New Lynne Rienner Imprint to Focus on Cheaper Titles

By Claire Kirch -- Publishers Weekly, 5/1/2008 12:53:00 PM

Lynne Rienner Publishers, headquartered in Boulder, Colo., is marking its 25th anniversary of publishing scholarly works and textbooks by launching a new division, to be called FirstForumPress. Like its parent company, FirstForum will target the academic market by publishing scholarly monographs. The new imprint’s titles, however, will be published in a more “timely and cost-effective” fashion for a smaller market than the 50-60 books released each year by its parent company.

FirstForum will release 15 titles in hardcover this fall in the areas of international relations, comparative and US politics, sociology, and criminology, with a projected increase to 20-25 titles next year. According to Lynne Rienner, who founded the company in 1984, FirstForum titles will have smaller print runs than traditional titles, averaging 300 copies, in contrast to the parent company’s typical 700-copy print runs for scholarly monographs. Authors will take responsibility for proofreading and typesetting, by inserting their finished manuscripts into a template called the “FirstForum Composer” provided by the press that automatically converts the manuscript into a standard typeset format. Cover designs will also be somewhat standardized, as opposed to Lynne Rienner titles, which are individually designed by in-house staff.

“We wanted to find a way to publish these really good books without going broke,” Rienner said of the new venture. “We’re really committed to not treating them like poor relatives,” she added, explaining that FirstForum books will be peer reviewed, as well as marketed, to the same extent as Lynne Rienner books. Prices of the first three titles range from $55 to $69.95