PLEASE NOTE, AS OF JULY 22, 2020, PRE-ORDERS FOR FRIDA BEYOND ABBA ARE NO LONGER ACCEPTED ON THIS PAGE. TO PRE-ORDER THE BOOK PLEASE GO TO: fridabeyondabba.com
Short summary
The book FRIDA BEYOND ABBA is scheduled to be published in the summer of 2021. It is the result of five years of intensive work, brought about through research in various archives, extensive new interviews and great support of ABBA historian Carl Magnus Palm, author of books such as ABBA - The Complete Recording Sessions. The book will chronologically detail the musical output of Anni-Frid Lyngstad, during her professional and non-professional career as a solo artist from the mid-fifties to the present. From her stage debut in 1956, her first semi-professional recordings at the age of thirteen, leading up to the success with ABBA and the international solo-career that followed after, the book will detail musicians, studios, venues, songs and background information to tell the story of a career of an ambitious singer with a big determination to succeed.
Throughout the course of the research, over 25 extensive interviews have been conducted with people who worked closely with Frida during different stages of her career, many talking about their collaboration with the singer for the first time. Furthermore, permission was granted to listen to a large number of unreleased recordings, from both private and archive collections, which have never been heard by the general public. All the new insights, provided by the research, interviews and recordings will be revealed in the book for the first time.
You can pre-order FRIDA BEYOND ABBA in two different formats:
1. Printed hardcover format shipped to your address anywhere in the world
2. ebook (electronic book) format supported by Sony Reader, Kindle, iBooks, Nook, and most other readers and devices. (Read more about ebooks here.)
Please see the Perks section on the right side of this page for the various bundles available. Then simply click on the appropriate perk to pre-order.
When you pre-order, your contribution will be immediately withdrawn from your credit card. If the campaign does not reach its goal, you will automatically receive a full refund. All who have pre-ordered, will get their name listed in the book and will receive their copy autographed by the author, dedicated to you.
You can contribute as many times as you like and choose as many perks as you like. If you’d like to contribute on behalf of a friend, or several friends, this option is also available. Read more about it here.
Project background
The concept of writing a book emerged from my admiration for ABBA and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, but also from my own artistry. Apart from being a visual artist, I’ve always been writing. Which is why writing an actual book wasn’t so much a distant dream as a future ambition. I love to follow my own curiosity. This also applied to all the information I was archiving about any recording or performance that Frida had done, something I have been doing as a fan for over 43 years. Therefor, the step to convert all this information into a book felt natural to me. And though it still seemed like a daunting task to actually put a whole book together, I gradually started to delve deeper into the research and reach out to people who had worked with Frida in the past. From there on it was amazing how quickly details about her musical career emerged. However, it wasn’t until I met Carl Magnus Palm for the first time in Stockholm that I started to take things more seriously. While presenting him with my findings, accompanied by a long list of questions, he immediately was on board with the idea and his enthusiasm, support and belief in the project gave me the final push to take on the entire thing myself. Needless to say, his continued support, generosity and advice have been of great value to the book.
Why this book?
To me, Frida's career beyond ABBA has always been some sort of gray area, that certainly deserved more credit than it has received so far. Most details were shrouded in obscurity, especially where her career in the 1960s as a band singer and recording artist was concerned. It motivated me to conduct further research so that it could be given its rightful place in both Frida and ABBA’s legacy. From the moment I started the research, the new information that emerged seemed endless, and, consequently, I was even more convinced that the book needed to be written. There were so many Frida projects that had never seen the light of day, unarchived tours, recordings and performances and there was even a lack of a fully detailed discography. In addition, there were several events that were known amongst Frida and ABBA fans that I felt could be explained in more detail. So, if you’re wondering whether this new book will be of value and if I can add something new to the existing books about ABBA and its four members, I am happy to say that I can and that the book will do this.
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Potential cover design concept for the book, subject to change.
Photo: Carl Bengtsson © Skarp Agent. Design: Grant Robinson.
Why are you self-publishing?
The reasons for self-publishing are several, but the most important one is that it gives me complete control over the book, both on the visual side and regarding the content. This way I can ensure that I will deliver the best book I can possibly make and can guarantee a quality that does justice to both Frida's career and the readers of the book.
Second, a book like FRIDA BEYOND ABBA would be considered by most publishers to be a special interest title, which makes crowd funding the best, if not the only way to get the book published. Regular publishers would cut costs, which would compromise the quality of the book and the financial recompense to the author, which would make it very difficult to publish a book like this, assuming regular publishers would be interested in releasing the book at all. I soon discovered that researching a book and writing it, are very time consuming activities and while I consider this book to be mainly a labour of love, I still need to eat and pay the rent.
A third important point for me is that this will be a book written with a special group of readers in mind. A group that is just as passionate as I am, who is just as eager to have the book published. Crowd funding is the ideal tool to ensure that this dream will become a reality.
How will this book be different from books on ABBA?
FRIDA BEYOND ABBA is the first of its kind, since the career of Anni-Frid Lyngstad has never been researched to this extent before. It will offer a lot more information on her career and music than has been available in other books on ABBA or its members.
It will contain:
Facts on known and unknown recording sessions
Background information on recorded and unrecorded songs.
A description of over 30 unreleased live recordings, that have never been heard before.
Details on completed recordings and performances.
A comprehensive discography and list of tour dates from 1958 to the present.
Several new insights to Frida’s career given by former colleagues and friends.
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Though the book will be mainly text based, plenty of illustrations - in the shape of single and album sleeves, vintage ads, newspaper and magazine clippings and previously unpublished photos from both professional agencies and private collections of former colleagues of Frida - will be included as well. The illustrations have been carefully selected so that most of them will have relevance for the subject matter of the book: Frida’s work as a professional artist.
In order to ensure the quality of the book, it will be professionally designed and printed by an experienced book printer in the UK with a respectable reputation. It will be printed with a hardcover, 269 x 213 mm, clothbound with dust jacket; both cover and insides will be printed in full color, and the inside pages will be on high-quality matte paper stock. The book is aimed to contain around 400 pages. I can ensure you that everything will be done to present you with a very good-looking book.
Can I get a taste of what the book will be like?
Yes, a couple of excerpts from the book are now available as PDF files. Please note that the text and the layout are both subject to change as work on the book continues, but the excerpts will give you a general idea of the book’s direction and goal. Download and read the excerpts here:
FRIDA BEYOND ABBA Excerpt 01 – 1958
FRIDA BEYOND ABBA Excerpt 02 – 1969
When will the book be published?
My goal is to have the book published within a year from the end of this crowd funding campaign. If everything goes as planned, the book will be published July, 2021.
I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than work hard on the book to make it a reality. It has become my full time occupation and I work on it almost every day of the week. Having said that, please take note that the publication may be postponed, if more time is needed to get the book absolutely right. Writing this book to me is a serious thing that I am putting a lot of effort into and I want to be certain that I have done the best that I possibly can when it’s delivered to you. In case the publication date does change, all who have pledged will be kept updated about the developments.
Can you give me 3 reasons why I should pre-order the book and back this campaign?
- Over time, the story of the ABBA group has been well documented, but this does not seem to apply to the career of one of its lead singers, Anni-Frid Lyngstad. The book will therefore be unique in its kind. Because not only will it shed a better light on Frida's career and give it the credit it deserves, but it will also provide a more complete context for the ABBA phenomenon itself, by detailing a specific part of the road that led to its formation, as well as one of the solo careers that followed.
- Getting a good quality book published through a regular publisher on an individual ABBA member is complicated. These ‘special interest’ books are aimed at a small, but passionate, crowd, in which most publishers are not really interested. And that's why your support for this campaign is essential. Only with your help, if we join forces, can we get this book published together.
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FRIDA BEYOND ABBA will give you value for your money. The book is written by someone who is just as much a fan as you are, who knows what’s out there and which photos and facts are well-known. So it will not offer the same photographs that have been published several times before, or tell you the story of ABBA all over again. This will also not be the book you’ll just buy for the collection with little new to offer, but rather a book that tells something you did not know before. A book that you will regularly pick up to look something up. A book that will give you a detailed insight into the career of Anni-Frid Lyngstad.
Thank you so much in advance for backing this crowd funding campaign! Your support can make all the difference!
