Ten years ago Matthew Lore, who had been v-p and executive editor at Da Capo Press, teamed up with his business partner, Peter Burri, to found the Experiment. The press’s mission is to have a list in which “every book is a test of new ideas.”
From the start, the press scored A+ with such bestsellers as Forks Over Knives: The Plant-Based Way to Health, the Mindfulness Coloring Books series, and Baby-Led Weaning.
Jennifer Hergenroeder, executive director of marketing, publicity, and sales, attributes much of the Experiment’s success to Lore’s “uncanny knack for trend spotting.” Well before “plant-based” became as much a part of the diet vernacular as “Atkins,” Lore noticed something new afoot in the way people were eating or wanting to eat, and published Forks Over Knives. If he continues his streak, the next food trend will be finding a balance between Häagen-Dazs and kale with Clean Enough (Sept.) by Katzie Guy-Hamilton, who advocates a healthy diet that aims for pleasure, not perfection.
Overcoming Opioid Addiction, which is just out from psychiatrist Adam Bisaga, happened, Hergenroeder says, because “Matthew was moved by the fact that there was no guide out there to help.” When Lore noticed increasing news coverage of the BRCA gene mutations, a leading factor in breast and other cancers in women, he contacted Pamela Munster, a breast cancer specialist and researcher in the gene mutation. Her personal account, Twisting Fate: My Journey with BRCA—From Breast Cancer Doctor to Patient, and Back is due out in September.
Lore is equally adept at finding books from overseas that have yet to be published in the U.S. In October the Experiment will publish The Global Economy As You’ve Never Seen It, an oversized (10¾-in. x 13¾-in.) coffee-table book. Originally published in Germany, this economic atlas deconstructs the world economy.
In September, Lore is leading the press into children’s publishing with the U.S. launch of the My Big WimmelBook series. These oversized board books, originally published in Germany, are hybrid picture books, board books, and activity books. Hergenroeder notes that these are not “Americanized” versions of the German books, but rather are being drawn from scratch, with two of Germany’s most successful book designers and illustrators, Stefan Lohr and Max Walther. A kind of mashup of the Where’s Waldo? and Choose Your Own Adventure series, WimmelBooks will grow with the reader from babies to 5-plus years of age.
The Experiment’s titles are distributed by Workman.