Record labels also have backlists of music titles they have published.
After finding new homes for four of his more major authors — Charles Bukowski, Paul Bowles, John Fante, and Wyndham Lewis — Martin sold the rest of his backlist to a fellow publisher, David R. Godine.
The Press currently issues some 40 new titles a year and publishes nine scholarly journals, with a backlist of over 600 active titles.
He committed time and resources to lengthening the backlist, becoming known for assuming ambitious scholarly projects, among the largest of which was The Lisle Letters — a vast collection of 16th-century correspondence by Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle, a wealth of information about every aspect of sixteenth-century life.