Canongate revamps Haig's backlist

Canongate is to republish five adult fiction titles from Matt Haig’s backlist this June with a new series design.

Francis Bickmore, publishing director at Canongate, bought the rights to The Possession of Mr Cave, The Last Family in England and The Dead Fathers Club from Vintage and will republish them on 7th June as revamped paperback editions, designed by senior designer Peter Adlington.

According to Nielsen BookScan, The Last Family in England, originally published in 2005, has sold 46,161 in paperback and 6,889 in hardback, and The Dead Fathers Club, first published in 2007, has sold 5,601 in paperback and 3,512 in hardback. In total, Haig has sold 855,627 books for £5.6m.

Canongate will also release new editions of Haig’s two other adult fiction novels, The Humans and The Radleys, in the second half of 2018, with the new series design pulling together all of Haig’s adult fiction backlist into one livery for the first time.

The new series of jackets was inspired by the cover for Haig’s latest fiction novel, How to Stop Time.

Bickmore said: “It’s been a whirlwind nine years since Matt Haig entrusted the first of his books to Canongate. He must be the world’s hardest working author and since then we’ve sold over a million copies of his books. Ahead of Haig’s major new hardback non-fiction book in July, Notes On A Nervous Planet, our summer superlead, we’re thrilled to be republishing Matt’s first three adult novels in June 2018.

“Haig’s success is very much driven by a passionate fanbase and word of mouth zeal. We hope Matt’s fans love these covers too and are happy to discover three ‘revamped’ Haig novels in time for summer.”

Adlington added: “The cover for How to Stop Time was designed without a series style in mind, but it happily contained a blueprint to easily allow us to showcase Matt’s unique tone of voice across a range of titles. They’re strange but familiar, fun but dark-edged, challenging but designed to welcome you to Matt’s world.”

Haig’s new non-fiction book Notes on a Nervous Planet will be published by Canongate on 5th July, for which rights have already been sold in 14 countries. Its publication will be supported by a full publicity and marketing campaign, as well as a 24-date UK tour, launching with an event at the Southbank Centre’s 900-seater Queen Elizabeth Hall. 

Later this year, Canongate will also publish Haig’s new children’s book, The Truth Pixie, a story written in verse for five- to eight-year-olds, illustrated by Chris Mould.

The Truth Pixie is a character from Haig’s Christmas trilogy for readers aged seven to 10 – A Boy Called Christmas, The Girl Who Saved Christmas and Father Christmas and Me – which also features illustrations by Mould.

Haig said: “The Truth Pixie was such a fun character to write in the Christmas books that she just demanded a stand-alone book of her own. This isn’t a Christmas book as such. It’s a pixie book, and a book about the challenges of not telling lies but also the life-affirming power of facing the truth. With an added troll and elf and a talking rabbit.”

The Truth Pixie will be published on 18th October, alongside the paperback of Father Christmas and Me.