1995

The new frontier: Miti

The Oscar Mondadori series of books reached out to readers, but there was room to expand that relationship. In fact, many readers at this time are still intimidated by the austere, though comfortable, environment of most conventional bookshops. And how many are still disoriented by the wide choice, even if it is cleverly presented?

The series Miti (Myths) is born in 1995 to respond to these questions and reach out to potential readers in the three main distribution channels: bookstores, newsagents and large supermarkets. Four titles per month are distributed with a fixed printing run of 200,000 copies. They are rack sized with aggressive covers and are priced to make the most famous authors more accessible.

These are the typical entertaining novel, both classics and contemporary. There is no experimentation, only the best books by the best authors of many different genres. Print runs are limited and once the copies are finished there are no re-printings.

Another even more courageous initiative begins six months after the Miti, after 4 million copies have been sold, with the introduction of the Miti Poesia in which Mondadori offers a selection of the work of great poets without introductions, notes and critical commentary. Readers can enjoy an introduction to an author at a low price and then if they want they can then get a bigger edition of the writer’s complete works.