Motorbooks, a Minneapolis-based publisher that specializes in transportation titles, has launched two new series. The specialty house is hoping the new lines, Speed Read and The Life, will expand its audience beyond hard-core transportation enthusiasts.
Speed Read and The Life will target readers who are developing an interest in automotive forms of transport, as well as those who want to delve deeper into the automotive culture.
According to Motorbooks’ marketing manager Mallory Hayes, the books in the series will have a lower price than the publisher's standard coffee table books. “We want [these titles] to hit the demographic that can’t, or won’t, spend $50 on our books,” she said. The 2017 releases in both series will be published with 7,500-copy initial print runs. Speed Read titles will be published in paperback, while The Life titles, which feature full-color photographs, will be published in hardcover.
The first two titles in the Speed Read series, set to appear in October, are Speed Read: Formula 1 by Stuart Codling, and Speed Read: Car Design by Tony Lewin. Motorbooks will publish two more books in the series in 2018: Speed Read: Ferrari and Speed Read: Ford Mustang.
The first two title in The Life series are The Life: Harley-Davidson by Darwin Holmstrom and The Life: McQueen (about actor Steve McQueen's love of motorcycles) by Dwight Jon Zimmerman. The former is set for November, and the latter for December. Motorbooks will publish The Life: Vespa in 2018.
Motorbooks, which founded in 1965 and acquired by U.K.-based house Quarto in 2007, publishes approximately 40 titles per year.
