PICTURED: THE WHITE RABBIT TEAM, INCLUDING LEE BRACKSTONE (THIRD FROM LEFT) AND TOM NOBLE (FAR LEFT) WITH PRODUCER CARL COX (CENTRE), WHOSE BOOK OH YES, OH YES WILL BE RELEASED NEXT SUMMER
and dozens more, we have created a virtual version of the bar—with over 150,000 individual page views—and a place where White Rabbit can not only shout about and celebrate the titles we are publishing, but also somewhere we can express our identit expansively in the worlds of music and literature. It is an opportunit to link to retailers such as Rough Trade; a place where we can collaborate with record labels such as Heavenly and artists such as Andy Bell of Ride and Oasis; a virtual space to host online launch parties, as we did for Mark Lanegan and over 2,000 virtual atendees. Social Gathering has enabled us daily exercise during lockdown and
kept us stimulated and connected to a counter-culture which looks terrifyingly vulnerable. The kind of publishing we do at White Rabbit, carefully curated by taste and instinct, driven by passion rather than the market, and oſten derived from sources outside the conventional publishing foodchain, demands that you create a vital communit where people can talk to each other and feel a part of something.
The lost months
hosting perhaps 50 or more literary nights during my time at Faber. From Jarvis Cocker to Viv Albertine to Beck, The Social had become our bar, the place where the communit of readers, musicians, writers, artists and fans congregate to share a live experience and the intoxication that comes with it.
When Robin and Carl suggested we turn the bar into a cultural website, I had litle idea what they had in mind, but with the help of my inspiring marketing colleague Tom Noble, who understands White Rabbit’s publishing instinctively, we set up Social Gathering, an online space where the spirit of the bar and our imprint co-exist and, for a time at least, keep each other alive. Social Gathering is the bar on the digital page; an antidote to social distancing. Over the past seven months we have posted over 200 pieces of content—extracts from books, interviews, essays, short stories, videos, artwork, playlists—and hosted daily virtual aſter-work drinks at Social Gathering with guest host DJs. With the help and generosit of writers and artists such as Lias Saoudi (Fat White Family), Karl Hyde (Underworld), Wendy Erskine, Heather Leigh, Ian Rankin
TheBookseller.com
We will create and prosper if we embrace risk, show courage and stay together: the nominative plural should not be ignored
I am proud of what we have achieved in these first six months at White Rabbit: two Sunday Times bestsellers (memoirs by Lanegan and Chris Frantz of Talking Heads—both of which saw pre-orders increase by more than 25% on the back of our Social Gathering activit) and a 14-book-strong list for 2021, including two books that have grown organically out of work we supported and first published at Social Gathering: a magnificent literary debut about the unravelling of English identit by Will Burns, and a memoir by the legendary singer-songwriter Vashti Bunyan. Andrew Weatherall’s famous tatoos—“Fail we may, Sail we must”—are a reminder that we will create and prosper if we embrace risk, show courage and stay together: the nominative plural should not be ignored. Social Gathering started as a lockdown “blog” but it has now become a powerful and unusual digital tool for White Rabbit Books; a space I want to emphasise is inclusive and open to other imprints—where we feel passionate about their projects. As we see communities buckle and fracture under the strain of 2020’s conditions, it’s worth remembering an imprint is, itself, a communit of books, ideas and shared values. And White Rabbit will fail, or sail, according to how effectively we can become a digital (and one day real) communit that fully embraces the counter-cultural space and narrative.
Lee Brackstone is the founder of the White Rabbit list at Orion. Before that, he was creative director of Faber Social
Forthcoming books from White Rabbit include Monolithic Undertow by Harry Sword (9781474615235, February 2021); Kitchenly 434 by Alan Warner (9781474619554, March 2021); Steve Davis and Kavus Torabi’s Medical Grade Music (9781474619509, April 2021) and Xstabeth by David Keenan (9781474617079, 12th November 2020).
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