We just filed with the Virginia State Corporation Commission to create Usher House Publishing, LLC which will have a few different imprints including this one - Mimsy Books - Kid-Friendly Classics™. Usher House will innovate and experiment in the digital book publishing space, and Mimsy Books is one of the experiments I'm most excited by.
Let me begin with some sensationalism:
- 42 percent of people who graduate from college never read another book in their lives! (http://hotforwords.com/2011/04/11/42-of-people-who-graduate-from-college-never-read-another-book/ ), (https://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/85938 ).
- 80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year! (same sources)
Like a lot of information that gets "airplay" on the internet, there does not appear to be a credible source for these claims that I could find, but they perpetuate because they "sound true" to us. More credible sources provide a more positive outlook. While the NEA has reported a declining trend in reading literature for years, the 2009 report shows a reversal of that trend. The US Census Bureau reports that half of young children are read to at least daily.
Whether up or down, one thing is clear: Reading is changing. And with it, writing is changing. The ability to do Print-on-Demand through services like CreateSpace or the ability to self-publish via Lulu mean that the ability to produce one's own work is now within reach for nearly every aspiring author.
Which, of course, means it's an odd time to join one of the "8,000-11,000 new publishing companies [that are] are established each year." (Another somewhat dubious claim backed only by a vague reference to ISBN.org but on a page full of other fascinating, if similarly poorly annotated, statistics: http://BookStatistics.com). Of course, that's why it's in reach for us as well. Further, the whole information dynamic is shifting. As Seth Godin has said, (paraphrased) "It's no longer about finding readers for your books, but books for your readers." In other words, the shift in reading is much like the shift in music. The "major labels" still have a large influence, and will for a while, but the innovation is happening on the edges. More and more, people will get their media in ways that don't involve a wise central "star maker." Instead, discovery will happen socially, and organically. Readers will be exposed to more varied and more personally engaging work than ever before. And that, friends, is what's exciting.
At Mimsy, we're going to create a community of people who want to bring classic literature to the next generation. We want to help you instill a love of reading in your kids. And we want you to be able to do it with the real thing, not a watered down, paraphrased re-telling. We're going to produce high-quality, technically sound, easily navigable, highly annotated ebooks of classic literature targeted at newer readers. And once we understand a little more about the process, we're going to invite you to do it with us. The existing corpus of literature is too big for us to tackle alone. But, together, we can help enable a new generation of proficient readers. And that's why we've created another publishing company that won't be "just another publishing company."
Other References:
- Associated Press / Ipsos 2007 survey on reading habits: http://surveys.ap.org/data/Ipsos/national/2007-08-09%20AP%20Book%20Topline.pdf
- ParaPublishing Book Statisics: http://BookStatistics.com