Life begins at 85 for Thorsons

HarperCollins has revealed the look for the relaunch of its Thorsons mind, body and spirit list, 85 years after its creation.

Thorsons will lead the relaunch with the reissue of eight classic titles in new livery (each priced at £12.99). The titles include iconic relationship book Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus by John Gray, and Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach.

The eight titles are some of Thorsons’ bestsellers, each having sold more than 100,000 copies to date. Thorsons editorial director Carolyn Thorne said:  “Self-help has generally survived the recession quite well as it’s an easy way for people to access information.”

Bach’s book will be published with a new section, which was discovered by his ex-wife in the attic. Thorne said: “This rounding off feels appropriate to where we are these days in terms of cultural norms, it’s a nice round  off that Richard didn’t initially want to include.”

Thorsons’ new logo, and a special anniversary edition, was produced by HarperCollins senior designer Lucy Sykes-Thompson, who worked with Thorne to create the new look. Sykes-Thompson said: “The logo draws on the original Thorsons sun shape and modernises it by creating an open positive mark that embodies the values of authority, expertise and accessibility.”

Thorne expanded: “The idea primarily was to get in the feeling of organic growth with the tree, and the branches represent the genres within the Thorsons list. We wanted to keep the circle to have that feeling of continuity, which brings together the backlist and new acquisitions.”  

The eight titles will be published to coincide with Thorsons’ 85th anniversary on 29th January, but it plans to keep reissuing classic titles.

Thorne explained: “Seeing how it pans out strategically, we might have one or two classics slotted throughout the year that will reflect the way the acquisition process starts to happen. If we get a complementary book on a subject and we have a related book, we will rebrand the [related] book as a classic at the same time.” Another batch of titles will be published in January 2016: “There is definitely a commitment to reinvigorating the Thorsons backlist and bringing it back to being one of the market leaders in this field.”

The other titles in the first group of Thorsons releases are Raising Boys by Steve Biddulph, Leadership and the One-Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard, The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho, The Dalai Lama’s Book of Wisdom, Light on Yoga by B K S Iyengar and You Can Conquer Cancer by Ian Gawler.