The Bookseller UK: ZE Books to launch in the UK with help of Inpress
Michael Zilkha
BY LAUREN BROWN
This article first appeared in The Bookseller on February 1, 2023.
The founder of record label Ze Records, Michael Zilkha, has announced plans to launch its publishing arm, ZE Books, in the UK in April.
ZE Books aims to build on Zilkha’s vision of "nurturing and championing out-of-the-ordinary talent and voices" while building on Ze Records’ legacy as an independent record label behind artists such as Lydia Lunch, John Cale, Kid Creole & The Coconuts and more.
“ZE Books is dedicated to producing beautifully written books by leading writers, journalists, artists, musicians and thinkers around the world, spanning across music, art, experimental writing, poetry, memoirs and more,” said the publisher.
Titles will be distributed in the UK by Inpress and available to purchase from April. The first titles will include author Mary Gaitskill’s The Devil’s Treasure, described by ZE as a "chimerical hybrid of fiction, memoir, essay, criticism and visual art that transcends categorisation and illuminates the process of creation”. There will also be books by poet-memoirist Nick Flynn’s “evocative mixed-media retrospective” Stay, and Long Live King Kobe, “an intimate photographic commemoration of the 21-year-old Tyler Kobe Nichols by Spencer Ostrander and Paul Auster".
Zilkha said: “I grew up in England and had my greatest success in the music business there so I am thrilled that my catalogue of books will finally be available in British bookstores. I felt it was important to have a body of work to release all at once as a base on which to build for the future. I feel very fortunate to have Inpress distribute ZE Books. They have an excellent sense of which bookstores my catalogue should be in and I am looking forward to working with them for as many years as I did with Island Records when I was releasing Ze Records.”
Inpress distributor Sophie O’Neill said: “Inpress are thrilled to be representing ZE Books and launching them into the UK market in April. We have huge admiration for Michael and all he has achieved with ZE Books so far in the US. The list is literary, radical, visionary and, of course, entertaining. We have major plans for promotion with the UK book trade and are confident that bookshops and book buyers in the UK will embrace ZE Books, their titles and authors in their shops, on their shelves and into the hands of their customers.”