At a time when small, youth-oriented houses are redefining the market for art book publishing, Harry N. Abrams, for years positioned as an elite publisher of coffee-table books, is reshaping itself for a new generation of readers.
Under Abrams president and CEO Michael Jacobs, who joined the company in 2004, Abrams is launching imprints focusing on pop culture, crafts and the education market. Most notably, early next year, Jacobs will launch Abrams Image, specializing in pop culture, humor, contemporary design, and comics and graphic novels. The linchpin of Jacobs's efforts, the imprint has a target audience ranging from teens to 30-somethings—"Generations that have grown up with a sense of design and the mixture of picture and texts seen on the Web," said Howard Reeves, publisher of Abrams Books for Young Readers and Amulet, who will head the new imprint.
Image's lead title will be Mom's Cancer by Brian Fies, an award-winning Web comic about a cancer survivor, transformed into a graphic novel by Abrams editor Charles Kochman, who was recently hired away from DC Comics.
This fall, the house will also debut Abrams Studio, an effort to revive the publisher in the educational market, with a focus on supplementary texts about digital media, design, photography, drawing and painting. And under Abrams's Stewart, Tabori & Chang imprint, three new imprints will launch: STC Craft (under editor Melanie Falick), STC Healthy Living and STC Paperbacks.
Jacobs said these new imprints follow on the heels of Amulet, a young adult hardcover and paperback prose imprint, launched in 2004, that has already had a bestseller (Lauren Myracle's ttyl, which has sold more than 100,000 copies in both hard- and softcover).
Jacobs described the current art book market as "tough," adding, "There's consolidation in the retail channels, more competition and books are being squeezed by sidelines in museum shops." He wants to shift Abrams toward "affordable books for younger readers" that can break out in special markets. He cited one of Abrams's recent bestselling backlist titles, Graffiti World, a book documenting international street art. He's also reduced the number of Abrams titles 15% overall, from 250 titles last year to 220, and wants a similar reduction next year.
But Jacobs is quick to reassure that he's not giving up on the lavish museum-generated tomes long associated with Abrams, with new jumbo books featuring the works of photographer Richard Avedon and painter Chuck Close coming in the fall. "You can't sell as many as in the past," said Jacobs, "but a beautiful, high-end book that really delivers can still sell."
