5 ms·

American Literature Needs Indie Presses

32 points by samclemens 10y ago

Finnucane 10y ago
I've been involved in small-press publishing, and it can be an interesting way to lose a lot of money. It might be a little easier now with the interwebs to do direct sales and marketing, because I presume distributors are still no better at paying their bills. I mean, everything this article says was already true 20 or 30 years ago--it's just a little worse now.
- yolesaber 10y ago
  There is a pretty healthy grant ecosystem which sustains a lot of small presses. SPD, a distributor, also does a lot to help alleviate costs involved with getting books to stores and handling reviews / promotions. Book fairs, such as the Brooklyn Book Fest, also can make the difference between being in the red and being able to reprint. I would disagree that it is worse now. If anything, you lose less money these days. I run a small press myself and while I wouldn't say we are rolling in the dough we are still able to keep the lights on. My strategy has been to make really unique-looking titles - both design-wise and content-wise - in small limited print runs (less than 200). This helps build the buzz about the author / work and then I sell the PDF for about half the price. I've been running it for about three years this way. Small presses are slow burners. Ugly Duckling Presse, perhaps one of the biggest "small presses" in NYC, has been ongoing twenty years and are just starting to get mainstream recognition. It's a really great scene. I've worked in publishing (one of the big five) and I honestly find the culture and taste toxic. Small presses are very much their own community, still a distinct lifestyle and scene. I know people who sleep in their workshops next to their letterpress. I've held some of the most gorgeous books I've ever seen, designed by my friends, only one copy, made just for fun in the middle of the night. Losing money is worth it for that.
paulsutter 10y ago
> Each of these books is between 400 and 1,000 pages long, costs around $30 for a hardcover Wait people are still thinking about paper books?
- WalterSear 10y ago
  Some people can't let go of the past.
- superuser2 10y ago
  You can own a paper book in perpetuity. You can lend it, gift it, and read it in 40 years when the tech giants at the time of its publishing are long dead and their standards long forgotten. No one needs to know you have it or what page you're on, it doesn't need network, it doesn't have naturally degrading rechargeable batteries, doesn't need a charge at all. It strikes a reasonable balance between freedom for its user and renumeration for its creator. I love reading on my Kindle, but ebook-exclusive publications are going to have evaporated in a few decades, and hardbacks will still be here.
  - costcopizza 10y ago
    Not to mention people have a tendency to read deeper when its a paper book rather than an e-book. http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-09-18/your-paper-brain-and-your-kindle-brain-arent-same-thing http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-09-18/your-paper-brain-and-y...
- rossitter 10y ago
  Printed book sales have gone up in the U.S. over the past two years, though this was largely driven by 'adult coloring books' and (in 2015) Go Set a Watchman.[0] In my experience, the Strand in New York[1] is every bit as crowded as it ever was. While some smaller stores have failed, others[2] remain hectic with popularity, and while I don't have their sales figures I do see plenty of people making trips to the counter. Friends in other cities in the U.S. have much the same thing to say about bookstores near them. That won't reach everyone, but it isn't only urban environments where print lives on. I do wonder what all factors come into play here. Certainly there are many people who do not like to be roped into buying books from one retailer, or else converting them haphazardly using Calibre. More 'open' platforms, like the Kobo, are difficult to find in certain markets—and why search them out when EPUB prices might not beat prices at your local store (as at the Strand, if you're in New York)? Many e-books are still clumsily produced, thanks to some combination of a limiting markup language and corner cutting at publishers (poorly proofread OCR output, common in older materials, regardless of firm). Then there are the sentimentalists. There's no reasoning with sentiment—and why would there be? Then there is the ease of lending, exchanging, etc. You don't have to deal with pesky rights, and no need to convert anything. No need to give over your reading habits to someone else's server. It's your book. I understand some of the skepticism myself. Most of us have lived through deprecation of file formats and obsolescence of software. I do have e-books tucked away in plain text now, but that's the only reason I feel they're less brittle than the books on my shelves. [0] http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/69051-print-sales-up-again.html http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bo... [1] http://www.strandbooks.com/ http://www.strandbooks.com/ [2] http://www.mcnallyjackson.com/ http://www.mcnallyjackson.com/
vinceguidry 10y ago
We're seeing this everywhere. The major beer distributors are snapping up indie breweries and cultivating their own. Hollywood is fragmenting into numerous smaller production shops, the big 5 can't hold on to as much of the gross. Advertising has long fragmented into countless small channels, each with their own rules and their own players. Porn used to be dominated by a few shops, they got sucker punched by video uploading. The Internet has leveled the playing field everywhere, democratizing access to the market and lowering barriers to entry, not just in production, but also marketing too.
_rpd 10y ago
The barriers to entry seem lower than ever. Small, high quality print runs are relatively cheap. Amazon to distribute for you. Social media for marketing. Indie presses should be sprouting up all over the place.
- yolesaber 10y ago
  They are. Entropy, the sci fi and literary magazine, keeps a running interview series of old and new small presses. There are a lot and they all do different niches: http://entropymag.org/category/small-press/ http://entropymag.org/category/small-press/
  - drabiega 10y ago
    I was excited at first when I read your comment because it seemed like exactly what I was looking for, having read the above article. ... Then I followed the link and discovered that the text of the website was too faint for me to easily read. Is this a colorblindness thing? Anyone else have this problem?
    - yolesaber 10y ago
      That's unfortunate :( What browser are you using? I'm using chrome and it looks readable to me, but I have decent eyesight. Entropy using a thin font that might render poorly on other browsers. Plus their quote font is gray, which is hard to read even for me
    - detaro 10y ago
      Very thin and hard to read font, yes. Blocking webfonts in uBlock helped ...
cwmma 10y ago
Side note: the picture at the top of the article is the Brattle Book Shop, or more accurately the empty lot next door where they have carts of used books for super cheap, it's an amazing place.
SilasX 10y ago
Does No Starch Press count? They have some very good technical publications, including Hacking: The Art of Exploitation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Starch_Press https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Starch_Press

32 points by samclemens 10y ago

I've been involved in small-press publishing, and it can be an interesting way to lose a lot of money. It might be a little easier now with the interwebs to do direct sales and marketing, because I presume distributors are still no better at paying their bills. I mean, everything this article says was already true 20 or 30 years ago--it's just a little worse now.

yolesaber 10y ago
There is a pretty healthy grant ecosystem which sustains a lot of small presses. SPD, a distributor, also does a lot to help alleviate costs involved with getting books to stores and handling reviews / promotions. Book fairs, such as the Brooklyn Book Fest, also can make the difference between being in the red and being able to reprint. I would disagree that it is worse now. If anything, you lose less money these days. I run a small press myself and while I wouldn't say we are rolling in the dough we are still able to keep the lights on. My strategy has been to make really unique-looking titles - both design-wise and content-wise - in small limited print runs (less than 200). This helps build the buzz about the author / work and then I sell the PDF for about half the price. I've been running it for about three years this way. Small presses are slow burners. Ugly Duckling Presse, perhaps one of the biggest "small presses" in NYC, has been ongoing twenty years and are just starting to get mainstream recognition. It's a really great scene. I've worked in publishing (one of the big five) and I honestly find the culture and taste toxic. Small presses are very much their own community, still a distinct lifestyle and scene. I know people who sleep in their workshops next to their letterpress. I've held some of the most gorgeous books I've ever seen, designed by my friends, only one copy, made just for fun in the middle of the night. Losing money is worth it for that.

paulsutter 10y ago

> Each of these books is between 400 and 1,000 pages long, costs around $30 for a hardcover Wait people are still thinking about paper books?

WalterSear 10y ago
Some people can't let go of the past.
superuser2 10y ago
You can own a paper book in perpetuity. You can lend it, gift it, and read it in 40 years when the tech giants at the time of its publishing are long dead and their standards long forgotten. No one needs to know you have it or what page you're on, it doesn't need network, it doesn't have naturally degrading rechargeable batteries, doesn't need a charge at all. It strikes a reasonable balance between freedom for its user and renumeration for its creator. I love reading on my Kindle, but ebook-exclusive publications are going to have evaporated in a few decades, and hardbacks will still be here.
- costcopizza 10y ago
  Not to mention people have a tendency to read deeper when its a paper book rather than an e-book. http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-09-18/your-paper-brain-and-your-kindle-brain-arent-same-thing http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-09-18/your-paper-brain-and-y...
rossitter 10y ago
Printed book sales have gone up in the U.S. over the past two years, though this was largely driven by 'adult coloring books' and (in 2015) Go Set a Watchman.[0] In my experience, the Strand in New York[1] is every bit as crowded as it ever was. While some smaller stores have failed, others[2] remain hectic with popularity, and while I don't have their sales figures I do see plenty of people making trips to the counter. Friends in other cities in the U.S. have much the same thing to say about bookstores near them. That won't reach everyone, but it isn't only urban environments where print lives on. I do wonder what all factors come into play here. Certainly there are many people who do not like to be roped into buying books from one retailer, or else converting them haphazardly using Calibre. More 'open' platforms, like the Kobo, are difficult to find in certain markets—and why search them out when EPUB prices might not beat prices at your local store (as at the Strand, if you're in New York)? Many e-books are still clumsily produced, thanks to some combination of a limiting markup language and corner cutting at publishers (poorly proofread OCR output, common in older materials, regardless of firm). Then there are the sentimentalists. There's no reasoning with sentiment—and why would there be? Then there is the ease of lending, exchanging, etc. You don't have to deal with pesky rights, and no need to convert anything. No need to give over your reading habits to someone else's server. It's your book. I understand some of the skepticism myself. Most of us have lived through deprecation of file formats and obsolescence of software. I do have e-books tucked away in plain text now, but that's the only reason I feel they're less brittle than the books on my shelves. [0] http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/69051-print-sales-up-again.html http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bo... [1] http://www.strandbooks.com/ http://www.strandbooks.com/ [2] http://www.mcnallyjackson.com/ http://www.mcnallyjackson.com/

vinceguidry 10y ago

We're seeing this everywhere. The major beer distributors are snapping up indie breweries and cultivating their own. Hollywood is fragmenting into numerous smaller production shops, the big 5 can't hold on to as much of the gross. Advertising has long fragmented into countless small channels, each with their own rules and their own players. Porn used to be dominated by a few shops, they got sucker punched by video uploading. The Internet has leveled the playing field everywhere, democratizing access to the market and lowering barriers to entry, not just in production, but also marketing too.

_rpd 10y ago

The barriers to entry seem lower than ever. Small, high quality print runs are relatively cheap. Amazon to distribute for you. Social media for marketing. Indie presses should be sprouting up all over the place.

yolesaber 10y ago
They are. Entropy, the sci fi and literary magazine, keeps a running interview series of old and new small presses. There are a lot and they all do different niches: http://entropymag.org/category/small-press/ http://entropymag.org/category/small-press/
- drabiega 10y ago
  I was excited at first when I read your comment because it seemed like exactly what I was looking for, having read the above article. ... Then I followed the link and discovered that the text of the website was too faint for me to easily read. Is this a colorblindness thing? Anyone else have this problem?
  - yolesaber 10y ago
    That's unfortunate :( What browser are you using? I'm using chrome and it looks readable to me, but I have decent eyesight. Entropy using a thin font that might render poorly on other browsers. Plus their quote font is gray, which is hard to read even for me
  - detaro 10y ago
    Very thin and hard to read font, yes. Blocking webfonts in uBlock helped ...

cwmma 10y ago

Side note: the picture at the top of the article is the Brattle Book Shop, or more accurately the empty lot next door where they have carts of used books for super cheap, it's an amazing place.

SilasX 10y ago

Does No Starch Press count? They have some very good technical publications, including Hacking: The Art of Exploitation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Starch_Press https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Starch_Press