Helping Families Find Joy: An Interview With Familius
Founded in 2012, all of the work that Familius publishes is centered around a single goal: helping families be happy.
Christopher Robbins
With this singular vision, Christopher and his wife Michele Robbins got to work developing one of the fastest-growing independent publishing companies in the United States.
Today, Familius publishes hundreds of award-winning and top-selling titles that include children’s board books, gift books, puzzles, picture books, cookbooks, and more. Each title is hand-selected to align with the mission that started it all: bringing families together and making the world a little bit happier.
Christopher Robbins was kind enough to take time and answer some of our questions for Familius, as well as preview some exciting titles to come from the publishing company. Join us for a glimpse behind the scenes of Familius!
How do you both collaborate on finding titles that fit the Familius mission?
Familius has what we call a development council, where editorial, sales, design, marketing, and founders explore ideas each Thursday. The intent is to use this council to counsel on potential acquisitions. We have to ask ourselves how this book helps us fulfill our mission? Where does it fall in our ten habits? Do we love it and would we buy it? If it can pass those tests first then, of course, we focus on marketability and distribution opportunities, author platform, competition, etc. It's so difficult to compete that we have to ensure that each book we love also can provide a return on our investment.
Every book is an entrepreneurial experience. We're basically altruistic venture capitalists. And all on the council have an equal voice and we seek for unity. Until we have unity, there remain challenges or concerns to resolve. If we can't solve those internally, we really shouldn't proceed with our time and financial investment.
All of the books you publish have such beautiful illustrations and great design, what does that creative process and selection look like?
D is for Desert
While we don't always succeed, we seek to focus on art and design that is different than what you normally see. We work with a lot of international artists because they bring a fresh perspective to the art and design. We want our books to stand apart and be considered beautiful. We believe books are given as gifts and should have strong gift appeal. This is why every Familius picture book has added investment in the endsheets, the spine, the foil and embossing treatments. The process to create these books is the same as the acquisition process. Our council explores what we like and don't like and what could be better. Before we go to press we have to ask ourselves what else can we do to make this book better. Of course, you can't work on it forever and I was taught by my grandfather that it's never done, but it will do for now. So once we feel we've reached our vision we can be satisfied moving on even if we think if we gave it even more time we could add more.
The market demands seasonal deliveries and we have to align our design and production to those constraints. This is why we usually work two years in advance of a publication date. We need the time to work on it, let it percolate in our creative heads. Another advantage that we have, I believe, is that we do not dictate to an illustrator what to do. We give them the book's parameters, the manuscript, the deadlines and other key specifics and we then say, "Create! Be creative. Be as creative as you can possibly be." That autonomy and freedom has allowed us to explore ideas we would never have come up with on our own.
We are also committed to stopping a project if we don't like how it is turning out. If we have to go back to the beginning and start over we will. We absolutely will not publish a book that we or our authors don't like.
What has it been like to work with the DropCap team?
Having a partner who you can trust to present your titles for global licensing as well as effectively manage all aspects of those licensing details is essential for a publisher. Everyone at DropCap is fantastic and we couldn't ask for a better partner. I count them as friends in addition to colleagues and have complete confidence that they have Familius's interests front of mind throughout the year. We're very grateful we connected with them so many years ago.
What can readers get excited about in the coming year from Familius?
We are challenging ourselves to think differently. We have some great series, which can make it easy to fill a season. But following that publishing path does not bring innovation. So our audience should demand of Familius fresh ideas and packages. I'm particularly excited about our children's poetry picture book series, The Road Not Taken and Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening, both by Robert Frost and illustrated by Vivian Mineker. We're now working on "Because I Could Not Stop for Death, He Kindly Stopped for Me" by Emily Dickinson.
We love exploring how to interpret these poems visually within the Familius mission and ecosystem. Of course, our audience will continue to see fun and exciting board books and novelty books like our upcoming Hear Them Roar which provides 14 different threatened animals and their voices. And Familius continues to push to get more people of color involved in this wonderful industry, so Familius is excited to see more illustrators and authors of color joining our family.
The Boy Who Loved The Moon
And as a final fun question: are there any clear Familius favorites in your own household that your kids keep coming back to?
Out of our nine children only four are left at home and they are now moving beyond Familius's library. However, they still love Unicorn and Horse, Made for Me, The Boy Who Loved the Moon, and others. And our granddaughter is coming up on two years old and loves the board books. Her favorite is But First We Nap.