MACK to partner with film and TV production company A24 on a series of screenplay books

Art books publisher MACK and production company A24 are launching a major publishing partnership, during a period of expansion for the London-based indie press. 

As part of the new partnership, which was announced on Tuesday 21st May, MACK will assume distribution responsibilities for A24’s Screenplay Collection – including the original screenplays of films like “The Lighthouse”, “Midsommar” and “Lady Bird” in book format – plus a select number of its other titles.

The Screenplay Collection, currently only available in America and via A24’s website, will be available to purchase on MACK’s website, as well as in retailers and independent bookshops globally from the beginning of September.

Additionally, MACK, which is based in Brockley, south London, and the New York-headquartered A24 will collaborate on the publication of a soon-to-be-announced new range of titles.

“It’s extraordinary that a behemoth studio of the nature of A24 should choose to work with a small publisher like MACK,” said Michael Mack, who founded MACK in 2010. He told The Bookseller: “I think they’ve discovered through their very clever merchandising that goes alongside their films that people are very interested in ephemera.”

On the partnership, he added: “Their approach is to trust and believe in the ideas of their authors, their film-makers and their writers, and to give them the gracious space to create – and that’s exactly where we come from. There’s also this idea of being independent of the superstructures of our industries, and operating in a way that maintains the value – and I’m not just talking [about] financial value, but the value in general – of what it is we do and produce.”

News of the A24 partnership comes during a period of growth for MACK, which recently acquired the Milan-based indie press SPBH Editions for an undisclosed sum.

SPBH’s founder, Bruno Ceschel, specialises in books on theory and queer culture, according to Mack. “That’s been one of the most exciting things,” he said of the collaboration with Ceschel. “Having another voice in the editorial team that really allows us to think again and again about what it is we’re doing.”

MACK is also developing another new imprint, with two partner imprints scheduled to be announced later this year, and a literary list planned for the future. 

Over the past 14 years, MACK has developed an extensive list of art books, featuring writer Lou Stoppard, artist Jim Goldberg, and photographer Alec Soth, among others. It has ventured into film-related publishing and last year revealed Services, a £3,500 “book sculpture” by director and screenwriter Miranda July. Film-maker Sofia Coppola’s debut book, Archive, has become MACK’s bestselling title since its publication last September, shifting 4,389 copies according to Nielsen BookScan.  

Mack launched the eponymous indie press in 2010, having cut his teeth at the German publisher Steidl, where he built a list comprising contemporary German literature, works in translation, and photography books. As editorial director there, Mack helped build the distribution aspect of the business, and presided over the list of the publisher, which holds world rights to the work of Nobel Laureate Günter Grass.