Simon Six Approaches One Year

Major publisher Simon & Schuster’s boutique book imprint that publishes just six books a year is approaching the one-year anniversary of its announcement. 

Simon Six was announced last August when then-CEO Jonathan Karp said he would be stepping down to get back to the part of publishing he loved most. The imprint puts out just one book every two months, with a focus on razor-sharp quality and an “X factor” for each. Its webpage states that a Simon Six book has six qualities: “Extraordinary stories. Exciting voices. Exclusive access. Exemplary individuals. Excellent accomplishments. Exquisite prose.”

“As the founding publisher of Twelve, I published one book per month for the Hachette Book Group,” Karp wrote on the webpage, referring to a Hachette imprint with the same ethos as this one. “For Simon Six, I will acquire and edit half as many books each year and publish them with twice as much emphasis.”

So far, Simon Six has published five books, with authors ranging from Academy Award winner Dustin Hoffman to astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. Tyson’s book was the first one announced last February, and was published in May. 

The titles range from memoir, to narrative political nonfiction, to a “Nabokovian mystery.” Its most recently announced book is Robert Miner’s Thoughts and Prayers, a novel about the American obsession with guns. 

In an Instagram post announcing the release, Karp called it a “remarkable debut novel” and “one of the most provocative literary thrillers I’ve read in a long time.” 

“Simon Six is an example of what I love most about the publishing business—finding, editing, and being a champion for all kinds of authors: novelists, journalists, thinkers, artists, historians, futurists, philosophers, humorists, experts, leaders, and anyone else with a unique perspective or a great story to tell,” Karp wrote on the imprint’s webpage. 

“Some of the best books I’ve worked on have been about things I knew little or nothing about, so I’m especially interested in authors who will enlighten me while intriguing me. Like many editors, I want to help put books into the world that expand our understanding, challenge orthodoxies, and are useful, artful, and irresistibly interesting.…My hope for Simon Six is that this imprimatur will signal to readers that these are books of quality, singularity, and relevance.”

Simon & Schuster declined to comment on the imprint’s first year. In a June press release announcing the publication of one of Simon Six’s five books so far, Unreliable Boyfriend, the company described the imprint as “dedicated to publishing bold, original voices and provocative nonfiction that shapes cultural and political conversations.”