A Well-Meaning, Ill-Advised, or Damn Fine Idea?
We Should Start a Press!
More times than I can remember, some good-hearted bookworm has said to me, “We should start a press. We’ll publish books we love and make money too!”
Although I try not to bark at the person cheerfully airing this idea, my unenthusiastic reaction to this comment has intensified over the years. I know a number of indie publishers and am aware of how hard they work to remain solvent, let alone turn a profit. I’ve likewise witnessed friends and acquaintances closing their indie presses, largely due to the expense and time commitment required to properly produce and promote their authors’ books.
More generally, to add to the somewhat ominous tone I’ve set here, a few recent kerfuffles about small presses acting in a predatory fashion have been amplified on social media and by industry watchdogs. Among the reported problems: not paying royalties, requiring authors to buy a prohibitive number of copies of their own books and/or pay all publicity-related expenses, and overediting/altering a manuscript to the point where it no longer is materially the author’s original work.
In fairness to those working hard and transparently in this sector of the industry, many reputable independent presses are still acquiring, editing, and publishing some of the best books on offer each year, paying their authors and generating royalty reports on schedule, and promoting books as capably as they can, while also handling distribution and printing matters.
The tasks in the preceding paragraph, however, should inspire circumspection in anyone thinking about starting a small press. Not the least because they represent only a handful of the responsibilities a small press publisher must either accomplish alone or with whatever support staff—unpaid or underpaid—they are able to enlist. (See also Anne Trubek’s Notes from a Small Press.)
I asked two indie press publishers, Jerry Brennan of Tortoise Books, and James Reich of Stalking Horse Press, about a few of the challenges they face in order to continue publishing the work of authors they admire. Both are novelists as well as editors, and they have other jobs—Jerry at a Chicago law firm, and James is an educator and a music journalist (among other periodicals, he writes often for SPIN.)
James: “Being a writer and a publisher intensifies your awareness of the absurd number of talented, unacknowledged people who are working relentlessly and without pay to support the literary culture outside of corporate publishing. They write reviews, conduct interviews, produce podcasts, edit online literary magazines, etc., and they’re overwhelmed, yet remain generous. I have immense respect for them.
“It’s like being an adjunct in academia, but with even lower pay. You have to love your subject to an irrational extent, and have some quixotic hope that you can make a difference at the margins. You see it at AWP when people enter the book fair for the first time and they can’t believe there are so many presses and magazines they’ve never heard of working so hard to produce and support beauty and experiments.
“Stalking Horse Press will be 10 years old next year. I spend much of my time wishing I could do more to change writers’ lives. And we’ve had some successes for some authors. And yet, one has to be conscious that sales don’t reflect the qualities of a book, and that it’s a long game for most artists.”
Regarding the challenges, James shared the following: “Running a small press is not a way to make a living. I started Stalking Horse Press when I was momentarily comfortable in an academic job, and its viability depends to a large extent on my resources outside of the press. It’s not a loss-making press, but neither does it make anything like a working class wage.”
And: “Without naming names, I’ve had several instances of bookstores not paying on time for bulk orders of books for author events. When you’re a small press, having a bookstore owe you, say, $500, is a problem. But I’ve had to chase bookstores more than once.”
Jerry shared this about his experiences at Tortoise Books, which he founded in 2012: “It’s hard to say what I wish I’d known before I started a small press...I've honestly enjoyed most of the lessons, even the painful ones. It's tempting to say, ‘I wish I knew exactly how many books each title would sell,’ but not knowing is part of the fun; the fact that every title is a gamble helps keep me coming back.
“I do perhaps wish I’d known that it’s OK to write author agreements that allow us to recover all our costs for a title; I'm always trying to draft agreements that are mutually beneficial, and in some instances I’ve worried so much about whether an agreement benefits the author that I haven’t made sure it benefits Tortoise. But most of all, I wish I’d have known how much I’d enjoy it. It feels in retrospect like I started Tortoise a little impulsively, and I probably would have gotten into it with a touch more care and deliberation if I had to do it all over again.
“[And] Oh, yeah! The post office. I had no idea how much time I’d be spending at the post office. There were many weeks when I was there twice a week, and if I’m not there as much now, it's only because my wife has started helping out with the mailing. I’ve gotten to know a few of the clerks on a first-name basis, and some of them recognize my kids on sight. They’re good people. I had no small amount of anxiety in 2020 when it seemed that the right was trying to politicize the post office, and I’m incredibly grateful the system is still functioning. It’s incredibly important to a small press to have a large and robust post office.”
In sum, a deeply entrenched work ethic, enthusiasm, and a willingness to face uncertainty are required.
One thing I’ve also heard from publishers and editors, and know this from observing my own and other writers’ behavior on days when things feel…not so sun-drenched: Authors can be infernally hard to satisfy, and some, perhaps, will never be satisfied, no matter how much their press does for them. If we see another author selling more copies, winning accolades, receiving more attention/love from readers and the press, i.e. getting more oxygen, we feel ourselves to be unfairly overlooked, our books undervalued.
Is it any wonder that some writing professors tell their students to opt for a different career path if there’s anything else they like to do even half as much as write?
This analogy also comes to mind: like marriage, which is as likely to end in divorce as not (a bit grim, I know, but the data say it’s so), many of us go ahead and get married anyway. And often are happy with this decision—on most days, in any case. Many writers, similarly, write because we really do feel we need to—it’s how we demystify the world, along with our thoughts and experiences.
The same can doubtless be said of publishers—they publish books because they’re called to it. Candidly, this seems the only real reason to enter into this business (not money or fame or awards, which of course are never guaranteed). Similar to running a restaurant, publishers need to give their press the lion’s share of their time and resources if they hope to make it viable, especially financially (and not overcommit themselves—e.g. publishing 3 books per year, perhaps, rather than 23).
But even with enormous amounts of hard work, the press might founder. Few of us like to admit how much good luck figures into success in the arts, but if we’re being honest, we can’t discount it: for example, an unexpected, runaway bestseller such as Akashic Books’ 2011 Go the F**k to Sleep by Adam Mansbach.
Work hard, for sure, and hope for some good luck along the way.
