You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Crowdfunding platform Unbound is opening up to offer channels to traditional publishing houses.
Canongate and the Do Book Company are the first to sign up to the service, with further announcements from larger publishers said to be expected in coming months.
Unbound said publishers had expressed "a keen interest" in using Unbound channels to fund, produce and market special and limited editions of popular publications, as well as books that will appeal to niche audiences.
Co-founder Dan Kieran told delegates at today's FutureBook conference: "We're bringing a new commercial ecosystem to serve the whole industry." Urging interested publishers to get in touch, he promised: "Your ideas can grow and multiply without huge cost and risk."
Canongate publisher Jamie Byng commented: "Unbound is one of the most innovative new publishing companies to have appeared in recent years and what it is offering authors and readers is something very distinctive and appealing. It's great that this offer is now being extended to publishers and, following on from our highly successful co-publication of Shaun Usher's Letters of Note, we are thrilled to be now partnering with Unbound on other 'special projects' through our own Canongate channel."
The first book to appear on the channel will be Do Books Company's Do Purpose by David Hieatt, founder of the howies clothing company. The book is said to be a call to arms for a new kind of entrepreneur to emerge to bring about social and economic change.
Do Book Company c.e.o. Miranda West said: "We've admired and supported Unbound from the start so to be working together is fantastic. This collaboration will enable us to produce special or limited editions that wouldn't otherwise have seen the light of day."
Kieran told FutureBook: “The problem with the traditional publishing model is that all the energy and creativity that we, as publishers, have is being forced through an ever-decreasing entry gap into the trade before it can reach the hands of the people who really matter—the readers.
"These readers are the people that the publishing industry exists to serve but they currently have no say in what gets published at all . . . We want to access the passion that emerges when authors and readers come together and harness the creativity of the publishing industry that has been restricted for so long."
Follow FutureBook 2013 on Twitter via hashtag #fbook2013.