nosed will allow for one), narrow view influenced by shareholder primacy theory. At this point the “this is capitalism” argument is becoming a bit too lazy and cynical to argue with.

>20 What_What: The jury will end after she jumps ship.

>8 LesMiserables: I do wonder how far she will go to chase the pound? Will it always be just about what's in vogue? Cue manga, erotica...

A little further than that. But I'll let Ms Reynolds answer in her own words. That's how she described her achievements as the CEO of Time-Life Europe:

"Streamlining the business and changed the cross-Europe (UK, Eire, Germany, Holland, Belgium and France) business model, replacing direct mail campaigns for glossy books with DRTV ads for DVDs and CDs. Within three years the business had moved from loss to significant profitability."

So as far as ditching those pesky things called books altogether.

>19 ubiquitousuk: I feel the same as >21 assemblyman:. There is still their extensive back catalog that I'm still a fan of.

>22 Noel_G: How many copies/editions from FS of Jane Austen/Dumas/etc. are you all buying that you think a company can survive on that alone?

That's a strawman argument. Those of us who are put off by Folio's current direction aren't asking for the 10th edition of Austen and the 27th edition of Shakespeare. That's just not the sentiment on these boards.

In Folio’s entire history, it has only just now started printing more contemporary works?

The issue with the current output is NOT that it's more contemporary. I'm totally fine with much more modern works. In fact, I recently placed a pre-order for Fitzcarraldo editions discussed in another thread, one of which was originally published in 2007 and the other in 2008.

And the argument that you can't make money publishing classics and respectable literary works doesn't hold up. Everyman's Library prints and sells a lot more copies of their editions, and yet they never had to lower the bar, let alone plunge into the depths FS has been exploring. Yes, mainstream pop will always bring the most $$$, whether in book publishing, music, cinema, food, etc. But there is still market outside of mainstream. One doesn't have to sell out.

>43 elladan0891: Agree. The nonsense that we are clambering for the 17th edition of A Brontë work is spurious.

Charles Ede's vision was to produce "editions of the world's great literature, in a format worthy of the contents, at a price within the reach of everyman".

Greatest literature. I believe there is still a market for that and is sustainable generation to generation.

There is so much in the field of 'greatest literature' and from the greatest authors of the past that remains untouched by the Folio Society.

>41 elladan0891: she could turn a respectable buck with a classics themed FS line of sugary breakfast cereals- Agatha Crispies, Wuthering Flakes, Oddysey-O’s etc.

>45 DanielOC: Haha! Don't give her ideas

>41 elladan0891: Time-Life is a very different beast from Folio. Their books have few, and aging, fans - as an Ebay seller, I often see them at thrift stores and garage sales being offered for a pittance, and not being bought. Transitioning to DVDs and CDs (many of them actually quite good, and with robust demand) was a smart move for that company. They never published works of fine literature.

Yes, I'd like to see fewer "popular books" and more actual literature. But popular books have a strong point in their favor - they're popular. The company I'd like to see is different from the company that can survive in the current market. I am a bit of a dinosaur, after all. Back in the glory days of the membership model, I sometimes struggled to find four books each year that I actually wanted, and recent years have generally presented four desirable books, even if they are outnumbered (and out-marketed) by YA books of no interest.

That said, Agatha Crispies might be fun.

>43 elladan0891:
Selling out? This is real life money and risk, not your favorite grunge band. You are way overestimating the ability of a book company like Folio Society in 2024 to ignore mainstream.

>48 User2024: I think you might have missed the sentiment here. It's not that we expect Folio to abandon the lucrative allure of the faddish, but to rather balance their production.

The Scotch Whisky Industry do this quite well. They might indulge the mob with a series of themed Game of Thrones branded bottles...Collect them all!... But revert quickly to core product.

>48 User2024: Ahem. This is rather amusing. Did you read only the last sentence of that paragraph? Because it actually had a counterexample showing the falsehood of the tired claim that you have to go mainstream pop to be successful.

>43 elladan0891: Isn’t Everyman’s Library isn’t a private business though. Not saying you have to go mainstream, but this seems like they would have a lot more leeway than FS.

>51 RRCBS: Everyman's Library is part of PRH, through their Knopf subsidiary. We don't know their exact finances, of course, but I wouldn't be surprised if the rest of the Penguin catalogue (esp. imprints dealing with popular literature) actually subsidize Everyman's. Their good production values are expensive for today's publishing standards.

>43 elladan0891: It’s not a strawman, Folio needs money to succeed and the books you claim to mourn the supposed loss of don’t sell.

Loads of these “old men yelling at clouds” are just reacting poorly to change. How many books were they actually buying (new) from Folio. Folio knows the number, as they are now data driven and not holding onto times past with nostalgic vision.

Everyman makes nice books, but with none of the art or effort of Folio. They aren’t comparable in costs, talent or time to produce.

Folio has transformed from a company going bankrupt to a prosperous business. Good for them.

>43 elladan0891: "That's a strawman argument. Those of us who are put off by Folio's current direction aren't asking for the 10th edition of Austen and the 27th edition of Shakespeare. That's just not the sentiment on these boards."

I would suggest that your comments need a little more context. Can you give some examples of books published, say, ten years ago, that meet your brief but in your opinion would not be published today?

>51 RRCBS: Well, they're neither state-owned nor a non-profit :) Everyman's Library was a private business before they got acquired by an also private Random House in 2002, and following a string of acquisitions and mergers of also private companies, now they're an imprint of Bertelsmann - a private German conglomerate that fully owns Penguin Random House. Sure, for the past couple of decades they've had access to their parent companies' distribution networks. But RH, Penguin, and Bertelsmann have never been charities. I don't know how much money EL makes, but we do know that their Classics series print number are MUCH higher than Folios. Which means that classics, even more obscure ones, DO sell.

>49 LesMiserables:

I’ve been reading people here complain and moan that FS doesn’t publish their personal interest library for years before I made an account here. I’ve got the sentiment exactly.

That counterexample doesn’t hold a drop of water. If FS competed by doing what EL does, they’d be out of business or laying people off within a few years.

Publishing new and popular content to stay in business is good. (though, please stay away from trash titles that diminish the prestige of the brand)

I think what's not happening at the desired rate is the subsidizing of both modern and classic authors' back catalogs that haven't been published (or published much) from the profits of the hyper-popular stuff. How 'bout that comically unfinished complete Dickens series? Where's that ~200th anniversary Sir Walter Scott series? Sure, it'd be nice to see all the titles from classic authors get published but at least try to venture beyond the one's that have been printed to death already. And let's be fair: some of those classic author's works aren't classic. Maybe some were just practice for some subsequent hit. Some may be abundantly average. That's all the more reason to publish them, though - the rarity factor. Would it really kill their profit margin to guarantee just one rarity or classic title in every release? I think that would go a long way with folks not after the hyper-popular offerings.

On the other hand, it would also be entirely appropriate for Folio to explicitly announce its current vision so none of us can point to Ede's "editions of the world's great literature, in a format worthy of the contents, at a price within the reach of everyman" as the purpose of the company. Clearly, that vision has changed: own up to it, Folio.

On the other hand, it would also be entirely appropriate for Folio to explicitly announce its current vision so none of us can point to Ede's "editions of the world's great literature, in a format worthy of the contents, at a price within the reach of everyman" as the purpose of the company. Clearly, that vision has changed: own up to it, Folio.

Yes, it's like their history has been expunged from their website. I'd also like to see exactly what their vision is.

It gets me thinking how would they fare if we cloud conversing dinosaurs, you know, the ones that kept the company alive, buggered off lock stock and barrel?

How would Folio go if they waged their fortunes on the whimsical weather vane of pop printing?

It's hard to argue against the charge they are moving towards doing just that incrementally.

Cue..
Attack on Titan in 34 volumes
The Complete Judge Dread
Vampire Academy
Forever Evermore series Scarlett Dawn
Rough Guide to Bali and Lombok

I loved the days of membership back when I joined in 2012, and their truly unique and generally affordable special editions from then in particular. But books like that hanging around for years and finally only selling through sales is not a viable business model. I wish the mix that has been suggested would work, but frankly, when they try some of the classics, they often fail miserably, be it Rob Roy or the last William Blake. One can't expect people to risk their living that way. I find it frustrating, too - I wish they'd continued the Brontes in their latest editions since I would have loved to get at least Villette like that, if not all the novels. But generally, classics already don't sell as well as a lot of other literature, and less known works more so. I don't blame FS, much as I might regret it in some cases. I'm pretty sure that starting Sharpe in reading order with less known novels is at least part of what killed the series off after three volumes. (The other being the stingy illustrations, with only a limited edition at least having colour.) It looked like they were trying to start another series like some old ones, especially the Aubrey Maturin series, but it just didn't work. It's safe to say that publishing more Sir Walter Scott or less-known books by Dickens would also turn out to be a disaster when it comes to sales.

I’m pretty fatalistic about it all knowing that true lovers of lit and belie lettres are rare birds and, in an age of digital alternatives, were unlikely to keep the operation solvent. FS always felt too good to be true and the old catalogs were an embarrassment of riches. While the transformation is preferable to extinction, the old FS will always be sorely missed by some of us.

>60 SF-72: It's safe to say that publishing more Sir Walter Scott or less-known books by Dickens would also turn out to be a disaster when it comes to sales.

Is it that straightforward?

If Folio are pushing an 'artisinal' narrative of books as works of art in themselves then they should have confidence given the correct production and most importantly the illustrations, that they can sell any books with anticipated ROI.

Isn't this the point of difference pitch they are bringing to the market?

Quite frankly the recent Rob Roy illustrations were nothing short of hideous.

Not sure if anyone got a rollicking for that commission but some illustrations Folio have commissioned over the years have been so bad.

>62 LesMiserables: Not sure if anyone got a rollicking for that commission but some illustrations Folio have commissioned over the years have been so bad.

Completely agree. I love the binding and slipcases of the six Austen novels, but I won't ever buy them because I find the illustrations in them to be hideous.

>62 LesMiserables:

I'm coming to that conclusion based on what sold how and how fast during the time I've been buying from FS, by now 12 years. When popular literature sells out in hours or weeks and classics take much longer and often need sales, that's of course less of a success business-wise. To me something like their Faerie Queene was much superior to several recent limited editions, for example, but it certainly didn't sell as well and easily. But I completely agree that the Rob Roy illustrations were a disaster. I don't know what FS were thinking there. Same goes for several of the Austens mentioned above, though there I wish they'd finished their Puttappipat-illustrated series anyway.

>64 SF-72: Yes, I think this is correct analysis, and I'm not naive to think we will step back from Marvel, YA etc. but pray for more exploration of classics.

>65 LesMiserables:

What I really miss were the fantastic limited editions, be it Faerie Queene, Japan, the vellum-spine series, or their William Morris facsimiles. The Luttrell Psalter is simply a treasure, and Studies from Nature too. And while they weren't cheap, they were a lot more affordable than similar releases from other publishers. I understand that the recent titles are a much safer bet, but then they aren't nearly as special / unusual and most often overpriced. It's an extreme turn from what there used to be. I'd really enjoy something in-between these extremes, but well, as I've written above, you can't argue with the facts when it comes to what sells well or doesn't. I think of the ones I mentioned, only Studies from Nature and the vellum-bound Alice in Wonderland sold within a reasonable time frame and at full price, though I can't swear to the latter when it comes to Studies.

One classic Folio could definitely consider publishing is 'Who Moved My Cheese?' ;)

>66 SF-72: I think the vellum bound The Wind in the Willows sold pretty quickly. Studies from Nature took some time but never went on sale. I waited for a sale and then gave up and bought when they were down to 20 copies. Money well spent, a wonderful facsimile.

>67 red_guy: 😄

>69 kdweber:

I wasn't a member yet when The Wind in the Willows sold and only knew it was a success, but not how fast it sold. Thank you for that information. The standard version of it was actually a freebie I got for becoming a member, which was an excellent choice by FS. It's really such a beautiful book.

‘Folio Society has abandoned the classics!’

Meanwhile, they keep releasing more.

Gotta keep the fires of indignation burning, though!

>72 Noel_G: ‘Folio Society has abandoned the classics!' Meanwhile, they keep releasing more.

More of the same?

>72 Noel_G: The difference is FS 2.0 has taken a mass market press approach to classics, only offering a very short list of famous, sure to sell, titles.

>73 mr.philistine: >74 DanielOC:

Precisely.

Businesses don’t normally desire to produce things that people aren’t going to buy. That’s a way to go out of business.

>76 Noel_G: That’s very true, but not very applicable in this case. Despite there being some business practices that Folio clearly had to sharpen up on, many of which have been discussed on here over many years, most agree that the product was good and was in demand.

>73 mr.philistine:, >74 DanielOC: Absolutely

There’s no doubt that their products are good. None of us would be here if they weren’t.

Folio uses data to make decisions, as any good business should. They see what sells, what is profitable over time.

>79 Noel_G: FS uses some historical and current data, making it reactive and driving short-term wins, but it’s not a strategic company. It’s easy to overlook insights that don’t fit neatly into data models. Long-term growth requires vision - something I believe FS currently lacks.

>79 Noel_G: there's plenty of doubt, hence many on these threads who haven't bought direct from Folio in a while or who've bemoaned a drop in production quality, yet who retain a fondness for earlier publications of FS, for the values of FS1.0, and for the ongoing discussions here. You don't have to believe in a god to go to a temple.

>79 Noel_G: Folio uses data to make decisions, as any good business should. They see what sells, what is profitable over time.

But isn’t this the point? That they are willing to sell anything for profit?

Many of us bemoaners , think that discernment is important.

Is there another publisher (of illustrated books) that holds as much concurrent stock as Folio. I wonder if the premium we are being asked to pay is to cover the convenience of being able to buy their books direct from them years after they are printed. (Should note I’m not defending just curious).

Have they always had such a large catalogue available at once?

>83 Ragnaroekk: The fault is not by Folio, but by their customers. There is always the option to say "No".

O yes of course, and we are way down that track. I have said 'no' to new Folio for some time now: not absolutely, as I might look at their sales and be open to some new publication if it takes my fancy, but practically speaking my de facto present experience is buy only from second hand sources.

>84 anthonyfawkes:
They usually print 3-4,000 copies of each new edition, then reprint as required. Their stock holdings are not huge.

>83 Ragnaroekk: Again, no vision. A perfect example is the signed copy markup from 200 to 450. I’m sure plenty of people noticed and got defensive about the hike whether they wanted to buy it, or not. Was it really worth the 3000 or so extra profit? I believe this obvious kind of short-term greed hurts them in the long run, and honestly, it didn’t make a dent in their yearly revenue anyway. Sure, they found their 15 golden customers, but they’re gradually alienating a much bigger chunk.

>87 bacchus.:

True.

The “new” Folio boss has been there for 8 years, and has increased sales by 55% during that time(according to the linked article).
That’s not quite short term, nor is it failing.

They are doing just fine.

You don’t want to buy an expensive signature? Don’t.

You don’t like the selection? Don’t buy it.

I don’t bemoan the costs or sales of things I’m not interested in. What is the point of that activity? “Oh, whoa is me, they are selling signatures at ridiculous prices (in my opinion) that I was never going to buy. It’s a sign of decline! How could Folio abandon me as a customer?”

The “only buy used”, “only buy on clearance”, “only buy an edition every year or so” crowd isn’t going to drive their decisions on what to publish. It’s “these are selling, so we print more.” It’s not an industry secret formula to success.

If you want a publisher to cater to only your wants, the only way to find that is to open your own publishing house.

>90 Noel_G: I completely agree with all the points you have made throughout this thread.

The simple truth is that the traditional classic titles were not selling in quantities to sustain the business. If they were, Folio wouldn't have pivoted their catalog mix to emphasize more contemporary titles. After all, they are the ones that truly know where the shoe hurts.

I believe the FS catalog is actually stronger despite this change. Yes, they are increasingly publishing more modern titles, but these are still good books. I certainly don't consider G.R.R. Martin's books as low-quality literature. In a hundred years, ASoIF will probably be regarded as a defining work of this era. They also still publish books like A Man on the Moon, Everest, and even specialized books like Relativity. These are books worthy of the FS heritage, even if they are somewhat modern and contemporary.

Popular is not always equivalent to inferior. I personally enjoy many popular contemporary titles that are very well written. An author like Patrick Rothfuss is popular, but there's no denying he's a wordsmith. By the way, I wouldn't mind a Folio edition of The Name of the Wind. Quite sure it'll do well financially for Folio because of its popularity, but that doesn't mean it's a poor work of fiction, or unworthy of FS.

A few years ago, I read This is How you Lose the Time War, and it's one of the most beautifully written, witty, sweet and poignant works I've read in a while. I still read it occasionally when I'm craving some elegant prose. This is a modern book that will perfectly fit the Folio catalog in my opinion. Not a classic (yet), but nevertheless an excellent work.

Today's classics were probably the popular titles of their time anyway.

>91 Ibkay: I would be surprised if they do The Name of the Wind as it's an unfinished series. It's been 14 years since the second book. I would say FS thought that the Song of Ice and Fire series would be completed by now when they started releasing it.

There are books that FS publish that I have no interest in at all. I am grateful for the books they do publish that I like and other than having more books to skip over when I browse their website it doesn't bother me at all. There are plenty of other quality/fine presses doing interesting work.

Similarly, I visited a bookshop this week (quite a rare occurrence for me) and there were whole sections of books that I am not interested in. No gnashing of teeth. It would be nice if the fiction section were larger but I am happy the bookshop caters to a variety of interests.

>94 LT79: It would be boring to only have FS books anyway.

Then I must be very boring indeed. My collection of 2000 books consists almost entirely of Folio Society titles.

I've just reread the >1 boldface: article, and struggled to get past paragraph 1.
What a distasteful person she is. Those "old white men" were perhaps the ones who were the foundation of the Folio Society, and by her numbers close to half of current buyers are in their mid 40s or older.

Don't you just love it when some smarmy shoulder padded suit comes into a position and denigrates the very tradition and people who built up the business?

What an ass.

Some people want to be offended.

>97 LesMiserables: Ms Omnichannel is a publishing veterano who knows readers of lit have always been a very, very small cohort of the buying public and she’s smart enough to know they’re a varied demo, made up of all ages, genders and ethnicities. But she knows she’d never grow the bottom line selling the type of book FS was founded to provide, the rest is history.

>97 LesMiserables: close to half of current buyers are in their mid 40s or older

totally explains all the "instagram/tiktok" books they've been releasing lately

>101 johnny1991: Oh no! Are you going to leave FSD now?

>100 HamburgerHelper: can you elucidate for me? Why would mid 40s+ year group be into instagram/tiktok? Would that not be more for the younger crowd?

>98 Noel_G: Do they? On the contrary, I don't think it's difficult to be objectively clear to in identifying when someone is behaving like an ass, which she most certainly has been, without the modern phenomenon of being thrown into an apoplectic state of being offended.

>103 LesMiserables: I do believe they were using their sarcasm font and therefore saying that a majority of FS buyers are actually younger. That's how I read it anyway.

>103 LesMiserables: Ah.

>95 folio_books: "Then I must be very boring indeed. My collection of 2000 books consists almost entirely of Folio Society titles."

I think it is worth stating that the person you are replying to was fairly clearly stating it would be boring for them, not that people who - for whatever reason - restrict themselves to a single publisher are themselves boring.

For me, collecting just Folio (solely) would be incredibly boring (as there are only a relatively small number of Folio titles that interest me, especially in the non-fiction space), but it is clear that is a case of "horses for courses".

>97 LesMiserables:
>100 HamburgerHelper:
“Founded in 1947, the Folio Society was once a membership club known for publishing classic tomes and history books, with a customer base of predominantly “old white men”, according to its boss.

Now, however, more than half the people who buy its books are aged between 25 and 44, and it is selling more sci-fi and fantasy titles, boosted by BookTok and growing gen Z interest in “artisanal” editions.”

What’s the insulting part? They were probably, old, white, and men. And now the base isn’t. How else should the smarmy shoulder pad have said it?

Sounds a lot different put into context.

>107 johnny1991:

He said FSD, not FS.

>110 johnny1991:

If you buy used FS Books, you absolutely drive the creation and sale of new ones. Remaining a "devotee" seems fairly hypocritical if your stance is "Wow. Self-respecting white men should not be buying from a company that uses 'old white men' as an insult."

I think the point that 102 made was entirely valid.

>108 What_What: But why should she mention skin colour at all? What relevance?

>112 LesMiserables: Probably because it's true and also because old white men are likely to be more inclined than old non-white men to buy classic works by European or North American authors, if only because they may identify more closely with them.

>112 LesMiserables: because it’s a convenient throwaway line that she, as an old white female, probably thinks will give her cred with the kids and the mass market consumer. As an old hand in publishing, she knows lit readers have always been a very, very small cohort and the only way to make more money is to move outside that group. The truth is all the pop lit FS 2.0 prints is derivative and imitative of the seminal, canonical works FS was founded to provide and its a false notion that these titles represent a new order or voice. Ms Omnichannel knows that readers of the kind of books FS used to print were a varied demo, made up of all ages, genders and ethnicities, and she’s using the OWM trope to appear relevant and marketable with all credit card holders.

>114 DanielOC:

I do want to caution again that popular literature does not automatically imply inferior literature.

The term popular has unfortunately now come to imply second-rate work for the uncultured and undiscerning masses. The latest low-effort, mass-produced fad. The lowest common denominator. Although no one usually expresses it directly as such.

In bygone eras, there would have been excellent and inferior literary works existing side-by-side, just as we have today. What we regard as seminal classics today were just as likely to be popular works of their time. Age has now made these works prestigious, just as many good popular works today will be legendary hundreds of years in the future.

I believe Folio still carefully selects modern popular titles to publish - G.R.R. Martin's ASoIF, relatively older works like Dune, Foundation, Earthsea. Newer works like Neuromancer, The Book of the New Sun. Haruki Murakami's books. Even Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials. Many of these are very original books - at least within my scope, I don't see how Neuromancer for example is imitative of any older classic. These are very good 'popular' titles.

In a word, pop lit FS 2.0 is not necessarily low-quality literature. You have to select the gems from the mass of popular titles just as it has always been in the world. I believe Folio has done quite well so far.

>115 Ibkay: Agreed, all art is derivative to a degree and none is born of itself. Also agree that good and great work is written today and some of it is for the ages. I just don’t think FS 2.0 is doing a good job in offering titles in line with what FS should be all about.

>114 DanielOC: This comment has such an old white man vibe to it, it’s incredible. Almost satirical.

>115 Ibkay: I honestly believe the only works this 'Folio 2.0' is printing nowadays that don't deserve Folio treatment are the airport fiction books (Childs, Harris, Benchley, maybe Crichton). But I could even counter that argument myself if I take into consideration that 'Folio 1.0' printed and its successor continues to print Golden Age Crime, which was 'train station fiction' back in the day.

Being offended by the “old white men” quote, in the context of an article that is about a publisher success story where it expanded its customer base and went from near-bankruptcy to profitability, requires you to want to be offended by it. It wasn’t provided in an offensive context.

Folio actively including others doesn’t mean they are excluding you. You are choosing to exclude yourself, instead of welcoming more people into the club. Let people be happy, let companies be successful, go enjoy your own lives instead of just reacting - by choice - in the negative.

>120 Noel_G:

Exactly, it's only a zero-sum game if you want others with nothing.

>119 DanielOC: love a self-aware edit/delete

>115 Ibkay: >120 Noel_G:
Completely agree with both of you.

>120 Noel_G:

Completely love your assertions. Master class.

*not a 'club' by the way.

Interestingly, critiquing Folio's operation in the hope that they don't completely sell their corporate soul, can also be seen as a positive act.

>120 Noel_G: Exactly, well said.

>125 cronshaw: Seconded.

I did a quick internet search this morning to try and dig up some stats on Folio's audience demographic without any success but I have no reason to question the general move from a mostly white, male, older customer base to a much more diverse one, mirrored by the change in types of books published and selling profitably. I read the article as Joanna Reynolds stating a factual observation rather than trying to insult anybody.

Full disclosure: I am an increasingly old-adjacent white man and yet still very happy with what Folio offer :-)

Fair enough, but without any further context from the article, as it seems to be lifted from the rest of her comments which all point to trope employment. Completely fits in with current shallow cultural norms polluting society.

>126 Cat_of_Ulthar: agree - me too. I actually love the general direction. And tbh, some of these titles, especially the sci-fi and fantasy, are glorious in Folio. I’m buying hardly any new titles, but that’s more of a personal circumstance thing, and the fact the I have more than enough to read including over 250 Folios - very lucky. But if I was earlier in my collecting career, I’d be buying up (and fretting over the bank account no doubt!)

Having said that, I do agree that even though it was a throwaway quip, and a somewhat accurate summary of what was happening, phrases like ‘old white men’, regardless of seeming harmlessness, no longer have a place in society. People who are still using such disparaging descriptors (and this of course includes casual racism etc.), need to do a lot better and remove such lingering prejudice. We need to remember and acknowledge the ‘diversity of one’, but we humans are very drawn to simple categories, so it will be an ongoing challenge.

Back to the genre shift, the latest Folio FB post and the comments beneath, perfectly illustrate this, and the huge lift in consumer engagement: https://www.facebook.com/share/189kStBEtr/?mibextid=wwXIfr

>120 Noel_G: I beg to differ here - something like “white males over the age of 60 residing in the UK” would have been perfectly fine. It’s hard to believe that she used the phrase “old white men” without any intentional negative connotation. I wouldn’t say it was offending to me - but using their established customer base as a stepping stone to advertise success felt unnecessarily crass.

You said it yourself - you don’t have to exclude to evolve.

>130 bacchus.: where exactly is anyone being excluded here? Just because a previously privileged group may no longer be the primary focus, and other socio-demographic groups are being considered, doesn't remotely mean that the first group is being excluded.

I firmly believe the best days (not in terms of profit or market share but value for money) of FS are far behind us with no hope of a revival.

But that's okay, because current FS 2.0 publications only strengthen my resolve to acquire more pre-Omnichannel OOP titles; not that I was ever a frequent/ golden/ prime customer of FS since the only times I purchased direct was during Sales offering a flat shipping rate of £8 and precious few other instances! :P

PS: Here is another article dated 27 Jan, 2025 and titled "In An Age Of Fleeting Content, The Folio Society Thrives On Permanence". Fleet-footed permanence maybe, time will tell...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshweiss/2025/01/27/in-an-age-of-fleeting-content-...

So I’m a mixed race woman. I do think old white men is offensive in the context of customers. I don’t think that being inclusive excludes others except those who choose to exclude others. But in a professional context, old white men is unprofessional and even changing old to older would have made it a non derogatory statement.

>132 cronshaw: Exclusion in the oxymoronic sense :) I mean she supposedly tried to emphasize diversity by using a phrase that in same context can be divisive or antagonizing. As if it was a correction against someone. It’s not tragic but it undercuts the message - that’s all.

Unless, plot twist, she did it on purpose. Maybe it’s not always about being polite - it’s about being heard. On that front, she did great.

>134 mr.philistine: Thanks for the article. According to the Forbes contributor, Joanna expanded "the number of books it could release a year (from four to between 40 and 50), " so we should all be thanking her for that.

>137 PartTimeBookAddict: I think we can safely add misrepresentation, grandstanding, hypocrisy and gerontophobia to her growing list of felony charges. :)

>138 mr.philistine: I think it's just lazy (AI?) reporting.

Oh, my. Here we go again.

And we go round and round and round in the circle game.
Seriously, by now we all know what was and what now is. Whinging won’t change a thing. Either remain a customer, whatever level of engagement that might be, or don’t. This entire discussion has become exceedingly tedious.

>134 mr.philistine: Thanks for link to article. Well they certainly know how to spin, that's for sure. Just consider what they did to the actual subscription and exclusive model, to now how they spin exclusiveness and 'Society'. These two would be darned first class government ministers!

>141 cwl: "This entire discussion has become exceedingly tedious."

I know the world is burning around us and our children very likely have no real future (unless their parents are extraordinarily wealthy to buy them some time), but we really must focus on the nuances of historic vs current book retailing from niche publishers ;-)

>144 stubedoo: Well why not?
is this not the place for it?
For other topics like *the world is burning* or *we have no future for our children*, perhaps the appropriate place for those, are on the MSM forums or similar.

>133 johnny1991:

In terms of the modern popular Folio catalog, I don't see any 'exclusion' or destruction of Western literature.

If anything, we are getting even more Western literature. The debate here is primarily about modern popular works versus the classics, hence the term 'inclusion'. Including modern works by the likes of G.R.R. Martin and Frank Herbert instead of the nth printing of Dumas, Tolstoy or Bronte.

This naturally pulls in the younger contemporary crowd, which are also more 'diverse' than previous years. But this diversity is only a natural consequence of the colonization of several continents by the British and hence the spread of English language around the globe. You'll be surprised at the remote corners of the earth were English is more or less spoken and understood in some form. No other language has this outsized reach. Movies and music have only amplified this over the decades. Even technical programming languages - C/C++/C#, Java, Python and so on are all based on English. It is no exaggeration that English is the lingua franca of the world.

This is why we can't compare the English-speaking West to say China, India etc. No one else speaks their language but them. And language is key, it is everything. The inclusion in the sense you are describing is quite inevitable, as all these other non-western societies have effectively become satellites for the English west today.

But back on topic, at least for the modern Folio catalog, I personally appreciate the 'inclusion' of more modern high-quality titles.

>141 cwl:
Completely agree with you!

>148 Ibkay: Including modern works by the likes of G.R.R. Martin and Frank Herbert instead of the nth printing of Dumas, Tolstoy or Bronte.

You know we neither need the former or the multiple printings of the latter.

Many of us have been asking Folio directly for many many years for the classics not yet published by them.

Periodically, a bunch of folks here get worked up about an article or something pointing out a change in direction for Folio. Mostly with an implication that the quality of what they publish has lessened. But Folio have always published what many would consider to be pulp. The difference for many of you is that it's changed from pulp you're interested in (Jeeves and the like) to pulp you aren't interested in (GRRM).

There is still A LOT of high literature on the site. It's more recent and relatively more diverse, but it is there. It's been a long time since Folio started and a lot of fantastic new literature has been written. The world keeps turning. The literary canon is always changing. I find it more interesting to come along with the world as it turns rather than bemoaning its insistence on perpetual motion.

>151 Jason461: These are precisely my thoughts. I don't see any difference between publishing golden age crime (which is still being published), Wodehouse and Jerome to publishing more SFF today.

Speaking of classics they aren't currently printing, when the heck are we going to get an update to Year Round Things to do?

Well I suppose we might all define a classic as one that has stood the test of time and has been widely read, studied, and discussed. Cultural significance may also play a large part in reception to the canon.

I'm not sure if Folio bother about this any more, and as JR has pointed out, it's all about the fad and glam now.

>154 LesMiserables: "Well I suppose we might all define a classic as one that has stood the test of time and has been widely read, studied, and discussed."

You may choose to define a classic this way but, if you do, be prepared for some of us to argue that FS should be publishing more than just "classics".

I would argue that FS has never been a publisher of classics and nothing else - you just need to leaf through Folio 50/60/75 to see that an awful lot of dross was published in the first phase of Folio - books that nobody reads today so can hardly be said to have "stood the test of time".

I do wonder sometimes what books you think FS should actually be publishing - maybe you could provide a sample list?

>155 TheEconomist: Good point, but I was careful with my modal verbs when I wrote >154 LesMiserables:

I hope you noted that.

You know, for all the fussing, I went back to remind myself about early Folio publications. They've always been rather heavy on 19th c. lit, which is not so very much farther away from when Folio started as the 20th c. is from us now. Philip K. Dick has been dead longer than Tolstoy had when Folio first published his works.

>157 Jason461: I had this same thought as well Jason, so I'm glad you brought it up - heartily agree!

>154 LesMiserables:

How much need is there to print books that have been printed dozens of times before, including by Folio, though? If I want most classics that Folio would likely touch, they already published them and they can be had for next to nothing on the secondary market. There is a point where printing the same-old just isn't viable if you want to actually sell anything.

>160 stubedoo:

Exactly. When you face stiff competition against the secondary market, especially when a sizable portion of that secondary market is your own past self, you can't rest on your laurels. You can't print your 17th incomplete collection of Dickens. You couldn't complete the last dozen renditions. You have to innovate, reinvent, take chances, change, or evolve, or else you will simply disappear as a business. Folio seems to have come close. It's better to have what they are now than to have no Folio at all.

Train them with your pocketbooks and the selection will improve.

>161 treereader: Many here will disagree with the last sentence of your first paragraph.

>160 stubedoo: I'm most definitely not calling for the same old nth printing.

There is so much that Folio hasn't printed that are considered classics.

Some diverse examples:

The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774)
The Heart of Midlothian (1818).
The Four Men: A Farrago (1911)

I mean I could go on, but it's rather pointless. Folio have sould their soul to instaclick.

>163 LesMiserables:

The problem is that people need to buy them. I genuinely believe that Folio has done the research on what will sell and has sold and figured out a market. If they thought that those books would sell, they would definitely produce them. No publisher exists to only service the works and genres that we prefer. They have to service the works and genres that will make money for investors and keep the business alive. Classics are an incredibly limited market. Most people who want to read them can simply download a public domain copy. There is a massive shift in what people will pay for now.

>162 What_What:

Let them. It does take time, though. It’s also not a guaranteed approach because the Booktok sort of crowd may be larger and command more attention long enough to nullify the capitalist approach and/or outlive one seeing the company change back into something more of one’s liking. But again, vote with your wallet…if not for Folio’s offerings you do like, then for some other publisher. Or if Folio’s direction *really* bothers you, start publishing on your own. This crowd is far too small to hold any sway over Folio’s decision making, especially with money/livelihood on the line.

To be clear, I am neither an longtime Folio loyalist nor amongst the social media crowd they seem to skew toward. I lean towards the former, despite not having a long history of reading Folio, but I can’t see any realistic way Folio would publish classics that the average reader wouldn’t recognize by name. There’s simply no money in it.

The titles LesMiserables lists in >163 LesMiserables: are completely unfamiliar to me. Couldn’t even guess the authors. I’m in no way saying they’re bad books or not classics. I’m just suggesting that, as an average book nerd, since those are unfamiliar, Folio’s risk tolerance currently prevents any consideration of entertaining those kinds of books.

>164 stubedoo: But... given that they produce beautifully illustrated books, and to be clear, obscure books have sold out (and these are not obscure), then surely their hype should be able to sell them?

>165 treereader:
Goethe
Scott
Belloc

>166 LesMiserables:

I think it is like anything, you can produce a small quantity of obscure books and sell them, because they don't overwhelm the small market for obscure books. If you produce a LOT of obscure books, then the small market can't absorb them. Just because you can sell n books, doesn't mean you can sell 2xn or 10xn of the same kind of book. That's why variety is required, so you are selling into a variety of different customer types without wearing them all out.

>169 LT79: It's not as clean cut. I appreciate the classics as you are more or less going to respond meaningfully to them as millions have before you. But many like me do not baulk at more modern literature. I'm quite at home with Flannery O'Connor, Tolkien, Bill Bryson, John Le Carré, Wilbur Smith etc.

>169 LT79:

Exactly, so you sell some of each and everyone *should* be fairly happy (rather than complaining the entire output isn't to their taste). There is no need at all to produce one type of product to the exclusion of the others, and I don't think Folio are doing that. If you look at the LEs from the last couple of years, there is quite a mix of classic and modern. Obviously that might not continue, but at the moment, Folio seems to be producing content for a fairly decent variety of tastes. I often don't like their design choices, but to be honest I have often not liked their design choices going right back through their catalogue, and nor would I expect to.

Quality of the delivered product is an entirely different issue for me. I think they are falling down on that across all genres (as are a lot of publishers right now).

>171 stubedoo: Ah okay, I see things nuch clearer now.
Each to their own of course, but I'm just not going to be forking out lots of money, if at all, on Tommyknockers or Captain America, and am more likely to reserve those premium purchases for the likes of Dostoevsky, Scott, Dumas, but might well buy a nice version of Le Carre.

>172 LesMiserables:

Sure, but you don’t need to buy a Superhero book, because you aren’t the only customer. I don’t want a superhero book, but I recognise there is a market for that. I don’t see why Folio producing some books that don’t interest me should be a problem, so long as they produce some books that do occasionally interest me.

Expecting them to only produce books in genres that I want to read would be selfish and would doom them to be out of business by next month!

>163 LesMiserables: I’v said it before, but would absolutely love an FS Heart of Midlothian (have the Everyman Goethe). I recently did a SWS reread and there is so much to discover in his works.

>175 RRCBS: Most definitely, but alas, I believe Folio have divorced themselves from the likes of SWS in favour of, well...

>157 Jason461: "You know, for all the fussing, I went back to remind myself about early Folio publications. They've always been rather heavy on 19th c. lit, which is not so very much farther away from when Folio started as the 20th c. is from us now. Philip K. Dick has been dead longer than Tolstoy had when Folio first published his works."

Whilst this is certainly true, I would argue that there has been an overall shift in policy - back in the early days, FS published nothing at all by living authors. I did make an attempt to work out the first time FS did do this, and the first example I found was Point Counter Point in 1958. Happy to be corrected if needs be, but the overall point stands.

Just to be clear, though: I consider the shift in policy to be a good thing.

>163 LesMiserables: "There is so much that Folio hasn't printed that are considered classics."

Using your own definition of a classic, though, FS are still publishing classics. They just aren't publishing much 18th/19th Century literature.

I have only contributed twice to the various "Books we would like to see" threads on this forum, but on both occasions the books I suggested met your definition of "classic". I am currently running at a success rating of 50%. Mole, if you are listening, it really is time to publish "Godel, Escher, Bach"!

>177 TheEconomist: If the first example you could find was from nearly 70 years ago, I think the "shift in policy" has been in place longer than most of us here have been alive.

I agree, there's been movement, but I will go back to an earlier point I made. The difference is not a lack of high literature (or even of classics). It's that instead of selling Jeeves and Hornblower, they're selling King and GRRM. Honestly, none of that is really to my taste, and that's fine. Beyond that, I suppose there has been a slight shift toward very recent literature, but Folio has been publishing things that (at least at the time of publication) could be called contemporary for a very, very long time now. And I challenge anyone to make a coherent argument that Lahiri, Whitehead, Ishiguro, etc. aren't deserving of the "Literary" label.

>174 johnny1991:

I’m indifferent; there’s far too much stuff in this world to be cognizant of it all. Opportunity cost: I spent that time on Prandtl, Schlicting, and Maxwell, instead. That in turn allows me to buy Folio books.

I have read other Goethe and Scott, but can’t recall Belloc. If Folio were to publish these, the Scott would be a no-brainer buy, I’d ignore the Goethe (one was enough), and I’d at least do a background check on the Belloc title but at today’s prices, if it’s not something super intriguing sounding, it’s not likely something I’d take a chance on, even in a sale.

>168 stubedoo:
Stubedoo has it right. Folio could publish any of LesMiserables suggestions but not all of them at once and not in great quantities. They could make 10,000 of the Scott and it would take years to sell it out. Their customer base just isn’t built that way right now.

In general, I think they do publish the kinds of classics being asked for, but the frustration is that they are the same classics as usual. No venturing out beyond the perennial bestsellers, and that’s unfortunate.

Sounds like >174 johnny1991: and >167 LesMiserables: have both stumbled upon a very lucrative market to exploit. You should form a partnership and start it up.

I think many are asking for a bit of interesting curating or some adventure in it at least (like they used to do). Many of us discovered a good number of books through Folio. There are plenty of unpublished and popular works, they could add though, that could still sell. Let's not pretend, many of the books still go on sale so it would not be unprecedented if something didn't sell out instantly. Surely there's room for a couple of books each year that are standard classics that Folio has not printed? Much of the modern writing isn't really that interesting to some of us. That's perfectly fine.

I don't recall versions of:

Invisible Man - Ellison
The Possessed - Dostoevsky
All the King's Men - Penn Warren
An American Tragedy - Dreiser
The Sketchbook... - Irving
Robert Elsmere - Ward
Pudd'n'head Wilson - Twain
Ivanhoe - Scott
The Thin Man - Hammet

And more Sheridan Le Fanu because he is great!

But, what about ancient and or historical writings?

The Confessions - Augustine
Histories - Manetho
The History of the Franks - Tours
The Histories - Orosius
Roman History - Appian
On the Natural Faculties - Galen
Jagurtha/Catiline - Sallust
The Orator's Education - Quintilian
The Antiquities - Josephus
Jerome's Letters
John Muir
Continue Polybius!
Ralph Waldo Emerson!

It doesn't mean the direction is bad, just because some don't like it... It just doesn't make sense to be simply conformist and lose the spirit of the company as we knew it. FS has always published pop work and modern classics, etc. but they also printed some pretty exciting titles that nobody else was. I don't see why 3 or 4 books a year couldn't be set aside for the droll crowd.

FSD members with citizenship of the GMD forum will note that many titles mentioned in >182 TheToadRevoltof84: have been printed by the LEC/ HP.

Meanwhile one of the old Folio books I'd love to see reprinted is The Prisoner of Zenda. But I never forget that, despite being one of my favourites, it is still a victorian adventure romp and hence, never considered high literature.

>184 dyhtstriyk: Another title printed by both LEC and HP and cheaply available on the secondary market.

LEC review: https://www.librarything.com/topic/369141
HP review: https://georgemacyimagery.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/heritage-press-the-prisoner-o...

>183 mr.philistine:

FSD Members with knowledge of other publishers should note that many of the books published by Folio in their current catalog, were once published by other publishers?

>185 mr.philistine: I already have two copies of that one, hehe. Plus the facsimile edition Easton did. Interestingly, other than the Folio that was never reprinted, the Heritage/Easton edition of The Prisoner of Zenda is the only nice press edition of the book.

If Folio put out a great illustrated production of Robert E. Howard's works I'd be all over that. Conan, Kull, Solomon Kane.

In whose ear do I need to whisper?

Of course his works would work great for a small letterpress as well. As they were all written before 1936, they should all be in the public domain by what? 2031? I think some of his early works from the late 20s could be there already.

>182 TheToadRevoltof84: some good points re direction.

This raises the question, beyond making a profit and giving employment - all worthy things - what do they stand for?

I mean when the downturns come, and they will, and the instatok crowd evaporates or moves into something new, who will Folio turn to?

Will they continue to pump out glamtok, or will they come back to what used to be their core product?

>190 LesMiserables: (edit: corrected) "I mean when the downturns come, and they will, and the instatok crowd evaporates or moves into something new, who will Folio turn to?"

There is an implicit suggestion that a downturn / evaporation of customers would only affect the "modern" books (for want of a better word) and not the classics. I'm not at all sure that's the case. Plus the consumers of the classics may well be dying off anyway. I wouldn't be too sure the market that you think would most likely be the survivor will - in fact - be the survivor.

Irrespective. Companies have to continuously adapt to market conditions or they wither and die. That's the same for almost every company in almost every sector. The idea that the market that they are currently selling to is finite, so they shouldn't cater to it doesn't make sense to me. They should always be looking ahead to whatever the next trend is, but they should also be selling books to the buyers that exist now.

>192 stubedoo: That quote belongs to me.

I'm making assumptions, strong ones I believe, that the tiktok kids have are currently cash flow rich, whilst the fogies have more resilient wealth.

>192 stubedoo:

The fogies are dyin' off, and that wealth is passing to younger people, sometimes skipping a generation.

>194 stubedoo: All fogies die off, and all youths have fleeting attention spans. :-)

>195 LesMiserables:

I’m in my fifties, and I have the attention span of a gnat! I think I was better as a yoof!

>196 stubedoo: Ha ha, fair enough. I'm 57 and recently ditched my smart phone for a sms/call only phone with no internet.

What a difference.

I suspect there's also another type of consumer. The wealthy parent who buys quality books for their children. I would be very happy to do the same if they were so inclined.

>197 LesMiserables:

I'm with you on avoiding smart phones. My only connection to the internet is through the computer -- setup in the living room -- where I have to intentionally make a choice to use it, and not isolate myself while doing so.

Well, that is not quite true, I have a Roku for streaming services, and that is the internet, but not social media.

I have intentionally never bought a smart phone and have used a basic flip phone forever. I get ribbed a lot by my kids and mo co-workers, but they know my views on the addictive nature of small screens and social media.

However, I just upgraded my phone this week to a very nice dumb phone with no social media (Light Phone III, if you want to google that). We'll see how it goes as we head off to my daughter's wedding in a few weeks, then a trip to ten day little vacation after that.

>200 johnny1991: Agree that they are equally pernicious, although I'd say that having a phone in your pocket is worse.

I eschewed television in 2007. One of my better life choices to date.

I also ditched cinema 10 years ago.

>201 LesMiserables: "I eschewed television in 2007."

I dropped commercial TV around the same time. I moved from Perth to Brisbane in 2007 and simply never reconnected the antenna cable in the new house. I am Australian, but I had started to find the fake Australian TV accent used on news/current affairs, etc, make me want to vomit. Just the TV, not actual Australians. That and the damn exaggerated and constant hand emphasis. It had genuinely become this unwatchable Ausmerican mess. When I moved to NZ, I kept up the "no TV". Been here 12 years and have never seen NZ TV.

>203 stubedoo: Yeah, interesting. I built my current home in 2010 and likewise didn't bother putting up an aerial. TV is truly mind-numbing for me. Life's too short!

>202 johnny1991: I was a suit until August last year when I retired, so chained to the smartphone too. All the rubbish that is meant make you efficient, smart, productive: Hubspot, Slack etc. And don't get me started on Linkedin. Nowhere on earth will you find a more self-interested, faker, shallower group of pretenders. Ha ha.

>189 sdawson: I would love that, even though I have some of the Wandering Star and Subterranean Press volumes, I would happily buy Howard’s works from Folio.

I'll add another book that, IMO, is unworthy of the Folio treatment: just finished reading Pompeii on Kindle and, well, it's an airport thriller laden with disaster book/movie clichés. The only informative stuff: getting to know in detail roman waterworks and plinian eruptions. Fun, but probably forgettable.

>206 dyhtstriyk: I read that book some years back, and I agree completely.

>208 johnny1991: sorry that Folio tries to sell books to the wrong sort of people for you

>208 johnny1991:

Why? It doesn't particularly compel me to buy any of their books, but there is nothing offensive about it. I think your reaction is strange.

>208 johnny1991: Can't access that link.

What is it? Is she selling ebooks now? 😁

>211 LesMiserables: It’s a picture of a black man reading a popular book (Jaws), with other books being handed out to him such as Dune, Game of Thrones and Howl’s Moving Castle.
The horror…

>212 Nerevarine:

Correction. It's presumably a black man standing with a book in his hands that is a popular movie (that just so happens to be a book) surrounded by other books that have been popularly turned into a movie.

I think the irritation isn't perhaps necessary, as it seems he's no longer a targeted audience. However sad it may be, worse things have happened... I believe a better explanation of the problem is likely warranted.

I think the irritation is with the world 'bestsellers' and the books offered to this particular reader.

Nobody is offering him a Dickens or a Trollope or a Gibbon or a Hardy, the paramount books of Old Folio.

What have been their bestsellers of late? I hardly think Hardy or Trollope number among them. Using that word seems like an accurate statement, whether some people like it or not.

Not that efficiency is the main thing, but I wonder how many of these discussions we could shorten to just stating our reading record/interest in the seven titles pictured and when we first became aware of the FS.

I'm at own one, read three, and generally supportive of today's FS (originally a member, circa 1992)

Also at own one, read three.

Three for me (Game of Thrones, Dune and Dracula)

>216 kcshankd:

Or maybe, which of the OED definitions of "timeless" we think applies to Jaws:

1.a. Existing or operating outside of or without reference to time, (in early use) esp. eternal, as opposed to temporal; not subject to or bound by the passing of time.
1.b. literary (chiefly poetic). Everlasting, eternal; spec. apparently suspended from time, evoking a sense of eternity.
1.c. Unaffected by the passage of time or changes in fashion; perpetually relevant, valuable, appealing, etc.
2. Chiefly poetic. That has not happened at the proper or rightful time; not well-timed; untimely, unseasonable; esp. occurring or done prematurely. Now archaic and rare.
3. Having no sense of musical time or rhythm; that is out of time. Now rare.
4. Brief, short-lived. Obsolete. rare.
5. Grammar. Not indicating a particular time; having no explicit tense.

>219 cpg:

With respect, it is and always has been marketing. None of us signed a contract.

Own three, read six out of seven.

Member (actually one of the last old model members) since Apr 2016, but I had started buying used Folios a month or two prior.

Own three, read four

Own three from another publisher, with two of them read.
Had one from Folio but sold it because I decided I didn't need a fancy copy of a series that would never be completed (or read again) and that my Kindle copy was more than sufficient.
Will probably buy one but I'm indifferent as to whether it is Folio or somewhere else. The TV series was pretty good. I've a paperback copy somewhere, too.
The remaining two I likely won't buy or read.

Never saw the ad before until >208 johnny1991: graciously shared it with us. haha

Can anyone paste the ad image here?

>208 johnny1991: lol. That comment probably sounded wittier in your head. Even in this crowd, it was weird.

>224 LesMiserables:
Here you are.

He's holding the book to show it clearly for the photograph, not to read it. And the term "mulatto" assumes something not in clear evidence, and is problematic these days besides - I haven't heard or seen it used in many years.

>227 johnny1991: None of those books scream diversity with the possible exception of Song of Achilles.

You see what you want to see. I saw 7 books and 0 people.

>227 johnny1991: I think you missed calling it “woke,” judging from the general tone of your comment.

Also, mullato? Really?

At this point, I think back to the advice to just ignore the troll…

>226 wcarter: Thanks. It looks remarkably like Calvin Robinson, before he cut his hair.

>227 johnny1991: I've never heard that term before 'mulatto'. At first I thought it was a hair thing, like a portmanteau of a mullet ( a horrendous Aussie popular male haircut) and something else like a cappuccino. I mean the hair is spectacular.
Anyway, forgive the musings of an ignorant recluse. I'm not too up on anything modern or modernist.

>232 RRCBS: I think back to the advice to just ignore the troll…

Absolutely. Trolls thrive on attention. They wither and disappear when consistently ignored.

>228 coynedj: Clearly terminology comes and goes. Sometimes words are self-retired, driven underground, or resigned to be used by some niche group.
I heard someone say 'shut up' the other day, and apparently it can be used as an exclamation of surprise or astonishment.

The mind boggles.

I still haven't worked out what metrosexual means. I saw that somewhere sometime and snorted.

>236 LesMiserables: I still haven't worked out what metrosexual means.

From Google: Meaning of metrosexual in English
a man who is usually heterosexual (= sexually or romantically attracted to women) and is very interested in fashion, grooming, and his appearance in a way that is usually seen as being like a woman: I'm not a metrosexual, but I do like using a moisturizer at night.

I know you prefer a different kind of football down under but a certain David Beckham was described as a metrosexual. At least that's how I first came across the term. Personally I don't care for these kind of labels.

>237 Pendrainllwyn: Thanks. Yes, I'm not keen on those labels too. So nothing to do with romantic liaisons on the Tube/Underground then.

>229 HonorWulf: and it’s not even like the suggestion that the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus as being more than friendship is anything new.

For the love of God, I mean… what do some people expect here? I cannot hear it anymore. Oh I will never buy from them anymore, not enough 18th century literature or what have you. And now taking offence because of an ad? And again people who feel not to be the target group anymore, because for once they don’t use an old white man who looks like a librarian?
Well I bet that everyone except the librarian type has not felt to be the target audience before. Everyone is a reader and it’s absolutely great that they are showing it like that!

Reading is entertainment for most people and not many read Paradise Lost for entertainment. I love reading classics, but not everyone does and certainly not the new Booktok generation. They want to spend money on high quality versions they like…

I think it’s great that we have a new generation of readers who value the printed book and also the high quality printed book. This wasn’t certain 10 years ago. I wrote my thesis in 2012 about the future of reading and back then most people in the industry were sure that the printed book would vanish in a few years and only the ebook would remain. Thank god this didn’t happen.
Today, we have more people who buy “special edition” books than in the last 15 years.
I don’t need a 100€ version of A Court of Thorns and Roses, to be sure, but it pays the people who can do that and thus they can continue to produce beautiful books.

>240 woodstock8786: Interesting points. I would say however that every advertisement is designed.

Folks will analyse advertisements.

I see not one of my freckels on those hands.

That's an entirely superficial analysis to make the point that if an ad exists, it exists to be liked, disliked, critiqued, loved etc.

>240 woodstock8786:
Hear,hear!

>237 Pendrainllwyn: “I'm not a metrosexual, but I do like using a moisturizer at night.”

Ponce! Perfumed ponce!

Just jesting. :)

I happened to watch “Withnail and I” for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and that scene in the London pub was one of many outlandish moments in the film that stood out.

>238 LesMiserables: 😅

The only thing I find objectionable with regard to the Folio Society advertisement is the cover to JAWS.

I wouldn’t be able to read that book without fearing that Bruce’s terrifying maw would be moving ever so slowly toward my hands.

And Lord forbid if I lay the book on my lap, with nought but a pillow between the twain.

Cue the iconic theme music…

>245 betaraybill: Please! Next Ms Omnichannel will be signing off on 3D glasses to accompany immersive illustrations.

>234 LesMiserables: Mulatto is hardly a modern term, as it stems from racial classification back in the days of slavery here in the U.S.

>247 coynedj: Thanks; that underscores my complete ignorance in such matters.

If it were not for reading books I don't think I would have come across the word mulatto. Out of curiosity I used AI to ask in which famous novels the word has been used to see where I might have come across it.

In seconds it came back with 10 examples of "widely read and studied novels", briefly commented on the context in which the word was used, and offered to provide page numbers and excerpts. Of the 10 novels, the 2 I have read were by Toni Morrison (Beloved - 1987) and Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes were Watching God - 1937) both of which deal with slavery. Excluding Beloved, they all date between 1851 (Hawthorne) and 1942 (Faulkner) suggesting the word has fallen into disuse.

The response was kind enough to tell me the term is considered outdated and offensive. And with that I won't use the word again.

Anyway, quite an impressive resource.

Using AI to scratch my satire itch:

>247 coynedj:

If you read a bit further on wikipedia:

The English term and spelling mulatto is derived from the Spanish and Portuguese mulato. It was a common term in the Southeastern United States during the era of slavery. Some sources suggest that it may derive from the Portuguese word mula (from the Latin mūlus), meaning 'mule', the hybrid offspring of a horse and a donkey.2223 The Real Academia Española traces its origin to mulo in the sense of hybridity; originally used to refer to any mixed race person.24 The term is now generally considered outdated and offensive in non-Spanish and non-Portuguese speaking countries,25 and was considered offensive even in the 19th century.3

and later:

In English, printed usage of mulatto dates to at least the 16th century. The 1595 work Drake's Voyages first used the term in the context of intimate unions producing biracial children. The Oxford English Dictionary defined mulatto as "one who is the offspring of a European and a Black". This earliest usage regarded "black" and "white" as discrete "species", with the "mulatto" constituting a third separate "species".27

>250 A.Nobody: An excellent effort, although the surrounding hands could be a good deal more wrinkled to achieve maximum amounts of old white men energy. Can we add small ties on the wrists or something, to guarantee these are effectively 100% male hands?

>250 A.Nobody: Love it.

>248 LesMiserables: You created a group about dictionaries.

>255 Cat_of_Ulthar: Yes, but not wholly popular!

>253 AdPacem: Still no freckles. I'm offended.

Anyway in other news, for those looking for worthy books but not for Folio, I've come across the excellent Os Justi press who are reprinting some Belloc classics. https://osjustipress.com/collections/literature-language

>246 LesMiserables: Ha! Hmm… We already have FS books with glow in the dark adornments, so along with 3D, I’m expecting pop-up and scratch-and-sniff effects in the not too distant future.

>259 betaraybill: Ha. Tactile Folio Classics.

>259 betaraybill:
I actually have a scented book, Rose Daughter, which had a quite pronounced rose smell when new, but with time the scent has evaporated.
See https://www.librarything.com/topic/330400

>231 What_What: "Also, mullato? Really?"

Given the history of this word - and that it is generally considered to be offensive - I just don't understand why the user that used it hasn't been banned. It feels like a clear contravention of the forum rules. Freedom of expression is one thing, but there comes a point where trolls just keep pushing and pushing for a reaction and the right reaction is simply to ban them and move on.

>262 stubedoo: I'm fairly certain that if you block s person, you cannot see their posts.

Try that, perhaps?

I don't think banning is appropriate and over the top. It's a slippery slope where those in control get to govern speech. Merely block or ignore if they annoy you so much.

>263 LesMiserables:

I don't agree. We should have standards of acceptable behaviour.

>264 johnny1991:

Thanks for the spelling correction. No, we shouldn't burn our books, but maybe you could just reign in the racial stuff and don't make arguments about it with false equivalence. If you use a word that is now considered racially offensive about a real person in a current advert, that ain't equivalent to the word being used in a book. You seem to like to engage in deliberate misinterpretation of other people's comments, and generally just seem to be suffering from some kind of attention-seeking syndrome, which is all a bit pathetic.

I think it is time to close this discussion, ignore the troll and move on with other threads on this forum.
Please note that forum administrators cannot ban LT members, only LT administrators can do that and seem to be reluctant to do so unless a member is being particularly egregious.

>265 stubedoo: True, and so we can then ask the question, who decides on standards. Tricky.

>269 johnny1991: You know, I'm over here reading articles about how the Republican party is currently banning books because of the words in them. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you (johnny1991) lean just a touch to the right. And now I assume that you aren't over there personally banning books (then again, who knows, maybe you are), but the people you (presumably) stand behind, are. Are you seeing the irony on any level at all here? The words in those books are so hurtful that we're going to ban them. But people offended by the things that **I** say? How dare they, they can F right off because words can't hurt people and they're just sensitive snowflakes.

Words do matter and I do believe you know that perfectly well.

If everyone is saying that what you said is bad - maybe all those other people don't have "mental issues" - maybe, just maybe, you're in the wrong. I would say food for thought for you but I know you won't take any of this to heart on any level other than to try to twist my words into something else and continue on your mission of hate towards any person that is "other" than you.

>270 rubix_cubin:

Since this group is incapable of this level of debate, this thread will be shutdown. But, you should note that books aren't being banned for words in the US. I'm not sure where this distortion comes from, but it's simply wrong.

However, if you want a bit of a lesson on why the Brits were right about the Republic failing, ultimately it is ignorance and selfishness. As the Aristocrats in the US and UK are mind numbingly ignorant and selfish, they certainly represent us well. The political climate is intentional, try to learn something on your own rather than in the news. Use reason when hearing all the paid informants.

Marius v. Sulla!

>271 TheToadRevoltof84: I'm not into letting some neo-nazi spread hate without any level of response. No problem, I do believe that was the last straw for me. I don't like hanging out with racist people, I'm out.

We have all become products and many aren’t even self aware enough to realize it. It’s sad when it’s even permeated a message board specifically created to discuss books. I suggest the admins take a more strict stance in the future and keep this site true to its purpose. If people want this discussion there are any number of sites to have it on.

>272 rubix_cubin:

That's fine. Nobody really wants you to leave though. But as you are calling johnny1991 a hypocrite and 'Republicans', 'Sensitive Snowflakes' think of this, as you would say on your leaving due to a racist, "Are you seeing the irony on any level at all here?".

Nobody needed to bring in politics, but for some, everything is political. A general conversation outside of simply saying, book bad or book good is too much for some. I too couldn't let you distort the truth without saying something, so I had felt I had to, right or wrong. But, I've been suspended from these boards for less, because so many are fascistic by nature. There's no reason to not make a comment and end it when you've had enough. You are owed nothing, just as you owe nothing.

Here you go - this is posted on the front page of this forum:

PLEASE NOTE : Unless specifically related to a discussion regarding a particular book, posts on politics, religion, race or sex are not permitted on this forum. Posts that ignore this policy will be deleted.

I do not believe johnny1991 referring to the fella in the FS ad as mullato was related to anything being discussed in any way whatsoever or had anything to do with any book at all. I'm pretty sure it does indeed have to do with race though.

Pretty neat that I get accused of being ignorant for factually stating that books are being banned (if you want to call it something else, that's fine, put whatever word you'd like to it) but no mention of ignorance in regards to the person calling other humans mullato.

I'm good here. We, fortunately, get to choose where we spend our time and with whom. I'd rather not spend mine in a place that inserts these sorts of beliefs upon others at any supposed opportunity. I was really just here to talk about books.

>275 johnny1991:

If you'd like to argue politics, there's a group called pro and con. It is generally an insufferable paradox of one sided thought, but you may have fun and they'd love you there.

I hesitated to resurrect this thread, but didn't see another good place to say this. I was cleaning out a drawer today and found my Folio Society membership card.

Ah, the olden days.

>281 coynedj:

I believe the thread has been killed and new comments (including this one) will be removed.

Oops. Sorry.

Two months on and the troll has gone (I hope!), so further on topic posts welcome.

>281 coynedj: I still have mine. I miss those days. The presentation volume, the choices to be made, the sense of belonging to club that was aligned to great books if not The Great Books.

Heaven only knows what the presentation book would be today. I won't go there.

>285 LesMiserables:, offhand, I’d say something akin to those comic book collections that FS is playing around with.

Given the current frenzy on social media over The Life of a Show Girl, if Joanna really wanted to boost the bottom line, she could get in the Taylor Swift business and put out a nice edition of the Eras Tour book or some other Tay Tay tome. 🤣

>287 CJDelDotto: That would be a great business move. Not my thing, but much like the boost she gave the NFL, I suspect her fans would be an entirely new audience for FS.

>287 CJDelDotto: Haha, just imagine that. Printing books that people want.

I'm all for titles that sell and make tons of money for FS if they, in effect, subsidize the niche books (more poetry! more drama!) that I wished the company would publish more of.

>290 CJDelDotto: I agree. It seems Folio has really hit a good formula here.

An analogy is work and hobbies. For some individuals, they are one and the same, or at least have significant overlap. I consider this the ideal case. For very many others though, work is mostly for survival. They are competent at it, but it's primarily done to put food on the table and have a place to sleep. They'd rather be engaging their hobbies, but those won't pay the bills.

While Folio may largely prefer to publish the classics and other niche titles, they probably move at a fraction of the more popular titles that sell out multiple print runs in a few years. Folio Dune published in 2015 was already at the ninth printing in 2022. Many classic titles won't sell out the first printing in 3 years, even with periodic sales. They'd soon be out of business if they relied on the classics alone.

So yes, this strategy of selectively publishing popular books as 'cash cows' buys Folio time and gives them breathing room to also indulge in the slower moving classics, while minimizing the risk of losing the entire company.

>291 Ibkay: And I guess that should they move into the genre of THE BIG BOOK OF XXXXX aka Taschen, then that would be ok too.

>292 LesMiserables: Of course they'll carefully curate the popular titles to be published, which in my view they've done a good job so far. Works by G.R.R. Martin, Frank Herbert, Suzanna Clarke, Erin Morgenstern, Iain M. Banks, William Gibson etc. are good books which do profitable volume for Folio judging from the number of print runs.

Not all popular modern titles are bottom-tier trash, just like not all old titles are classics. It's popular titles that become the classics with time anyway.

>293 Ibkay: I guess what I'm getting at, the expansion if we can call it that, is lazy. It's somewhat akin to podcasting. The well meaning niche becomes slave to the algorithm, what will be sugar, clickbait.
The soul flees. The husk yet brands the soul that once resided there.

>294 LesMiserables: I understand your point quite well, and I certainly perceive the *compromise*. But what can Folio practically do to survive? After all, even the loftiest goals or ideals still have to operate in the messy real world, with all its frustrating difficulties and challenges. Most times, the carefully balanced middle ground is the only way to realize any great ambition, no matter how noble it may be. Not perfect, but it carries us further than any perfect plans forever trapped only as ideas because they are impractical at the present time.

For the price point Folio is trying to play at (the SEs which are the *real* business, not the LEs), they need good volume at a quick pace. Like most 'commodity' businesses - modest margins per unit, but a lot of units make it work.

The alternative is to shrink Folio to a one- or two-man show like most of the other small/fine presses, take preorders months or even years in advance to 'fund' the book production, use numbered and lettered 'rights' systems etc.

I think people often take for granted how Folio does not do any preorders, or how they still publish a good number of niche non-fiction and historical titles in a respectable physical format that will outlive all their present owners.

Who else will publish a decent edition of Stalin, Everest, The Silk Roads, Arctic, Cicero, Syria, Iron Curtain, Origin of Species, Anglo Saxons etc.? Certainly not Suntup, Centipede, CTP, or Curious King. This is a blessing I am always grateful for. The Folio catalog is nothing short of amazing compared to their peers in high-quality bookmaking.

I personally welcome the curated pop expansion with open arms, if only to serve as patrons for the slow moving, low volume but highest quality titles.

>295 Ibkay: I accept all that you say, yet none of it quite accounts for the void that they left behind. All in my opinion of course: some agree, some don't.

>295 Ibkay:

Well said.

>295 Ibkay: This post should be stickied at the top of this forum.

>295 Ibkay: Great perception. I hadn't thought about it this way before.
I, for one, won't be whinging again. :)

>295 Ibkay: What worries me is that Reynolds’ shift isn’t just a compromise to keep things afloat. It feels more like Folio is moving from a publisher that put readers first into one that’s run by the numbers. Once you start playing the numbers game*, it doesn’t just keep you alive, it changes who you are. Some won’t notice, others don’t care, but the question is whether Folio can still be that rare cultural publisher that gives us Everest and Cicero alongside the pop titles, or whether it’s sliding into just another branch of mainstream publishing with a luxury gloss.

* https://lithub.com/ruled-by-numbers-how-data-dominates-every-facet-of-our-daily-...

>300 bacchus.: The latter.

>300 bacchus.:

I'd agree with LesMis. It is the latter, IMHO.

There are certain categories that don’t seem to be as profitable for Folio these days. Non-Fiction>Military History takes you to a list of only six titles. I’m coming to terms with the reality that there will be no further releases in the Great Battles series.

Il is all drones nowadays

>303 Mr.Fox: six sounds actually like a lot to me. I've always been surprised by the amount of war history books being published.

>305 David_Mauduit: I suppose it depends on how far one casts that net. If we are limiting to modern warfare perhaps: but then we could of course include the Greek and Roman classics, warfare from the Middle Ages through to the early modern era.

Small piece released yesterday: Jane Kirby, formerly rights director at PRH, is joining Folio as head of acquisitions in a newly-created role, reporting to publishing director Tom Walker as she leads Folio’s acquisition strategy.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/newsbrief/index.html?record=5723

>307 FitzJames: BCA redux? Beat the retreat.