A New Kind of Book of the Month Club: Twelve Publishing Looking at a Paradigm Shift for Its Writers

So, you are a writer. Right? And you have the next Great American Novel all printed and ready to submit. Are you passionate about your book? Do you think it is the next “big thing” with a place on the bestseller lists? Are you looking for a publisher who will champion your book with that same passion and dedication? Try this on for size:

291,000 books were published in 2006.

70% of those books ended up in remainder bins.

1% landed on the bestseller lists.

Sounds like a daunting task to get noticed, doesn’t it? And it should, since most publishers take a “shot gun” approach, throwing onto the shelves whatever they think might sell, usually with a single editor responsible for at least a half a dozen new titles every week, and a publicity department that has dozens of books to choose from for the big “push” into the hands of readers.

But in August 2005, a different kind of publisher came on the scene. With a vision of making every book they publish a success, and not through the usual channels.

And their objective is to publish
One
Book
A
Month.

“That’s nuts!” you might think. Until you look at the list of books they published in 2007 – nine in total – six of which were bestsellers. Nearly a 70% “hit” ratio.

The publisher is Twelve Publishing, with a mission statement that reads like a writer’s fantasy: “Talented authors deserve attention not only from publishers, but from readers as well. To sell the book is only the beginning of our mission. To build avid audiences of readers who are enriched by these works – that is our ultimate purpose.”

Twelve Publishing was founded by Jonathan Karp, former Editor-in-Chief of the Random House Publishing Group, with a resume of discovered books and writers who have become household names, such as Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand, Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson, and Thank You For Smoking by Christopher Buckley.

What I really wanted to do with this imprint was to make a promise to every writer we publish that we would do everything in our power to make his or her book a best seller,” Karp said in an interview with National Public Radio’s Lynn Neary.

And that Karp has done, as the editor-in-chief and publisher of Twelve. Christopher Buckley signed on with Twelve for his latest novel Boomsday, and his novel Supreme Courtship is scheduled for release as one of the novels of the month in 2008. The February 2008 title is TheGeography of Bliss by Eric Weiner.

But Twelve is not just accepting established writers. No, they turned Jennifer Lee’s The Fortune Cookie Chronicles into a bestseller, a tale of the Chinese-American experience as seen through the food.

The company’s success could be because they stand behind a book – for a full month and beyond into paperback prints. Publicity comes from Cary Goldstein, former Assistant Director of Publicity and Director of Web Publicity at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, the publishing giant. Goldstein championed a number of stellar new writers while at FSG, bringing out under his direction, such writers as Emily Barton, author of Brookland; Paul Elie, author of The Life You Save Might Be Your Own ; and Christopher Sorrentino, author of Trance.

You can find out more about Twelve Publishing at their website.