Despite a list focused on conservative and libertarian political issues, Texas-based Spence Publishing is not only looking to attract left liberal readers, but is revamping its Web site and catalogue to appeal to the fastest growing segment of its customers—20-to-30something Generation Xers.
Launched in 1996 by Thomas Spence, publisher and owner, and Mitchell Muncy, editor-in-chief, Spence Publishing specializes in serious, often polemical, nonfiction books on "enduring" cultural and social issues. Trained as a lawyer, Spence got his start in publishing at WRS Publishing, a family-owned inspirational publishing house, before launching his own house in Dallas. Muncy, a friend of Spence's, had previously worked in academia and magazine publishing.
Spence Publishing's first book was The End of Democracy by Richard John Neuhaus, in 1997, and the company followed quickly with Russell Kirk's Rights of Duty and No Liberty for License by David Lowenthal. The house's big bestseller (more than 50,000 copies) is the controversial Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes by right-wing pundit David Horowitz. But Spence also publishes the quirky pop culture study All Shook Up: Music, Passion and Politics by Carson Holloway.
Despite their conservative list, Muncy and Spencer "abjure the libertarian label" and prefer to see themselves as a couple of mavericks. Muncy told PW, "We can't really say that we planned this. Basic Books and the Free Press shifted their editorial focus enough that it left a lot of books for us to acquire." But Spence said the house is also looking for "a more liberal cast of authors who are left of center and have something to say," and they are also interested in serious biography and history.
Muncy told PW that Spence offers modest advances, "personal attention" to its authors and aggressive promotional support for each of its books. First printings average 3,000—5,000 copies, a majority of which are taken by the chains. The company has 30 books in print and is expecting to publish eight titles this year. The house handles its own distribution and fulfillment from a 9,000-square-foot office and warehouse space in Dallas.
Muncy quips that sales are divided among "aging National Review subscribers, middle-class family values followers" and, more recently, a growing number of Generation X and Y readers, who apparently found Spence through the Internet and buy titles almost exclusively through the Spence Web site (www.spencepublishing.com). To keep the youth demographic growing, Spence is relaunching its Web site at the beginning of 2002 with a "hipper" design, flashier graphics and much more Web-only content.
