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Last month saw the launch of a new promotion by Gollancz Books here in the UK: their Future Classics range. They've re-packaged eight current titles by some of the biggest names on their list - Stephen Baxter, Greg Bear, Greg Egan, Paul J. McAuley, Richard Morgan, Christopher Priest, Alastair Reynolds and Dan Simmons - with all-new cover art.

The new covers are certainly impressive. All eight are included in the article below, but to be honest the jpeg images really don't do them justice at all. For instance, Paul McAuley's Fairyland is printed with an iridescent ink, giving the patterning a holographic feel, Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space has a semi-mirrored finish with an embossed pattern, and the raised patterning on Stephen Baxter's Evolution cover is actually felt-textured.

The new designs are only intended to run for the duration of the promotion and then while stocks last; the revamped imagery won't be replacing the books' current covers in the long-run, and Gollancz won't be extending the concepts for any of the other titles in the relevant authors' series. Intrigued by the thinking behind the stand-alone concept, we sent an email to Gollancz editorial director Simon Spanton and asked him a few questions about the Future Classics.

UKSFBN: What sort of selection process was involved in choosing the Future Classics titles themselves, and then in deciding on the new cover concepts?

Simon Spanton: "We ran a promotion last year called SF4U (and from looking at your subsequent questions I can say, with some confidence, 'of which more, later') that drew ten novels from our Masterworks list that would best serve as introductory texts for the new readers that we were hoping to snare with the new approach to the covers for those books.

"This year, aiming to do another promotion that would bring new readers to books on our list via innovative cover designs, we decided that we should look at the wealth of work we've built up from some of the contemporary writers on the Gollancz list. So we chose eight books that we hoped gave a good cross section of more recent SF but that would also be accessible to most readers.

"As with most 'grand schemes' dreamt up in the mighty engine rooms of publishing, the list was arrived at by a small group of people sitting around a table going 'Oooh I love that book' or 'What about so-and-so?' When it came to the covers we were, once again, able to take some of our cues from the SF4U promotion. Both times we were able to go to our art department and give them a pretty broad brief: 'we want something that will make these books stand out, something different, something that will make SF fans take another look and which might provide people who don't consider themselves readers of the genre but who have some sympathy with it and may have experimented in the past with an incentive to take a first look'. I make no apology for singling out the most excellent Emma Wallace in our art department who was responsible for all the Future Classics covers. It's work that has already been noted and applauded in the design press."

UKSFBN: What sort of impact would you hope a cover-bling promotion like this to have on sales of the titles involved?

Simon Spanton: "Well, in terms of the Richard and Judys of this world, not huge. But in terms of the UK genre market, a significant extra sales boost in the four figure range in the first year.

"The key thing for us is that the vast majority of those readers will be new to each author, perhaps even to the genre itself – the promotion is all about getting these books displayed in ways or in places they may not have been before. Once that has happened we can, I think, rely on the covers being eye-catching; hopefully that will get the books brought and then the respective writers have a chance of their own writing winning them new readers."

UKSFBN: Gollancz ran a similar promotion - SF4U - on a selection of classic sf titles last year. Was the success of that promotion the main driver behind the Future Classics range?

Simon Spanton: "Yes. You were hoping for more on that weren't you? We had such a good response from the trade on those covers: the covers themselves became a news story in the trade press and we were able to place quite a few dump-bins (display stands) which just doesn't happen these days in the book trade. The retailers really got behind them.

"So doing it again seemed the natural thing to do, with the important proviso that it not be simply a case of 'the same again'. We needed a radically different approach to the covers and we needed a similarly strong sales angle for the choice of the books themselves. A promotion needs a clear story, a strong message, a good reason – it can't just be a collection of random titles flung out the trade in the hope that some of them will stick.

"Interestingly for us these promotions have proved very popular with our sales reps – because the individual shops have felt they can take these promotions and make them their own – they're not tailor-made for the supermarkets or for the summer reading drives. In fact Waterstone's head office had, I think its fair to say, some pretty strong reservations about the Future Classics covers (and perhaps they are quite 'Marmitey') and it was left to the individual buyers to decide whether they wanted to support them. Thankfully for us individual shops have largely got right behind the books."

UKSFBN: Gollancz have been re-publishing 'lost' classics in the Gollancz SF Masterworks and Fantasy Masterworks ranges for some years now, so clearly the concept is working well. But isn't there a danger that the cost of re-publishing these 'lost' works will have an adverse impact on Gollancz's capacity to bring new authors to the market?

Simon Spanton: "Quite the opposite in fact. The Masterworks list has been so successful that it has become a major portion of our backlist turnover; sales for the SF Masterworks alone are approaching the one million mark. That sort of turnover provides the list with a solid foundation that allows us to take on the undoubted financial risk of supporting new authors.

"And I'd point to our record – since the Masterworks were launched in 1999 we've published first novels by, amongst others, Roger Levy, Richard Morgan, Alastair Reynolds, Adam Roberts and Steph Swainston. Last year we launched three debut authors: Joe Abercrombie, Scott Lynch and Tom Lloyd, this year we've launched another three: Jonathan Barnes, David Devereux and Joe Hill and next year we'll be launching three more: Alex Bell, Jaine Fenn and Robert Redick.

"I think the evidence speaks for itself: Gollancz is not a list trading on past glories. But its also worth remembering that past glories brought to new readers are still new reading experiences."

UKSFBN: So, how come we don't see a similar amount of greater-than-usual production effort put into debuts by new authors, rather than existing titles by established writers? Is it just too cost-prohibitive, or do authors have to prove themselves before they get the five-star cover treatment?

Simon Spanton: "That's an interesting point. There are checks and balances to go through in the costing of any cover. Some of the effects used on the Future Classics are actually extremely cost effective, others much less so. The main factor though is that most of the effects are so rarely used on book covers that printers simply aren't geared up to do them more than very occasionally. We'd cause them and ourselves immense problems if we rolled these effects out across our list. And of course they'd then stand out from the crowd much less strikingly if we did that.

"More often than not though, the cover is the only promotion a book gets and anyone working in genre publishing quickly discovers that the cover is one area that you really can't cut financial corners with. The readers of genre books expect a certain level of bells and whistles on their covers; if you don't have that - whether it be an extremely expensive cover artwork, foil and embossing or another more innovative production effect - then the book is going to get lost on the shelves. Consequently even our new authors won't find us stinting on their covers."

UKSFBN: Are Gollancz planning any more promotions along similar lines in the future? And if so, do you have any line-ups in mind just yet?

Simon Spanton: "We have, on similar lines, a fantasy promotion and a horror promotion lined up for next year and another science fiction promotion for early 2009. Right at the moment I'd prefer to keep the particular approach of each promotion and the specific books involved under wraps, but you can expect the same mix of a new and old names, some surprising choices of books and, of course, some unexpected approaches for the covers."

Our thanks to Simon for sparing us the time to talk about the promotion. I can highly recommend that you hot-foot it down to your nearest bricks & mortar bookstore and check out the Future Classics' touchy-feely qualities for yourself. But just in case you'd rather just order them from Amazon.co.uk and save on the shoe leather, the full range of Future Classics titles comprises:

• Evolution by Stephen Baxter
• Blood Music by Greg Bear
• Schild's Ladder by Greg Egan
• Fairyland by Paul J. McAuley
• Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan
• The Separation by Christopher Priest
• Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds
• Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Source: Simon Spanton, Gollancz Books

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