Trio of Instant Books from Triumph
By Claire Kirch -- Publishers Weekly, 10/16/2009 11:47:00 AM
Triumph Books, the Chicago-based imprint of Random House renowned for churning out full-color sports books on short notice, is taking full advantage this month of what publisher Mitch Rogatz calls “fleeting excitement in the marketplace,” by releasing three instant books – one of them a flip-book about Vikings quarterback Brett Favre, who previously quarterbacked for the Green Bay Packers, another a guide to professional bull-riding, and the third an irreverent look at the Obama administration.
Shipping just in time for the Nov. 2 grudge match between the Minnesota Vikings and the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Triumph is releasing a 216-page trade paper flip-book with the titles I Hate Brett Favre and I Love Brett Favre by Ross Bernstein. While the I Hate Brett Favre jacket displays a photo of the football star wearing his green and yellow Packers unifom, the I Love Brett Favre jacket displays a photo of him in his purple Vikings uniform. The flip-book will be released with a 23,000-copy first print run and will be sold primarily in Minnesota and Wisconsin, as well as in NFL stores elsewhere.
“The minute Favre signed with Minnesota, we knew we had to do a book,” Rogatz said, “We wanted to poke fun at Favre, but we wanted everyone on board. Everyone’s got something to say about Brett Favre.”
Also just shipping, in time for the upcoming World Bull Riding Championships, held in Las Vegas the last weekend in October and the first weekend in November, is PBR Professional Bull Riders: The Official Guide to the Toughest Sport on Earth by Jeffrey Johnstone and Keith Ryan Cartwright, published in collaboration with the Professional Bull Riders organization, with a 17,000-copy first print run in a trade paper format.
“We did a book with the PBR eight years ago,” Rogatz explained, “Since then the sport has exploded. It needed a whole new history.” PBR Professional Bull Riders will contain sections on the most famous bulls, their breeders, rodeo clowns, as well as information about the riders. Triumph will heavily market PBR Professional Bull Riders to more than 20,000 bull riding fans who are expected to descend upon Las Vegas later this month. Promotional plans include sending two riders at a time to casinos to sign books for fans.
Triumph’s third instant book, O is for Obama: An Irreverent A-to-Z Guide to Washington and Beltway Politics, a book of rhymes by Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, with illustrations by Mark Anderson, does not have the same limited window of time in the marketplace that the other two instant books have. Here though, Triumph is taking advantage of the ongoing fascination with the U.S. president, as the press did previously with The Rise of Barack Obama, published several months before the 2008 election, and with The Inauguration of Barack Obama: A Photographic Journal, an instant book of photographs published less than a month after Obama’s inauguration on January 20, 2009. The Inauguration of Barack Obama was published in collaboration with the Washington Post, which also is collaborating with Triumph on O is for Obama.
“Obama is still in the news, he’s still a lightning rod,” Rogatz insisted, “But he’s not untouchable anymore. SNL pokes fun at him now. This is a balanced, but very cutting, look at his administration.” O is for Obama is being released in an oversized hardcover format, with a 28,000-copy first print run.
Trying to explain why Triumph is releasing three such irreverent instant books this season, Rogatz described Americans as “feeling beaten down,” with “the weight on their shoulders. So, to put out something that helps others have fun, puts a smile on people’s faces, and hopefully sells lots and lots of books, is a great thing,” Rogatz said.
