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Ebury m.d. Joel Rickett has revealed the “magic” and “logistical challenges” behind the bestselling debut The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse (Ebury) which saw the publisher recruit two drivers to transport copies from Italy, battling storms and landslides to get copies onto shelves.
Dubbed as a surprise hit by almost a dozen booksellers on Tuesday (9th December), sales of Charlie Mackesy’s illustrated fable have soared 44% upwards in volume week on week, securing the Hardback Non-Fiction number one for the first time. Its first full week of sales following its Waterstones Book of the Year win, at 53,925 copies sold, tipped it over the 200,000-copies sold mark. Ebury has printed 500,000 copies of the book, which was named Barnes & Noble's inaugural Book of the Year last week.
Rickett told The Bookseller: “I’d say it has been one of the most happiest, most fulfilling and all-round special experiences I have ever been involved in. The idea it took me by surprise is not right because we always believed in it and always thought it was something very special but just to see that reflected in the world and how the world has embraced it is amazing.”
He added: “I think really it’s just the start of something. I could talk for hours about it because every aspect has been fascinating from a publishing perspective.”
Rickett explained how the 128-page title kicked off with an image Mackesy shared on Instagram, prompting Ebury's editorial director Laura Higginson to expresss interest—the deal was also facilitated by Penguin Random House chair Gail Rebuck, a friend of Mackesy’s.
Higginson told The Bookseller: “A good friend first showed me Charlie’s Instagram and I fell in love with his words and images—universal values expressed so beautifully. I could imagine them making a wonderful book that might move other people in the same way too.
“It has been the best year working on this book—and to see so many people fall in love with it has been amazing. The book is a true team effort— Charlie, the book designer Colm Roche, and the whole team here at Ebury have helped make it happen. We are proud to publish something that is moving so many people around the world and to hear how the book is helping people is wonderful.”
When asked why the book’s message has gripped readers so instantly, Rickett said: “We’re in very dark and troubled, aggressive times—politically, culturally, it is very divided. Something about the simplicity and the emotional message of the book just cuts through.”
He also described a “three-minute cry guarantee” they were tempted to add to the cover. “I’ve shown it to editors in meetings, before it was published —someone very senior at the BBC and a foreign publisher—and they literally started crying. And then they’d be really embarrassed. There is something that seems to pierce through… something about the emotional punch about his message and the words and the pictures, and the interplay between them, that cuts to the quick. It goes right to your heart—I’ve never seen something like that.”
There were also significant production barriers to overcome when it came to printing the book itself. “The production challenge itself was enormous because we were determined the book should be absolutely beautiful and there was that commitment to making it really beautiful early on, even when you’re not sure how much you’re going to sell,” Rickett said. “We knew we wanted it printed in Italy with the best type of printing and wanted to get it printed on the same kind of paper that Charlie uses for his drawing and painting, so we sourced this paper Munken Print Cream 1509. There was a huge amount of work on the ink and the rendering and everything else to make it feel that he has drawn it literally and left the room, and the ink is virtually still wet on the paper—that’s a big part of it."
The publisher believes that the aesthetic has enabled the book to flourish in bookstores with the £16.99 title featuring both artwork and delicate calligraphy. “It’s been a big hit with booksellers because it comes alive in the shop and in the hand, that’s where the magic really happened,” Rickett said. “It has enabled them to create some stunning windows—such as the Waterstones ones. It’s like going back to the old days in some ways because we’ve given them an enormous amount of p.o.s. with signage, window stickers, and Charlie actually drew in the windows of Waterstones Piccadilly… all the events have been insane.”
The book’s sales have continued to snowball, exceeding Ebury’s expectations with pre-orders building after Mackesy announced the deal on Instagram. “We thought, ok, he’s got this very loyal, very emotional engaged fan-base and that’s brilliant,” Rickett said. “The moment it really went big was when Waterstones said they’d do a signed special edition and we said we’d do about 2,000 and then Waterstones sold out in two hours and then we did another 5,000 and that night they just all went back… last week’s sales alone we sold 50,000 just in the UK in a week.”
“The sheer production challenge involved in going from a first print run of 10,000 to 500,000 in print in effectively six weeks… we had to hire two drivers to drive full-time from the printer in Italy to the UK: it’s two so they could keep driving. If you have one driver they have to stop because of the mandated rest. Sourcing that amount of paper stock, that amount of foil… to keep the standard up—other publishers might have been tempted to drop a finish or go down on paper but we haven’t.”
The appeal is translating across the world with 15 international rights deals. “It’s fascinating that it’s working everywhere—in America where HarperCollins has published, there’s been an enormous order. They’ve got at least around 400,000 copies in print there, it’s B&N Book of the Year— all of our markets like Australia, India where, again Charlie is not known, they are coming back for massive pre-orders. Whenever booksellers get their hands on it they instantly come back for more copies.
Rickett believes that many of the sales are from the book’s fans buying for friends and family. “Because it’s a book people want to give, the average rate to sale purchase is huge. We had a signing where a woman bought 25 at full-price and then literally staggered out. We are seeing people buy five to 10 at a time.”
Rickett also described the “heroic efforts” of the sales and production teams to keep the book in stock in stores, with some indies reporting a wait of a few days to replenish the title. “It has been a 24/7 operation. There have been groups of days when we’ve been low. We’ve never not had it out in the market—if you’re a punter you’re always going to get it somewhere but… inevitably just the sheer logistics mean it has been hard [to keep it in stock]. But undoubtedly there have been times when an indie has wanted 20 copies and we’ve only been able to send them 10 or they’d have to wait up to five days, obviously not ideal but it’s amazing how the rate of sale has kept up.” Rickett revealed how even when Amazon displayed a delayed ordering message on its website due to low stock levels, the rate of sales continued apace. “We don’t feel we’ve lost anything [from the lags]. People have been willing to wait a bit. Then obviously every retailer wants one… we have been rationing it out bit-by-bit and trying to keep everyone happy.”
When asked if the success made Rickett question Ebury’s recent positioning towards more non-fiction, he said not. It was revealed on Friday (6th December) that the division would focus largely on non-fiction with the Del Rey imprint moving to Cornerstone, and Ebury fiction publishing director Gillian Green departing after 12 years as the dedicated fiction list on Ebury Press is wound down.
“It’s an undefinable book but it’s very much part of Ebury… if you had to put it somewhere it would go on a non-fiction table rather than a fiction table. Although at the moment I think it just has tables of its own. While we’ve said we don’t want to do genre fiction, this is a beautiful book that you can’t pigeonhole. It is something completely original that comes alive on the page and in the hand.”