What do you get when you marry the short format of the Penguin Lives series with a succession of cult-favorite musicians, under the imprimatur of a hip music magazine? Irresistible collectibles for music fans—or so hopes U.K. publisher Canongate Books, which has collaborated with London music magazine Mojo on a series of short rock-and-soul biographies.
The first four in the Mojo Heroes series—bios of Neil Young, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye and Arthur Little of the band Love—were published at the end of January in limited hardcover runs of 7,500 copies each worldwide. The beautifully packaged books range in length from 150 to 280 pages, each sporting a cloth cover with a photo embedded in the front panel and an inexpensive $15 price tag. "These hardbacks will never be republished—ever," said a gleeful Jamie Byng, Canongate's publisher, from his office in Edinburgh. "The beauty of limited runs is that they will be highly sought after."
The series will be aimed in part at Mojo subscribers. "There are 100,000 Mojo readers in the U.K. and 20,000 more in the U.S.," explained Colin McLear, Canongate's U.S. publicist." They're diehard loyalists and have money to spend: most of the magazine's back issues have sold out, and the average reader is over 35."
The first quartet of books were written by the magazine's music writers. Marvin Gaye: What's Going On and the Last Days of the Motown Sound concentrates on Gaye's pivotal 1971 recording, while Arthur Lee: Alone Again follows the lead singer of Love, who burned out in the late '60s and is now in a California prison on an assault conviction. "Lee may not have the name recognition of the others," admitted Byng, "but important unsung figures with particularly interesting stories will also be part of the mixture of the series."
The Mojo Heroes hardback titles will be followed by paperback editions, with an initial print run of 20,000, to be published in the U.S. next winter. An average of four biographies will be released every year, for a projected total of 30 titles over 10 years. New subjects will include Nina Simone, Graham Parker and Beach Boy Brian Wilson. Though he would not name the upcoming authors, Byng made it clear that some will be very famous. "A lot of the future writers will be literary novelists not known for their music writing," said Byng. "I am excited by this evolution in the series."
The charming Byng is no stranger to music. Formerly the owner of a popular funk and reggae club in Edinburgh, he has developed an eclectic list at Canongate, ranging from Charles Bukowski novels to influential music guides. In New York, the publisher shares offices with Grove Atlantic and the two feature each other's books in their catalogues, testament to Byng's close friendship with Grove publisher Morgan Entrekin.
