Am I too small to be recognized as a small press?
January 26, 2024 11:11 AM Subscribe
The vague idea that “we’re all in this together” comes at the expense of the smaller organizations and most marginalized writers. There are inspiring local stores that love and stock indie books and are essential allies to smaller presses making this choice despite the commercial obstacles to it... But many independently owned, noncorporate bookstores aren’t willing to work directly with SPD or individual publishers, which would require more labor but offer better terms than Ingram. They don’t value independently published, noncorporate books enough to push back on or find alternatives to [Ingram].
“indie” pushback against corporate dominance in literary publishing has relied on tech solutions that I worry are precarious—like Bookshop.org... or on the capriciousness of wealthy donors. The shuttering of Astra and Catapult magazines demonstrate the problems with the latter. The wealthy entities behind both those ventures seemed hilariously dismayed by the lack of profit generated by their lit mags and pulled support.
“indie” pushback against corporate dominance in literary publishing has relied on tech solutions that I worry are precarious—like Bookshop.org... or on the capriciousness of wealthy donors. The shuttering of Astra and Catapult magazines demonstrate the problems with the latter. The wealthy entities behind both those ventures seemed hilariously dismayed by the lack of profit generated by their lit mags and pulled support.
Thank you for posting this. Bookmarking it for the moment, but definitely one to share with students along with MFA vs NYC, SCRATCH, etc. I feel like it’s the sort of essay that belongs in a snapshot book of essays and interviews capturing just where we are right now. Presumably the same neoliberal forces are going to keep trying to do what they do, from media mergers to defunding higher Ed (and its publishing arms), and it’s easy to imagine a downward trajectory, but the conversants’ passion in this conversation would be nicely amplified by tweets, blog posts, news articles, etc. going into the challenges of paper costs, BookScan reporting (or not), etc.
posted by cupcakeninja at 11:31 AM on January 26 [1 favorite]
posted by cupcakeninja at 11:31 AM on January 26 [1 favorite]
Asterism books was created with the purpose of providing a non-Ingram source for buying books. It doesn't solve the problem, however, of knowing which books to buy. Probably most of their books are sold through recommendations on Twitter, due to the lack of coverage in outlets like NYRB.
posted by tofu_crouton at 11:49 AM on January 26 [3 favorites]
posted by tofu_crouton at 11:49 AM on January 26 [3 favorites]
This is the part I'm going to be thinking about for a while:
I think mainstream literary culture relies on a comforting myth that good literature is liberal and will somehow do good politics, without ever articulating that politics or developing any coherent structure in which it might happen. There’s a vague, deliberately unexamined idea that the goodness of art and literature will transcend the complicity of the structures art “has to” use to reach people. And sometimes they can transcend; sometimes they can destabilize culture generatively, even using corporate-owned pathways.
But more often, of course, challenging work is not going to make it through those pathways. It’s going to be excluded, and readers are not going to encounter it and be changed by it. This is a political problem. Our allies in recognizing that problem as political are fewer than one might expect. Indie leftist media, for example, in the era of Patreon and Substack, pays extraordinarily little attention to leftist art and cultural work.
Although I will say that N+1 covers small leftist works. N+1 is limited in its output though, by all the same oppressive functions of capital.
posted by tofu_crouton at 11:51 AM on January 26 [8 favorites]
I think mainstream literary culture relies on a comforting myth that good literature is liberal and will somehow do good politics, without ever articulating that politics or developing any coherent structure in which it might happen. There’s a vague, deliberately unexamined idea that the goodness of art and literature will transcend the complicity of the structures art “has to” use to reach people. And sometimes they can transcend; sometimes they can destabilize culture generatively, even using corporate-owned pathways.
But more often, of course, challenging work is not going to make it through those pathways. It’s going to be excluded, and readers are not going to encounter it and be changed by it. This is a political problem. Our allies in recognizing that problem as political are fewer than one might expect. Indie leftist media, for example, in the era of Patreon and Substack, pays extraordinarily little attention to leftist art and cultural work.
Although I will say that N+1 covers small leftist works. N+1 is limited in its output though, by all the same oppressive functions of capital.
posted by tofu_crouton at 11:51 AM on January 26 [8 favorites]
What a fabulous link, thanks for sharing! Like others have said, it's super illuminating and will make me second-guess some choices of mine.
Two amazing quotes I'll be taking with me:
-Because our choices are anticommercial, commercial success can’t simply elevate them.
- In corporate culture, the hand that feeds you is often the hand that kept you from growing your own food.
posted by knownassociate at 1:01 PM on January 26 [5 favorites]
Two amazing quotes I'll be taking with me:
-Because our choices are anticommercial, commercial success can’t simply elevate them.
- In corporate culture, the hand that feeds you is often the hand that kept you from growing your own food.
posted by knownassociate at 1:01 PM on January 26 [5 favorites]
I ran a small press from 2011 to 2019, Upper Rubber Boot Books. We still exist, technically, in that we still have a book in print (Sunvault), but we're on indefinite hiatus and unless I win the lottery we're not coming back. Our books were recommended by Barnes & Noble Sci-fi & Fantasy Blog, PBS Newshour, Publishers Weekly; we published people you've heard of (if you read SF/F anyway). Over the entire life of the press, I netted less than $1,000 in profit. I could never get enough momentum under me to quit my job and give it my full attention, and eventually I gave up, and a lot of that was the structural disadvantages outlined in this article. Reading this was very familiar and I can attest to its truth.
I now consider the time I spent running the press to have been a huge life mistake. I squandered the energy and creativity of my 40s on a venture that only helped other writers in a tiny way and prevented me from writing myself just out of tiredness, and now when people ask me about running a press I tell them not to do it unless they have a wealthy patron. I'm proud of the books I produced and I wish the world was different than it is and that I could look back on that time as an unmitigated good instead of regretting losing a decade of writing time.
Anyway I do look at who has published the books I read, and I try to support small presses where I can.
posted by joannemerriam at 1:33 PM on January 26 [42 favorites]
I now consider the time I spent running the press to have been a huge life mistake. I squandered the energy and creativity of my 40s on a venture that only helped other writers in a tiny way and prevented me from writing myself just out of tiredness, and now when people ask me about running a press I tell them not to do it unless they have a wealthy patron. I'm proud of the books I produced and I wish the world was different than it is and that I could look back on that time as an unmitigated good instead of regretting losing a decade of writing time.
Anyway I do look at who has published the books I read, and I try to support small presses where I can.
posted by joannemerriam at 1:33 PM on January 26 [42 favorites]
That was very informative, thanks for posting it! I can understand the frustrations of these small presses as well as how important it is that they continue to be around to create.
The solutions proposed in the article all seem to be matters out of the control of the small presses, though... indie bookstores stocking small press books, reviewers paying more attention to those books. It would be wonderful if they did. But, with the reality of capitalism, setting your hopes on other businesses doing something that goes against their bottom line seems risky at best. I wonder if there's another way to amplify the voices of all these small groups? Is there an organization that small presses can be part of where they can work together to promote each other's books, try to get their books on more shelves and in more review lists?
On a related note, what's the best way for me to find local indie presses to support? The first thing I found was PublishersArchive.com, which lists a ton of small presses but is an Amazon affiliate and is full of ads.
posted by blueskies at 2:32 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
The solutions proposed in the article all seem to be matters out of the control of the small presses, though... indie bookstores stocking small press books, reviewers paying more attention to those books. It would be wonderful if they did. But, with the reality of capitalism, setting your hopes on other businesses doing something that goes against their bottom line seems risky at best. I wonder if there's another way to amplify the voices of all these small groups? Is there an organization that small presses can be part of where they can work together to promote each other's books, try to get their books on more shelves and in more review lists?
On a related note, what's the best way for me to find local indie presses to support? The first thing I found was PublishersArchive.com, which lists a ton of small presses but is an Amazon affiliate and is full of ads.
posted by blueskies at 2:32 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
I'm wondering if maybe the people who used to run the basically now dead network of gay and lesbian bookstores that were found in nearly EVERY city but now have vanished....
I wonder of the people who ran those, who were largely stocked with very small and indie press books, could be brought in to consult on how to make local booksellers more supportive of indie and small press.
I miss those bookstores so much....
posted by hippybear at 2:40 PM on January 26 [6 favorites]
I wonder of the people who ran those, who were largely stocked with very small and indie press books, could be brought in to consult on how to make local booksellers more supportive of indie and small press.
I miss those bookstores so much....
posted by hippybear at 2:40 PM on January 26 [6 favorites]
It's funny because zine culture thrived pre-internet basically by tireless self promotion. It didn't rely on bookstores. It sometimes relied on record stores more than bookstores. How did that work?
posted by JJ86 at 2:49 PM on January 26
posted by JJ86 at 2:49 PM on January 26
Zine culture was hyperlocal and people's cultural worlds were also more local. Information didn't travel that far, etc.
posted by grumpybear69 at 3:13 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 3:13 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
I have been pondering this issue a lot recently. I can't tell you the last time I bought a book off-the-shelf from my local small chain (Copperfield's Books). I order from them, because it's "the right thing to do" to wait a few more days and go by the physical store rather than having it drop-shipped direct to my door step, but I no longer use them for discoverability.
We did just get an alternative/horror bookstore in the mall north of town (Word Horde Emporium of the Weird & Fantastic). I first ran into them at a Pride event, bought an anthology, went in to their physical store, bought a novel, read it, enjoyed it, and thought "this feels a lot like it started on the Internet" (in a good way), and sure enough, it had.
So I'm now torn. I don't need more physical books. My tiny personal library in front of my house is already overflowing with books I bought because I thought other people should read them, that nobody takes, but they drop off whatever is topping the NYT fiction bestseller list at the moment.
And I'm wondering if the era of the physical bookstore is just over. Like I really need to go back and revamp my "bought an ePub from somewhere" to my tablet pipeline and just buy random reads from people who've put their work on Smashwords or somesuch.
And, heck, I don't even know what I'm looking for any more. So much of what I turned to zine culture for back in the '90s moved to blogs, and thence to the fediverse and dispersed further. Seems like exploring AO3 or what-have-you (*cough* Stories Online *cough*) now requires being deeply immersed in the culture of those sites in a way I don't have the tuits to give.
I buy various fiction based on the recommendations of friends, or in social media author's groups of author's I've enjoyed, and too much of that is on Kindle, but...
Like hippybear, I miss those bookstores so much. I miss wandering down Valencia St, or through Moe's, or whatever the ones in Marin were. I miss the 'zine rack at Cody's. But the technology of ebooks and the economics of physical distribution may just mean we're past that.
posted by straw at 3:15 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
We did just get an alternative/horror bookstore in the mall north of town (Word Horde Emporium of the Weird & Fantastic). I first ran into them at a Pride event, bought an anthology, went in to their physical store, bought a novel, read it, enjoyed it, and thought "this feels a lot like it started on the Internet" (in a good way), and sure enough, it had.
So I'm now torn. I don't need more physical books. My tiny personal library in front of my house is already overflowing with books I bought because I thought other people should read them, that nobody takes, but they drop off whatever is topping the NYT fiction bestseller list at the moment.
And I'm wondering if the era of the physical bookstore is just over. Like I really need to go back and revamp my "bought an ePub from somewhere" to my tablet pipeline and just buy random reads from people who've put their work on Smashwords or somesuch.
And, heck, I don't even know what I'm looking for any more. So much of what I turned to zine culture for back in the '90s moved to blogs, and thence to the fediverse and dispersed further. Seems like exploring AO3 or what-have-you (*cough* Stories Online *cough*) now requires being deeply immersed in the culture of those sites in a way I don't have the tuits to give.
I buy various fiction based on the recommendations of friends, or in social media author's groups of author's I've enjoyed, and too much of that is on Kindle, but...
Like hippybear, I miss those bookstores so much. I miss wandering down Valencia St, or through Moe's, or whatever the ones in Marin were. I miss the 'zine rack at Cody's. But the technology of ebooks and the economics of physical distribution may just mean we're past that.
posted by straw at 3:15 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
And I'm wondering if the era of the physical bookstore is just over. ... But the technology of ebooks and the economics of physical distribution may just mean we're past that.
If we lose physical print books we lose our history once our ability to recharge batteries or run server farms is gone. The physical life of actual books is longer than the lifespan of buildings sometimes.
Do not wish yourself into a digital black hole, maybe not for you but for some point in the future. Print requires no technology to read because the letters on the pages is the technology and it can survive for over a century easily. We are losing computer programs and other digital files from as recently as 20 years ago.
posted by hippybear at 3:19 PM on January 26 [11 favorites]
If we lose physical print books we lose our history once our ability to recharge batteries or run server farms is gone. The physical life of actual books is longer than the lifespan of buildings sometimes.
Do not wish yourself into a digital black hole, maybe not for you but for some point in the future. Print requires no technology to read because the letters on the pages is the technology and it can survive for over a century easily. We are losing computer programs and other digital files from as recently as 20 years ago.
posted by hippybear at 3:19 PM on January 26 [11 favorites]
I don't wanna thread sit, but "If we lose physical print books we lose our history once our ability to recharge batteries or run server farms is gone." is both a valid concern, and...
Among my interests, I'm also a square dance caller. As a newer square dance caller, I've ended up with boxes and boxes of material, and this past weekend I went through some of those boxes. Ancient copies of American Square Dance magazine, books written by callers whose names are mentioned reverently by those who remember, and were clearly assembled at a Kinko's, that maybe someone can track down the heirs to in order to get permission to distribute, and maybe they won't.
And a lot of this stuff has been scanned by the Square Dance History Project, but will anyone care about the details of the CALLERLAB featured selection call was in whatever of nineteen eighty mumble was? Going back to the 1800s, we've pieced together the history, and likely origins, of square dancing (as distinct from quadrilles) in the cultures of Black enslaved peoples, and sure it might be interesting to have better records of that than casual references of how weird it was to see a "caller" in the letters of European travelers, but it seems like the only use that has to day is to somehow excuse the racism of Henry Ford in appropriating it as a "truly American" form.
I have to admit to a little more curiosity about the history of gay square dancing, largely because we've lost so much gay culture as heirs happy to pretend that grandpa was, if not straight, at least vanilla, have tossed mimeographed zines that were stuffed in the back of the literal closet into the dumpster
But I've also experienced the link rot of continuously updating a blog for 25 years. and I'm more than a few years past half a century old, and I realize that we always tell the stories of history through our current lens, and, yes, we're doomed to repeat it, maybe, but relying on the past to tell our myths can also be constricting.
So, yeah, I hate to gloss over the accomplishments of the pioneers in so many underground cultures that was only chronicled in lost media, but maybe we, instead, just build on their accomplishments and move on. At this point we're "generating content" so prodigiously that we've long outstripped our ability to mine it.
posted by straw at 3:51 PM on January 26 [8 favorites]
Among my interests, I'm also a square dance caller. As a newer square dance caller, I've ended up with boxes and boxes of material, and this past weekend I went through some of those boxes. Ancient copies of American Square Dance magazine, books written by callers whose names are mentioned reverently by those who remember, and were clearly assembled at a Kinko's, that maybe someone can track down the heirs to in order to get permission to distribute, and maybe they won't.
And a lot of this stuff has been scanned by the Square Dance History Project, but will anyone care about the details of the CALLERLAB featured selection call was in whatever of nineteen eighty mumble was? Going back to the 1800s, we've pieced together the history, and likely origins, of square dancing (as distinct from quadrilles) in the cultures of Black enslaved peoples, and sure it might be interesting to have better records of that than casual references of how weird it was to see a "caller" in the letters of European travelers, but it seems like the only use that has to day is to somehow excuse the racism of Henry Ford in appropriating it as a "truly American" form.
I have to admit to a little more curiosity about the history of gay square dancing, largely because we've lost so much gay culture as heirs happy to pretend that grandpa was, if not straight, at least vanilla, have tossed mimeographed zines that were stuffed in the back of the literal closet into the dumpster
But I've also experienced the link rot of continuously updating a blog for 25 years. and I'm more than a few years past half a century old, and I realize that we always tell the stories of history through our current lens, and, yes, we're doomed to repeat it, maybe, but relying on the past to tell our myths can also be constricting.
So, yeah, I hate to gloss over the accomplishments of the pioneers in so many underground cultures that was only chronicled in lost media, but maybe we, instead, just build on their accomplishments and move on. At this point we're "generating content" so prodigiously that we've long outstripped our ability to mine it.
posted by straw at 3:51 PM on January 26 [8 favorites]
I have to admit to a little more curiosity about the history of gay square dancing,
I went to a gender-free line dancing weekend in New England in the early Nineties, and while it wasn't square dancing focussed they did indeed have two square dances set across the three days of dances. The couples had one person wearing a bit of that neon tape you see tied to stakes for landscaping and such tied around their upper arm, so all the dances were called "armbands" and "bare-arms" for the separate roles. It was liberating to be able to dance with anyone and in any role whenever for the whole weekend.
Sorry, this isn't "line dancing" like country western bars. This is like reels and other forms of called group dances, danced in two lines exchanging partners up and down across.
It's a folk dancing thing, similar to but different from square dancing. Enough cross-over that they did a bit of square dancing at this weekend that was otherwise long lines of people dancing across from each other and exchanging partners up and down that way.
posted by hippybear at 4:01 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
I went to a gender-free line dancing weekend in New England in the early Nineties, and while it wasn't square dancing focussed they did indeed have two square dances set across the three days of dances. The couples had one person wearing a bit of that neon tape you see tied to stakes for landscaping and such tied around their upper arm, so all the dances were called "armbands" and "bare-arms" for the separate roles. It was liberating to be able to dance with anyone and in any role whenever for the whole weekend.
Sorry, this isn't "line dancing" like country western bars. This is like reels and other forms of called group dances, danced in two lines exchanging partners up and down across.
It's a folk dancing thing, similar to but different from square dancing. Enough cross-over that they did a bit of square dancing at this weekend that was otherwise long lines of people dancing across from each other and exchanging partners up and down that way.
posted by hippybear at 4:01 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
So the book industry is just a mirror of the music industry, where the artists get little? I’m a book fiend, I have thousands. I hate reading on screens as I prefer the physical book. I’m in a bookstore at least once a week. I do not find books online as I can’t browse there. The best books I’ve found have been serendipitous. But since Covid, I see less and less interesting books in bookstores and the new book sections in libraries. Is it me? Or has the selection and the breadth of topics shrunk? The number of bookstores clearly has shrunk. This article seems to suggest that. Same with movies, I used to go to movies a lot. Now? Never… I feel as if the world of the creative arts seems to be shrinking and fading into gray. Or maybe I’m too picky now. It’s all very sad.
posted by njohnson23 at 4:34 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
posted by njohnson23 at 4:34 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
@grumpbear69, I remember SF Cons in the early 80's with tables full of zines you could buy via mail order. I assume it was the same for music, culture, humor, or anything else.
posted by JJ86 at 4:41 PM on January 26
posted by JJ86 at 4:41 PM on January 26
Well, if we're going back to the early 80's, then we're into High Weirdness By Mail territory.
posted by hippybear at 4:45 PM on January 26 [5 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 4:45 PM on January 26 [5 favorites]
Most zines don't need to sell very many copies to incentivize the author to create it. A novel that takes years has a different calculus. Also zine culture requires you to do the work of selling your zine as well since there's no one doing marketing for you, and not all authors want to be vendors.
posted by tofu_crouton at 5:18 PM on January 26
posted by tofu_crouton at 5:18 PM on January 26
"It’s not merit, it’s money. Capitalism has a very simple algorithm. Step One: Try a few things and see what sells. Step Two: Put more money behind the one that sells, and it sells more. Step Two involves dropping the stuff that doesn’t sell."
That seems a little too binary. It is money for sure, but there's also some merit in there too, right? Presumably if by accident an indie book with merit was given good exposure, it too would sell well.
posted by storybored at 9:33 PM on January 26
That seems a little too binary. It is money for sure, but there's also some merit in there too, right? Presumably if by accident an indie book with merit was given good exposure, it too would sell well.
posted by storybored at 9:33 PM on January 26
This was a good read, thank you. AND I'm going to use this thread to lament the lovely Oakland bookstore that was Wolfman General Interest Bookstore, AND to tout them as an apparently still going publishing concern.
Only tangentially related, Dan Sinykin's book Big Fiction has bits about Grey Wolf Press, inter alia, that, laid against the larger narrative of Big Five consolidation, was illuminating for me.
We need more writing about small publishers.
posted by german_bight at 10:39 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
Only tangentially related, Dan Sinykin's book Big Fiction has bits about Grey Wolf Press, inter alia, that, laid against the larger narrative of Big Five consolidation, was illuminating for me.
We need more writing about small publishers.
posted by german_bight at 10:39 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
blueskies, there are a few ways to find local indie presses. Here are some examples:
Online:
* look at the CLMP, and search by your state, city, town, or nearest municipality
* search Google, cutting and pasting this and replacing the locality with your own
seattle washington "an independent publisher"|"an indie publisher"|"an indie press"|"an independent press"|"a local press"|"a local publisher"|"local small press"
(the indefinite article weeds out some of the SEO-ified crap that comes up, if not all of it, and you'll get some results in the first few pages)
At your local public library:
* Ask a librarian. Despite the consolidation of purchasing discussed in TFA, an experienced collection development librarian tends to hear about local presses, whether they can buy from the press or not. It's unlikely that you'll run into a collections librarian staffing a desk at your branch, but the reference librarian or desk staffer may have information, and may be able to connect you with another librarian.
* Look at the Literary Marketplace, a venerable, clunky, ugly, and irreplaceable directory of publishers. I have never used the online version, but the print is pretty commonly held by libraries, even today. It will typically be in the "reference section," assuming your library still has one of those.
At your local bookstore:
* Ask a bookseller. There's a lot of back and forth in TFA about just which bookstores stock which sorts of books, and it's true, you can run into stores that are basically indies with a catalog that 90% mirrors what you could also get at B&N... but you're not going to know until you go. And it's a goddamn rare indie bookstore where there isn't someone who knows the local press, regardless of whether they carry it or not.
* Look for a bulletin board. A no-foolin' cork and wood bulletin board. There, you will find fliers, business cards, stickers, and tear-off-a-URL sheets advertising local presses and authors. (Sometimes the local public library may have some content like this, but less so, in my experience.)
In your local literary scene:
* Attend some readings offered at your local bookstores, colleges or universities, public libraries, community centers, festivals, etc.
* Look for events these orgs will run an annual or seasonal basis, usually some sort of "publisher's alley." There you will encounter strange, ill-kept people holding down tables where they are trying to sell independent books of all sorts. Some will be great, some will be badly edited nonsense, some will explain the impact of chemtrails on tinfoil hats, and they are all glorious in their way.
* Look for writers conferences. Not all of them, but some do feature a range of small presses in the book room or at the single, large multi-publisher table they run.
Last but not least, keep an eye out for authors on the make/trying to move up. It's super-common for literary types to start presses, magazines, bookstores or literary festivals in order to "build community"/burnish their own reputation/participate otherwise in the literary economy. Some of these folks truly just love the literary world and want to do more with it, and others are manipulative grifters looking for ways to make money (not unlike Joe Author who tweets real hard for a year about "the literary community" in order to build a following for the "editorial services" he announces after getting some attention.). The point here for you, the reader, though, is that sometimes these efforts lead to some truly interesting, off-beat publications that just aren't the sort of thing the Big 5 will ever publish.
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:38 AM on January 27 [6 favorites]
Online:
* look at the CLMP, and search by your state, city, town, or nearest municipality
* search Google, cutting and pasting this and replacing the locality with your own
seattle washington "an independent publisher"|"an indie publisher"|"an indie press"|"an independent press"|"a local press"|"a local publisher"|"local small press"
(the indefinite article weeds out some of the SEO-ified crap that comes up, if not all of it, and you'll get some results in the first few pages)
At your local public library:
* Ask a librarian. Despite the consolidation of purchasing discussed in TFA, an experienced collection development librarian tends to hear about local presses, whether they can buy from the press or not. It's unlikely that you'll run into a collections librarian staffing a desk at your branch, but the reference librarian or desk staffer may have information, and may be able to connect you with another librarian.
* Look at the Literary Marketplace, a venerable, clunky, ugly, and irreplaceable directory of publishers. I have never used the online version, but the print is pretty commonly held by libraries, even today. It will typically be in the "reference section," assuming your library still has one of those.
At your local bookstore:
* Ask a bookseller. There's a lot of back and forth in TFA about just which bookstores stock which sorts of books, and it's true, you can run into stores that are basically indies with a catalog that 90% mirrors what you could also get at B&N... but you're not going to know until you go. And it's a goddamn rare indie bookstore where there isn't someone who knows the local press, regardless of whether they carry it or not.
* Look for a bulletin board. A no-foolin' cork and wood bulletin board. There, you will find fliers, business cards, stickers, and tear-off-a-URL sheets advertising local presses and authors. (Sometimes the local public library may have some content like this, but less so, in my experience.)
In your local literary scene:
* Attend some readings offered at your local bookstores, colleges or universities, public libraries, community centers, festivals, etc.
* Look for events these orgs will run an annual or seasonal basis, usually some sort of "publisher's alley." There you will encounter strange, ill-kept people holding down tables where they are trying to sell independent books of all sorts. Some will be great, some will be badly edited nonsense, some will explain the impact of chemtrails on tinfoil hats, and they are all glorious in their way.
* Look for writers conferences. Not all of them, but some do feature a range of small presses in the book room or at the single, large multi-publisher table they run.
Last but not least, keep an eye out for authors on the make/trying to move up. It's super-common for literary types to start presses, magazines, bookstores or literary festivals in order to "build community"/burnish their own reputation/participate otherwise in the literary economy. Some of these folks truly just love the literary world and want to do more with it, and others are manipulative grifters looking for ways to make money (not unlike Joe Author who tweets real hard for a year about "the literary community" in order to build a following for the "editorial services" he announces after getting some attention.). The point here for you, the reader, though, is that sometimes these efforts lead to some truly interesting, off-beat publications that just aren't the sort of thing the Big 5 will ever publish.
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:38 AM on January 27 [6 favorites]
As someone who has over the past 4 years shepherded their graphic novel from Kickstarter to indie publisher to major publisher, I can tell you I am back to Kickstarter for my second book. I have no interest playing that game again after having experienced it from the inside. Self publishing has so much more to offer me, and I say that as someone with a book currently on big and small shop shelves.
posted by jordantwodelta at 9:02 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
posted by jordantwodelta at 9:02 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
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That Bookshop.org is structured the way it is is a revelation and makes me less likely to buy a book there if I can walk into a place to purchase it instead.
Anyway, I'm glad you posted this and I'm glad I read it. An interesting window into the concerns of a world I have thought nothing about.
posted by hippybear at 11:31 AM on January 26 [5 favorites]