Bundled Extra: NYT On HMH Deal With Randall Munroe

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced last week that they'll be doing a What If? book with Randall Munroe -- still not yet 30! -- of xkcd fame. Three things stand out about that article (in addition to the fact that there's a stand-alone article at all). One is that Munroe is an interesting cartoonist and anything he wants to do is worth tracking. The second is that he was signed to do a project not his main project, which is a different sort of interest than just building directly on the title/effort for which a creative person is best known. Third is a pair of things in the description of the acquiring editor, Courtney Young, played out across a couples of graphs: that she's a fan of Munroe's webcomics going way back (as a lot of emerging editors are going to be now) and that she describes Munroe in market terms in comparison to Allie Brosh and Brandon Stanton. That last part suggests a kind of mini-category for such works, or at least a collective stab at one within publishing in terms of understanding the audience Munroe can reach.

The book is already intensely pre-ordered and should sell enough copies to make for a fun "What If?"
 
posted 6:05 pm PST | Permalink
 

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