Quirk Classics has typical quirky beginnings. As editorial director Jason Rekulak remembered it, he noticed what he called "creative copyright infringement" on the Internet: for example, TV shows taking movie trailer footage and inserting it into their own shows. He wondered how Quirk Books might do something like that without getting sued. This led him to write up two lists, one consisting of well-known public domain titles like War and Peace, Moby Dick and Jane Eyre. The other list was of "things to enhance" the titles that included pirates, ninjas, robots, monkeys and more. He drew a line between Pride and Prejudice and zombies. "As soon as I drew that line," he said. "I knew I had it."
He read parts of Austen's book and easily envisioned an "enhanced" version, he said. For example, "Mr. Bennet sharpening a dagger or cleaning a musket while Mrs. Bennet was talking." Rekulak approached Seth Grahame-Smith, with whom he had worked before on such titles as How to Survive a Horror Movie. Grahame-Smith liked the idea immediately.
The book was supposed to come out last month with a print run of 10,000. But in February a blogger obtained from a distributor the cover image and back cover blurb of the book and wrote about it. The information went viral "in a way we've always wanted to do," Rekulak noted, and there was immediate movie interest.
The book moved to the top 100 in Amazon and stayed there. Quirk moved the publication date to April 1, and "the anticipation for it was ridiculous." Most reviews were positive. "A few Austen fans were upset," but most like the book, Rekulak said. The book is still on the New York Times bestseller lists and has more than 850,000 copies in print and has been sold for translation into 19 other languages.
The buzz was "indie driven as well as consumer and fan driven," Rekulak continued. "People just rallied around it."
As sometimes happens with Quirk titles, some retailers were confused about where to shelve Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. The book has been put in YA, fiction, humor and SF. Nielsen has categorized it as nonfiction parody. As it took off, most retailers moved it to the front of the store, meeting customer demand. "We struggle with categories all the time, especially because we're doing unconventional formats and titles," Rekulak said. The company does offer category recommendations on all titles.
After the wild success of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Quirk Books decided to continue the theme and created Quirk Classics. The second title, also featuring a Penguin Classics-style design, is Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.
It's a crowded field now, but Quirk's Austen-based bestseller allow Quirk to express some pride, if not prejudice. "Supernatural romance is booming," Rekulak commented. "And after the Twilight series, we have the best branded supernatural romance."
In devising the second Quirk Classics title, Rekulak quickly decided to continue with Jane Austen. For one, she stirs more passion than most classic authors and is more familiar than many. "Everyone knows Pride and Prejudice from reading it in high school," Rekulak said.
He decided not to use zombies again because of overexposure. He considered vampires. "People said we had to do vampires," Rekulak said. But vampires aren't funny, he continued, and "at least three Austen vampire books were being crashed for the fall."
Rekulak's ghoul of choice for the new book, sea monsters, draw on "fun Celtic mythology, Jules Verne, Lost and Jaws," among other things. He hired Ben H. Winters to collaborate with Austen. The first printing for Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters is 300,000, and pub date is September.
Last month at Comic Con in San Diego, response to the second Quirk Classics title was "phenomenal," Rekulak reported. Show attendees were buying sea monster giant squid T-shirts. "In that world, sea monsters are very popular," he noted.
Quirk has plans to publish two more titles in the Quirk Classics series, one in March 2010 and another in June 2010.
