What a Cool Idea! “Flipbacks”

This article was in the LibraryThing.com “State of the Thing” email newsletter, yesterday, and I just HAD to copy and share it — it’s such a neat idea (if you ask me, anyway)!

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Flipbacks! An interview with Kate Parkin
I first read about flipback books in a Guardian article in late March, and immediately started learning more about them so I could share them with the LibraryThing community.

Popular in the Netherlands (where they’re known by the delightful name dwarsligger), these small-format hardback books will be launched in the UK at the end of the month by the publisher Hodder & Stoughton. The first batch features titles by Stephen King, Jasper Fforde, David Mitchell, and John le Carré. I talked to Kate Parkin, Hodder & Stoughton’s flipback publisher, to find out more about this new book format.

Can you tell us a bit about how the format has gained popularity in the Netherlands and elsewhere, and how Hodder & Stoughton decided to launch flipbacks in the UK?
The flipbacks were launched in Holland in autumn 2009. The inventor—Jongbloed, a printer and publisher of Bibles—had a vast stock of very thing Bible paper and machines configured to non-traditional book formats: Bibles have always come in all shapes and sizes, unlike ‘normal’ (non-illustrated books which tend to appear in only four formats. Jongbloed partnered with one of Holland’s biggest publishers, Ambo/Anthos, and together they did extensive market research which suggested that there would be a ready market for books in this format. There are now over 100 titles in Dutch in this format and 1 million copies in print—which is phenomenal when you think there are only 16 million people in the Netherlands! Although they were launched at the Frankfurt Book Fair I don’t think any English-language publisher noticed them at the time. I discovered them entirely by chance at a dinner in France when I tripped over the handbag of a fellow guest –a Dutch woman—and out fell this little book. She was so enthusiastic—and I was so taken with it—that when I got back to the office I called the Dutch publishers (whom I knew), asked them to send me some samples, showed them round the office and had such a good reaction that I hopped on a plane to Holland and—after lengthy negotiations—managed to persuade Jongbloed to grant us the exclusive English-language licence for the UK and our overseas markets.

There’s a long tradition of small-format hardback books, going all the way back to Aldus Manutius. But the landscape format of the flipback does seem quite innovative: other than the layout, what else is different about the bindings and paper used in the flipbacks?
Each flipback is sewn, glued and bound in such a way that it falls open fully without breaking the spine. In effect you are reading a normal paperback page that can fold in half. The paper is Bible paper, which is very fine and means that the flipback is far lighter than a paperback – 45g on average.

How’d you pick the twelve “first run” titles for the flipback format in English? Were the authors (or some of the authors) involved in the process?
We chose a representative sample of some of our biggest authors across the list. For most of them the format was something completely new, but they have been really enthusiastic with the finished product. We are following up with another 6 titles in September, and a further 9 in November when we will launch the first in our ‘Flipback Classics’ range—the six major novels by Jane Austen.

What’s the pre-release reception been like in the UK? Any feedback so far from retailers or consumers?
We gave away copies at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival and had a fantastic reaction! People really loved the size and feel of these books and we have had some great emails subsequently raving about them. Booksellers have on the whole been very supportive, too.

Some articles about flipbacks have suggested that they are a response to e-readers (offering some of the portability without the size of a regular book). How do you see them “fitting in” in today’s publishing market?
We have never seen these as rivals to the Kindle—although this is how the launch has inevitably been characterized in the press. For us, this is about finding another way to offer our authors’ books to readers. Not everyone likes reading electronically, but almost all of us like the idea of its portability—and with the flipback you really can fit an entire book in your pocket. E-readers are a fantastic way to download and access a whole lot of information, but for many people part of the pleasure of reading is the feel of the book itself. The flipback offers that tactile experience – and of course it makes a lovely gift. It’s been interesting watching the way that people we’ve shown it to in the run-up to the launch have stroked it and played with it—it’s as if they are rediscovering the physical pleasure of a really beautifully produced book.

Any plans to release flipbacks in the United States?
We don’t have US rights, unfortunately, but it will be possible to order the books via Amazon and the Dutch printers tell me that they are in talks with US publishers at the moment.

Find out more about flipbacks at www.flipbackbooks.com

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Isn’t that the neatest thing? I soooo hope that these will eventually come overseas to the USA and Canada! I’d love to get my hands on a couple of them!

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