The Barnes & Noble Classics imprint moves the country's largest bookstore chain's publishing efforts beyond merely reprinting public domain titles "to a comprehensive trade publishing program," company CEO Steve Riggio told press members and others who gathered at the New York Public Library April 7 to hear details of the new imprint. The first of the imprint's 15 titles will be released May 1, with a total of 100 titles expected to be available by June 2004. Alan Kahn, president of B&N's publishing division, said it is likely "there will be many additions of titles in the years ahead."
The initial titles will be published in trade paperback, and hardcover editions are planned for later this year. Some titles will be published as mass market paperbacks and in large-print editions, and all will be available as e-books. The new imprint, which was developed in cooperation with Michael J. Fine, president of Fine Creative Media, will feature better-quality paper than B&N's reprints and an improved cover design, plus introductions by scholars, footnotes, endnotes and discussion questions. Prices will range from $3.95 to $9.95.
The books will be distributed by B&N's Sterling Publishing Co., although many of B&N's retail competitors may not be willing to carry a line that bears the Barnes & Noble Classics imprint. Riggio said the titles will be displayed in the company's outlets in the literature section as well as in the front of the stores. He insisted that the goal of the program is to bring the classics to new readers, not to steal customers from other publishers.
Riggio said the classics line, which had been two years in development, is just the first of a number of new publishing programs that will be announced over the next several months. But even before any new initiatives are revealed, this new program already gets closer to the businesses of large New York houses than any existing B&N program does. At the high end, the company's $9.95 hardcovers will compete with the elegant paperbacks of Penguin Classics and Modern Library. While both houses have expanded their definition of classics to go beyond public domain books, the titles remain an essential part of the publishers' lists and provide a steady stream of revenue.
On the low end, the company's $3.95 no-frills paperbacks will run up against discount offerings from the likes of Mineola, N.Y.'s Dover Publishing. Dover president Clarence Strowbridge sounded unperturbed by the B&N announcement. "There have been many players for many years. This is one more," he said. "There will continue to be others." As for the retail implications, Strowbridge noted that the house has had trouble gaining entree into B&N even before this announcement, and he even wondered if other large retailers might be more willing to consider more Dover titles now that B&N has expanded its program.
But perhaps the greatest arena for competition will not be the books themselves, but the markets in which they are sold: Penguin Classics does a significant amount of its business in the college market. B&N is firmly targeting the college and even high school markets, with its emphasis on new scholarly annotations, and Riggio said the classics also will be used as the basis for online courses.
The chain does not have a sales force or mechanism to sell to professors and might face a battle getting into coursepacks. But the chain has a weapon many of the publishers don't—B&N's sister company Barnes & Noble College Textbooks operates nearly 500 college stores across the country.
