Books about ABBA and related subjects

ABBA Live 1973 is the working title of a forthcoming book about ABBA's 1973 tour of the Swedish folkparks. The book is the first in a projected series of volumes about ABBA's tours 1973–1981. The writing and production of the book is funded through a crowdfunding campaign, which started Thursday 20 March 2025. If you place your order during the first two months of the crowdfunding, you will get a 10% reduction on the price of the book. The book is scheduled for publication within two years or so: possibly even earlier than that.

ABOUT THE BOOK
ABBA Live 1973 will chronicle, concert by concert, ABBA's first tour as a pop group; they were still billed as Björn, Benny, Agnetha & Frida at this time. The book will have a diary format, tracing the tour show by show.

In the authorised biography about ABBA, written by Christer Borg and published in 1977, it is stated that the group performed 80 shows during this tour. Whether this was figure was based in fact, or if it was a "guesstimate", is unclear. ABBA – The Book by Jean-Marie Potiez, published in 2000, marked the first time we got a comprehensive list of the 1973 gigs, which was fantastic. This list, featuring 58 shows, was probably based on early information about the tour. It wasn't unusual at the time for shows to be added after early folkpark tour announcements had been made – certainly for an act that, during the spring of 1973, emerged as one of the biggest in Sweden – and about 10 further gigs have been identified, upping the tally to circa 70. Whether I'll be able to identify each and every gig more than 50 years after they took place, is doubtful – especially since we don't know if they really played 80 gigs – but I'll do my utmost best.

There will, of course, be an Introduction at the start of the book, relating the background story of the tour, and, not least pertinently, explaining to non-Swedish readers what a folkpark is and how a tour like this would work at the time. But the main part of the book will be focused on the facts about the gigs: what the ABBA members sang, played, said and did. It should be noted that for some of the shows there will not be much to say, as there doesn't seem to be any information out there beyond the fact that the group played the concert. We shall see what I manage to dig up.

RESEARCH
I hope to interview some of the people involved in this tour, and also people who saw Björn, Benny Agnetha and Frida in concert. Most of the research, however, will come from vintage newspapers. Indeed, the greatest challenge in writing this book is to locate ads, reviews and newspaper reports for all of the gigs. I already know that not all of them were reviewed, but about a decade or so I spent some time tracking down ads and other newspaper coverage from local papers for the 1973 tour, and I found a lot of cool stuff, including long-forgotten interviews with the ABBA members; I certainly hadn't seen them before. Below is just a teaser of the many great things I've found so far – there are about 40 gigs that I haven't searched for in the local press yet, and I'm looking forward to getting those microfilms rolling!

ILLUSTRATIONS AND FORMAT
In my previous crowdfunded books, ABBA – The Complete Recording Sessions and ABBA On Record, my text was the main "star" of the show. Certainly, there were photos and other interesting visual items in those books, some of which were previously unpublished, but the main purpose of those volumes was to present facts and tell stories.

In ABBA Live 1973, however, my text will be "co-starring" with the images. All the relevant information, facts and stories will be there, but since this is a book about live concerts, it is my intention to have plenty of photos of ABBA performing onstage. I figure the reader will want to see what the shows looked like, and, not least, what ABBA looked like during the concerts. Again, it will depend what photos I can track down and license for publishing, but I will certainly do my best to arrive at the best mix between good, relevant photos and previously unpublished ones. There will also be vintage ads and newspaper cuttings, so as to strengthen the flavour of what the tour and the circumstances surrounding it were really like.

The book will have the same size and format as ABBA – The Complete Recording Sessions (2017 edition) and ABBA On Record – 200 x 240mm – so that it becomes a part of a “Carl Magnus Palm Self-Published ABBA Book Library”. The paper quality will be the same type of glossy paper as in ABBA On Record. In other words, you can expect the same kind of high-quality, thoroughly researched and nicely presented volume that you got with The Complete Recording Sessions and ABBA On Record. However, the book will not have a dust cover, as these are too susceptible to damage in shipping.

WHY THE BOOK IS SELF-PUBLISHED AND CROWDFUNDED
The short answer is that this book will not become a reality if I don't self-publish it and finance it through crowdfunding. A decade ago, when I was planning the revised and expanded edition of ABBA – The Complete Recording Sessions, I realised that if I were to go to a regular publisher with this project, it just wouldn't work: there is no publisher on this planet that would be prepared to pay me for the time required to research and write it, much less make it as nice-looking as I wanted it to be and as ABBA fans deserved it to be. Crowdfunding and self-publishing, cutting out as many middle-men as possible, was the way to go.

This worked very well indeed for The Complete Recording Sessions and ABBA On Record. In simple terms, I put the question to the fan community: This is the book I'm planning to write and publish – would you be interested in me doing that so that you can own such a book? The answer was yes, which the successful crowdfunding for both projects proved. I am now hoping for a resounding yes for ABBA Live 1973 as well.

PUBLICATION DATE
I hope to finish this book relatively quickly, but I also need some flexibility on it, so I will try to have it published within two years: no later than March 2027. Hopefully, it will be earlier than that, but it could also be a few months later. What I can guarantee is that it will not take five years, like ABBA On Record did – not even four or three years. ABBA On Record was like 25 books in one, in terms of research and organising it all into one volume. ABBA Live 1973 is about one single, clearly defined subject and there are no rabbit holes to disappear into. I couldn't survive another project like ABBA On Record, so you can rest assured that I will not let that happen again – for my own sake as much as those who have shown support by crowdfunding the creation of ABBA Live 1973.

CROWDFUNDING START DATE
Crowdfunding will start 20 March 2025 and will be announced in social media and in my email newsletter. Everyone who supports the crowdfunding will be listed in the book. Thank you so much in advance for your support: the success of the crowdfunding is essential for making the book as amazing as it has the potential to be.