The University of Texas Press will publish in September the trade paper edition of More Curious, a book of essays by former New Yorker editor and memoirist Sean Wilsey (Oh The Glory of It All) that will be an expanded version of the hardcover edition (published in 2014 by McSweeney’s). For UTP the acquisition was about, in part, raising the profile of the 65-year-old press's trade list of Texas-themed books.
While the press has been publishing books about Texas since 1950, it has become more high-profile in recent years, especially with such releases as Let the People In: The Life and Times of Ann Richards by Jan Reid. That biography, of the former Texas governor, was named an IndieBound selection in 2012. And the press's Lonesome Dove series of four novels by Larry McMurtry has sold 50,000 copies. The 2005 memoir One Ranger by H. Joaquin Jackson, with David Marion Wilkinson, has sold 75,000 copies.
Although Wilsey isn't from Texas, about a third of More Curious is concerned with Marfa, a town which is in the arid western part of the state and has become famous in recent years as a bohemian artists’ enclave on the high desert. Wilsey now lives part of the year in Marfa, and the collection begins and ends with essays about the town: “The Republic of Marfa” and “Marfa Revisited.”
Wilsey’s two essays about Marfa prompted Kittrell to contact him about the possibility of his writing a full-length book about the town. When he turned down that idea--he told PW that he's "already said what I had to say about Marfa”--Kittrell focused on trying to acquire More Curious.
“It’s partly a Texas book,” Kittrell said, so "we wanted [it].”
The UTP edition of More Curious will be an expanded version of the hardcover edition, published in 2014 by McSweeney’s (where Wilsey served as editor-at-large). There book will include a new essay on Houston, and the initial print run will be 3,000 copies.
As for the paperback rights sale, both publishers involved feel the deal places the new edition in the right hands. McSweeney’s marketing manager Cal Crosby told PW that the house sold the paper rights to UTP believing it could do more for the book. UTP concurs, and hopes to leverage the attention the book has already received by promoting it directly and aggressively to booksellers, rather than seeking more reviews and media attention.
“Because we’re a smaller press, we’re well suited to take on books that need more focus as a paperback, and we have the ability to cater to each project with individualized time and attention,” UTP publicist Lena Moses-Schmitt said. “Our sales team is also committed to presenting the paperback to booksellers across the country. This is the kind of book that booksellers can make a tremendous difference for, through handselling and reviewing on shelf-talkers and store blogs. This might not be new for trade publishers, but it’s certainly new for us as an academic publisher.”
The press hopes to implement the same marketing strategy with its October release, Don't Suck, Don't Die: Giving Up Vic Chestnutt by Kristin Hersh, which UTP introduced to indie booksellers at Wi10. Hersh will embark on an eight-city national tour of indies this fall.
