| By Bonnie Simcock, Senior Manager of Acquisitions, Thorndike Press |
Large print can be the difference between “getting into” a story and thoroughly enjoying a book. Easier on than eyes than standard print editions, large print titles offer relief from screen fatigue and eye strain for avid readers and nonreaders alike. At Thorndike Press, we believe large print books are essential to making reading more accessible and enjoyable for everyone. That’s why we publish large print titles for readers of all ages across a variety of genres.
Curious how we decide what titles to bring to readers in large print? Our editorial team follows strategic and thoughtful acquisition philosophies to provide a diverse selection of accessible, in-demand reads.
Curating High-Interest Titles Across Genres
Thorndike Press publishes over eighty titles each month to offer the largest and broadest selection of large print books. Leveraging a combined total of over thirty-five years of experience, our editorial team spends roughly twenty-four hours a week on title discovery and selection. Our goal is to bring readers and librarians high-circulating, up-and-coming, and diverse large print reads.
For adult readers, Thorndike Press focuses on publishing large print editions of best-selling, well-reviewed, and highly acclaimed titles. Our adult list includes a wide variety of genres, including well-loved mystery series, romance, and Westerns by familiar authors as well as captivating nonfiction and memoirs. Titles primarily consist of front-list and fiction books, with a focus on content requested by our customers, including multigenerational characters across various timelines.
We create curation consistency by choosing new titles every month for our twenty-plus standing order plans, bringing librarians focused selections of large print books in their readers’ favorite genres.
Ensuring Accessibility for In-Demand Reads
To ensure readers have access to in-demand books in large print, our editorial team keeps a pulse on up-and-coming debut authors receiving major media and review attention, national book club titles, and book award winners. We follow top recommendations from LibraryReads and the Indie Next List as well as bestsellers from the New York Times and USA Today. We work directly with various publishing houses, including Simon & Schuster, Random House, Harlequin, and more.
Thorndike Press publishes around 200 simultaneous publications, or Sim Pubs, every year. These titles are released simultaneously with the original publisher’s standard print edition so large print readers don’t miss out on the latest buzzworthy books. In February 2025, all titles in our most popular plans are Sim Pubs! Check out Top-Shelf, Dynamic Drama, and High-Octane.
Expanding Representation for All Readers
Ensuring representation and content for every reader is also essential to our acquisition approach. We choose titles that include underrepresented characters, settings, and content to provide a diverse selection of inclusive stories.
To continually publish inclusive titles, we make new selections monthly for our Diverse Voices and Black Voices standing order plans. The Diverse Voices plan features highly acclaimed and well-reviewed fiction from AAPI, Indigenous, and Latinx/Hispanic authors, while the Black Voices plan includes titles by best-selling, award-winning, and popular contemporary Black writers.
Advancing Youth Literacy
Large print is proven to help young readers improve both their literacy skills and their mindsets about reading.
To ensure public and school libraries have titles to engage young readers, we follow a similar acquisition process for our youth large print selection. Our youth large print books include award-winning, best-selling, and high-interest titles that appeal to middle-grade and young adult readers, with a mix of contemporary classics and current front-list titles. We also ensure diversity in characters, stories, and authors, so the books serve as mirrors and windows for young readers, allowing them to see themselves represented and explore different perspectives.
Make a Difference with Large Print
Thorndike Press also considers customer requests and preferences when choosing titles. If you’d like to suggest a title for publication in large print, please connect with your sales consultant.
As more readers discover the value of large print books, librarians are expanding their collections to offer more of today’s bestsellers, trending titles, and books from diverse authors. In a recent survey, 43 percent of collection development librarians reported large print circulates higher or much higher compared to one year ago.1 Grow your library’s large print collection to see the impact it makes on readers—and circulation trends.
Explore our monthly catalogs now to browse the latest titles available in large print.
1 “Customer Pulse Survey,” Thorndike Press, 2022.
Meet the Author
Bonnie Simcock is the manager of acquisitions at Thorndike Press. She works with all the major publishing houses to put bestselling and well-loved titles into an accessible and comfortable format for all ages. She lives with her husband of 30 years in Maine, where they’ve survived putting one kid through high school with one still to go.