ABOUT KICKS BOOKS

KICKS BOOKS is an independent publisher based in Brooklyn NY, whose "hip pocket paperback" line reflects the pulp obsessions of founder, Miriam Linna. Kicks Book grew out of KICKS MAGAZINE, the legendary rock n’ roll periodical founded by Linna and her late husband Billy Miller. A longtime collector of printed matter, and paperback books in particular, Linna fulfilled a promise to a friend by publishing his rehab writings in book form. 

SWEETS by rhythm & blues music legend Andre Williams, appeared in 2009. The collection, comprised of two novelettes and a selection of story poems represents William's first attempt (at the age of 73) at fiction writing. SWEETS was written entirely while Williams was in a rehabilitation facility, in treatment for drug and alcohol addiction. He has been clean since his exit from the facility. The plot lines of SWEETS are thick with personal experience, vivid with imagination, and truly traipse into terrain that even the thickest-skinned of Black experience writers would fear to tred. Williams has completed a sequel to SWEETS which is scheduled for publication in 2021.

With the publication of SWEETS came a number of key opportunities working toward singular offerings by writers Harlan Ellison, Nick Tosches, Sun Ra, Kim Fowley, British beat hero Royston Ellis and American road poet laureate Charles Plymell.

Kicks Books are presented as paperback "talls" – Signet-sized pocketbooks designed to slide easily into the hip pocket of one's jeans. The concept is affordable, portable, uniquely different reading material presented attractively as bound printed matter.

A new generation of limited edition souvenir Kicks Books launched in November 2013 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the deaths of John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald. TRAGIC TALES FROM THE GRASSY KNOLL reinstalled the saddle-stitched, digest 8 vo/octavo size (8.5 x 5.5") that began with Linna's serialized BAD SEED in 1984. All issues of BAD SEED are due for reprint within this Kicks SSD sub-pub as 30th anniversary editions with color covers and commentary.

In 1997, Kicks Books issued their first book of photographs featuring a stunning collection of photographs by there hero Eddie Rocco, who had been a staff snapper in the 1950s’s at Derby, Connecticut’s groundbreaking Charlton Publications, home of Hit Parader, Ebony Song Parade, and Song Hits, among others. He went on to work for Fort Worth’s legendary Goode Publications, they home to Sepia and Bronze Thrills. A small stash of this title has been unearthed and Rocco’s works have now been rediscovered and lauded by the New York Times.

Kicks Books are now available as Kicks Kindle e-books, presenting our print editions alongside e-versions, also initiates a line of titles available as ebooks/PODs only. This line now enables a multitude of Kicks author titles to enter print and ebook format. We initiate this series on March 1d this series with titles from legendary British novelist/ Beat poet Royston Ellis. This series will deliver instant fiction gratification – what we at Kicks call "instant gratifictionification". 

Kicks Books will move to adding a larger format book for music biographies to its realm soon, with the anticipated label history of Detroit’s Fortune Records label. This will not affect its publication schedule of its iconic "hip pocket paperbacks".