The New York Times’ Alan Kozinn expresses some amazement that there’s still life left in Beatlemania, at least on the book front. Guess again, he says. Now, if mainstream publishers reject their work as too specialized, even the most Beatles-obsessed authors are finding audiences for their books – ranging from from meticulous descriptions of the Beatles‘ recording process to multi-volume examinations of the group’s American releases, to evaluations of unreleased studio and concert recordings now on the bootleg market – by publishing them themselves. But don’t even think the phrase ‘vanity press.’ Many of these self-published books are lavishly produced and packed with original research that makes them invaluable to Beatles scholars and collectors, and some have been startlingly successful through online sales.
Many of these books started off as private research projects that took decades to research in order to answer pressing (if sometimes small) mysteries. And considering the result, even traditionally-published Beatles experts are impressed, especially with the 540-page, $100-per-copy RECORDING THE BEATLES (compiled by Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew) which is about to go into a second printing after selling out its 3,000-copy print run. “I think it’s a marvelous book; in fact it embarrasses my ‘Recording Sessions’ book,” said Mark Lewisohn, the British author whose 1988 book, THE BEATLES RECORDING SESSIONS (Harmony), was the first detailed examination of the group’s recording process, and whose other books, THE BEATLES LIVE! (Henry Holt) and THE COMPLEAT BEATLES CHRONICLE (Harmony), set the standard for serious Beatles research in the 1980s and ’90s. He understood the attraction of going on your own. “When you self-publish, you have the opportunity to be as indulgent as you like. You can go into everything with a thoroughness that a conventional publisher would try to limit for reasons of cost.”