A woman in a bathing suit jumps, no flies, through bright blue. The message is clear: this is where we head into the unknown. The cover picture doesn’t just go well with Dana Spiotta’s novel “Unpredictable”, in which a middle-aged woman embarks on a radical new life. The symbolism can also be transferred to the new publisher, which has just published this novel as the first book: Kjona is the name of the small company that is beginning to change the publishing business in the long term. With a fictitious name that will soon stand for a strong brand.
But now Lars Classen weighs the freshly printed first book in his hand: “I’m very happy with it.” You can feel the weight of the book, says the new Munich publisher, who with his woolen hat, glasses and beard and his soft voice seems friendly and down-to-earth. The book smells good, he says, looks “completely organic” and, despite an almost classic appearance, “slightly flashy” due to the colors. In fact, this novel is something special: its creation follows ecological and social criteria in every respect. After all, Lars Claßen and his Frankfurt partner Florian Keck have made sustainability the most important goal of the publishing house.
It is therefore only logical that the publisher asked for an interview in the “Impact Hub” in Sendling. The building, which is only inconspicuous from the outside, houses a social-ecological co-working space and acts as a supportive strategic partner: That’s “all we need,” says Classen; a chic publishing branch is not one of them. Behind the actual publisher’s address is his family apartment, shaped by two small children, as he says – less literature, more life. It is important to mention that their five children together are the reason why Classen and Keck founded Kjona in the first place. They are “our greatest inspiration,” as the publishers write in the first editorial. “We want to make a contribution to preserving our world, which is so beautiful and rich in stories, for you.”
That’s why they want to do a lot of things differently than is usual. The two in their mid-forties know well enough traditional publishing houses: they met about fifteen years ago as trainees at the Frankfurt publishing house. Keck is now the managing director of the digital agency juni.com. Claßen was an editor at Suhrkamp and most recently program manager at dtv. During the corona pandemic, the friends felt that the time was ripe for something new. “A great act of liberation,” is how Claßen calls the joint project.
Friends and recently also business partners: Florian Keck (left) and Lars Claßen.
(Photo: Nina Ruhr / Sinn Media)
Terms such as freedom and openness come up again and again in conversation. This includes the freedom to take time for the children as “active fathers”; For Claßen, this also includes liberation from the shame – not only described by Nobel Prize winner Annie Ernaux – of not coming from an educated middle-class family and constantly “overcompensating” for that in everyday business life. For him and his publishing partner, it’s not about elitist demarcation, but about connection. “Challenging, but not aloof,” is how they describe their program. However, they not only want to strengthen the connections to readers – but also to those who write or produce these books.
Because the idea of social cooperation is important to the founders. What does that mean specifically? All authors receive the same participation, twelve percent for hardcovers, for example, more than is customary in the industry. Translators are named as authors on the cover. Also in price negotiations with service providers of all kinds, the motto is: “no fight, but cooperation”. That feels a lot better for everyone involved, says Claßen.
That doesn’t rule out ambitious goals: After all, the publishers are not only concerned with social sustainability, but also with ecological ones. It starts with the fact that they work with devices that are refurbished, make climate-neutral calls via the mobile phone provider WEtell and handle financial matters via the joint bank GLS. And it doesn’t end with the production of the books: with the partner printer Gugler, Kjona produces the entire program using the cradle-to-cradle process – with fonts that use less ink; with paper that is endlessly reusable and compostable without residue. If you don’t want to keep a book or give it away, you could theoretically bury it in the ground. It takes a while, says Claßen, but then it “turns completely to earth and eventually becomes humus for the next tree. Free from harmful substances.”
Sounds good – but haven’t there been publishers trying to do something similar for a long time, for example Oekom in Munich? “A pioneer,” says Claßen appreciatively and makes it clear: “We are neither the only ones nor the first.” Admittedly, the procedures are sometimes different, Oekom, for example, relies on certified recycling paper, but there are different philosophies, according to Claßen. Unlike Oekom, however, Kjona does not deal with sustainability issues, “we are not environmental activists”. Kjona is, so to speak, a completely normal publishing house for literature and non-fiction that just wants to produce its books in an all-round socially and ecologically compatible way. No other publisher has done this so consistently in this area, says Claßen.
“We want to make a sustainable publishing house economically viable”
With Kjona, they want to “create precedents” in an industry that, according to Classen, has a “credibility problem” overall: “The book as a cultural asset has actually shrunk to a disposable product.” He is all the more pleased about the openness to his concerns, for example at Hanser Verlag, which is responsible for sales: there has been a sustainability department there since the cooperation. And if anyone is now wondering how all this idealism is supposed to pay off: Kjona is not a non-profit company, as Classen emphasizes: “We want to make a sustainable publishing house economically viable.” The publisher had equity and a loan from the GLS bank. You have “expected a lot” and leave out some things, such as paid advertising. But even if a small program with only a few titles is planned, which combines a “restless sensitivity to the present”: the books should sell.
For the first program, the publishers are therefore hoping, among other things, for the persuasiveness of Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson, who writes about the “origins of our uneasiness” in the non-fiction book “Kaste”. With narrow volumes by Linus Giese and Mark Gabriel is to start a series with “Visions for the future” – in letter form. And with an initial print run of at least 8,000 copies, they rely on the aforementioned American author Dana Spiotta and her novel “Unpredictable”.
Spiotta’s main character Sam is shaken by the developments of the Trump era as well as by an unsatisfactory family life and menopause. Her “need to defy convention” becomes more urgent. Spontaneously she buys a ramshackle house: “Only for the intrepid,” says the ad. The decision doesn’t make her life any easier, but it gives her “great clarity. A meaning.” In short: Here a woman takes the liberty to do what she thinks is right. And thus acts as a kindred spirit of the Kjona founders: you should be two friends, on the way to the open.