After years of publishing titles that catered to an academic readership, ISI Books is capitalizing on the invigorated market for right-wing books and its own recent successes by launching two new series. This fall, the small conservative house located in Wilmington, Del., will introduce Crosscurrents, a line of original translations of contemporary and classic works, with the publication of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Russia in Collapse (Sept.), the first work by the Nobel Prize winner to appear in English in eight years. ISI will also branch out into children's books, with its new Foundations series. The first two titles are Everyday Graces: A Child's Book of Good Manners (Sept.), an anthology edited by Karen Santorum, wife of Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, and The National Review Treasury of Classic Children's Literature (Sept.), edited by William F. Buckley Jr.
These two initiatives come as annual revenues at the 10-year-old press have more than doubled over the past two years, to $600,000. A recent switch to the University of Chicago Press for distribution, an upswing in author appearances on talk radio and review attention from the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the Philadelphia Inquirer have not only brought in more readers, but also a new crop of writers. "We're attracting authors with more clout and name recognition," said Doug Schneider, ISI Books' director of marketing and sales since 2001.
On the house's growing frontlist are books by conservative intellectuals, such as Princeton professor Robert P. George, British philosopher Robert Scruton and Cal State Fresno professor Bruce Thornton. The backlist includes titles by Russell Kirk and George H. Nash, whose The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America is one of the press's bestsellers.
ISI targets its seasonal catalogue not only to bookstores, but also to the 50,000 members of the press's parent foundation: the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, founded in 1953 by conservative publishing patriarch Henry Regnery and others to support students and academic faculty dedicated to "the American ideal of ordered liberty." On average, the press's titles sell 7,000 to 13,000 copies, though Santorum's book will have an initial run of 15,000 copies, since the senator will promote it at his speaking appearances and in a media campaign arranged by an outside publicity firm.
The press's new vigor reflects founder Jeff Nelson's sense of mission. "Political conservatism depends on traditional intellectual conservatism. Issues may change on the surface, but core ideas need to be continually redefined and probed," he said, emphasizing that such work is especially important in a time when more publishers are putting out books labeled as conservative. "As conservatism becomes more politicized, a group that upholds core principles and philosophy is more vital."
That mandate, Nelson said, is one important way ISI differs from larger conservative publishers that specialize in publishing media pundits or political muckraking. "We publish our books to be around in 10 years," he said. "We can get beyond and beneath political squabbling on the surface. Books should be helping to frame a more balanced, informed public discussion."
