Palace Press, the San Rafael, Calif., house known for its spirituality and ecology titles, believes it has tapped into another growing niche: popular culture. The illustrated book publisher—and subsidiary of print broker Palace Press International—has done particularly well with oversized tomes featuring lush, behind-the-scenes photographs of film stars and famous musicians. Next month, it will publish its second-biggest print run, a 30,000-copy run for The Art and Making of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. The $29.95 paperback features gatefolds and add-ons including glued-in envelopes containing character cards. Palace is hoping to reach 50,000 copies within the first two months of publication.
Palace still publishes spiritual titles under its Mandala imprint, and eco-related titles under its Earth Aware imprint. It also continues to package and print books for other publishers. But, said publisher and artistic director Raoul Goff, “our film and music titles have had the biggest growth, and those are the biggest areas for us right now.” Palace publishes those titles under the Insight Editions imprint.
Insight began publishing pop culture—related books in fall 2006; Born to Run (on Bruce Springsteen) sold 30,000 copies, while The Reggae Scrapbook got a rave New York Times review and sold 10,000 copies. Insight's fall 2008 list includes a limited edition run (only 1,138 copies) of Star Wars: Frames, each book numbered and signed by George Lucas; Rock Gods: Forty Years of Rock Photography; and The Complete Quincy Jones: My Journey & Passions. Palace is also licensing properties from Lucasfilm and has some DC Comics—licensed titles coming out in the fall.
