For 75 years, Globe Pequot has brought enlightening content to readers across a striking range of categories including history, outdoor recreation, lifestyle, food and culture, and much more. Globe Pequot has continually expanded its line of titles by acquiring numerous specialty and regional publishers and integrating them into its robust catalog of offerings.
Publisher Judith Schnell spoke to PW about the company’s longevity, what’s new across the company’s numerous imprints, and how Globe is celebrating its 75th.
Globe Pequot has such a long, storied history. In its 75th year, in what ways does the publisher continue to grow, innovate, and inspire?
We focus on publishing great writing by authors who are knowledgeable in their categories. We publish for enthusiasts who are hungry to find the next thing whether that is learning a fishing technique by a star angler, finding the best places to hike from a veteran guide who knows an area best, or enjoying a narrative by an author who brings new light to a subject or region.
Building on this publishing philosophy, Globe also has consistently grown through acquiring publishers of exceptional quality and content with categories that fit and expand our program of specialty and regional publishing. Since the acquisition of Globe Pequot by Rowman & Littlefield in 2014, we purchased more than 10 imprints—Stackpole Books and Gooseberry in 2015 and Pineapple Press, Backbeat, Applause, and Alan C. Hood in 2018. In 2019, we added the Finney imprints (Astragal Press, Hobar, Skipjack, Great Outdoors, and Windward Publishing), Prometheus Books, McBooks, and Union Park Press. And in 2021, Eclipse Press joined the Globe family. Our goal is to grow our lists organically each year as well. In 2021, we had our best year ever and are constantly looking for new ways to continue that success.
Talk about the breadth of Globe Pequot’s genres.
Globe Pequot is not just the name of one of our regional imprints—it is the namesake for the Trade Division as well. Each of our 16 Trade imprints specializes in one or a few categories. Our other regional imprints include Down East Books (Maine and New England), Pineapple Press (Florida and the southeast), and TwoDot (western U.S.). Our outdoor brand, Falcon, is the leading publisher of hiking guides and books on regional climbing, paddling, nature, cycling, camping, and health. Lyons Press specializes in books on fly fishing, history, true crime, pets, backyard life, cooking, and performing arts. Applause and Backbeat books cater to theater, cinema, and music enthusiasts, with many well-known artists on the list. The Prometheus imprint is committed to testing the boundaries of established thought and focuses on books in popular science, critical thinking, philosophy, atheism, humanism, current events, psychology, and true crime. Stackpole Books, celebrating 95 years in 2022, publishes books on history, crafts, and the outdoors, and together with Lyons Press are the preeminent publisher on fly fishing books. Globe’s children’s imprint, Muddy Boots, focuses on outdoor and nature-inspired books. Turning 50 in 2022, Skipjack Press publishes books about blacksmithing and ironwork and Astragal Press on antique tools, metalworking, carriage building, and early trades and technologies. McBooks has a robust list of nautical fiction by well-known authors in the genre. Gooseberry Patch celebrates home and making memories with family and friends in their cookbooks.
Talk about the importance of regional interest titles. How can they help both build a sense of local community and forge global connection?
Globe Pequot began publishing history books on Connecticut in the 1940s and expanded into New England, working with historical societies and assisting neighboring towns and other local groups with their publishing needs. Travel across the United States was a natural progression and then, with the acquisition of Falcon and TwoDot, Globe had books for almost every state in the U.S. It’s been our mission to find the best authors who are located in the region they publish. We also have a sales team both in-house and in the field who know their communities best. This provides a genuine connection to the local community and knowledge that only locals know. Bookstores mirror and create community and Globe Pequot works with local shops to provide carefully vetted information to help locals and visitors discover places close to home. We’ve focused on finding the unique places that make each community special, developing books that serve as aspiration and inspiration for anyone interested in an area.
What’s the key to Globe Pequot’s longevity?
Globe Pequot’s longevity can be attributed to a number of things. We are committed to researching and following market trends so we publish books our readers need and want. We continuously review how we’re presenting content and take a multi-department approach to what we decide to publish. We’re also focused on making sure we publish books in the right genres under the right imprint, which establishes trust with both bookstore buyers and consumers. We pay attention to the quality of the way our books are produced and edited. Our editors are experts in their genres and work to further their relationships with our authors to publish well-conceived books so that readers know they can trust our content. The editors for our regional imprints are part of the communities their books cater to. We work collaboratively across departments as we make publishing decisions to ensure we keep the consumer in mind. Our dedicated staff believes in the content we’re providing, and we have been able to add imprints that strengthen our program throughout the years. We also have many bestselling books on our backlist that continue to sell year after year.
What’s new for Globe Pequot across its more than a dozen imprints? How are you celebrating this milestone?
Our relationships with bookstores and consumers are extremely important to us. Our anniversaries this year will permeate our publicity and marketing campaigns as well as our publishing program. We have three new books on the Yellowstone National Park to celebrate the 150th anniversary this year—Rediscovering Wonderland, Historic Yellowstone and Yellowstone National Park: The First 150 Years. We are partnering with Yankee Magazine, once again, to publish Yankee’s History of Eating in New England. We are working with Carol Cash Large, a close friend of Blake Shelton for 30 years, on an account of one of country music’s biggest stars of all time in Happy Anywhere: Blake Shelton. We are publishing a book by Brian Kateman, co-founder and president of the Reducetarian Foundation, called Meat Me Halfway—the same name as his documentary—in favor of reducing the consumption of animal products. And long-time author Chris Enss has been trusted with artifacts and historical documents from historian Chris Kortlander who owns the Elizabeth Custer Museum in Garryowen, Mont., to publish The Widowed Ones, about the seven officer’s wives who traveled with their officer husbands in Gen. George Armstrong Custer’s Seventh Cavalry. And the bestselling author of Detective in the Dooryard, Tim Cotton, has a new book called Dawn in the Dooryard in 2022.
In addition to your new tiles released annually, you have a robust backlist. How do you ensure that backlist titles continue to be on readers’ radars?
Our backlist is very important to our longevity as a publisher. We focus marketing and sales efforts on backlist in a variety of ways. We publish print and digital catalogs every year that include frontlist and backlist titles in the areas of outdoor recreation, fishing and hunting, regional interest, children’s, crafts, nautical, history, and performing arts and gift books. The catalogs are mailed to libraries, bookstores, buyers, and are also available for consumers. This year we will publish a backlist catalog featuring all imprints to celebrate our perennial bestsellers. We create and share many collections of backlist books that work for holidays, celebrations, anniversaries, and current events and we launch advertising campaigns for these books throughout the year. Our publishing program includes a process to keep our backlist fresh and current by revising our content and updating editions.
