I'm the non-fiction buyer at a mid-sized public library, and I really appreciated the advice in this column. Thank you and keep this sort of thing coming! I'd like to add one thought about novels in particular: it would be great if we could get back to prioritizing stories that are just that--great stories--rather than thinly-veiled moral fables for whatever the author or publisher's agenda is or "arty" exercises in post-modern metafiction. Maybe I'm just another plain vanilla Midwestern type, but those things make me yawn, wince....and long for better.
Thank you so much! My taste is similar; I don't want to moralized at, but I do want a story that grabs my heart, in spite and because of the characters' complexity. Vanilla is a precious flavor for a reason. People who don't like it have only had the artificial stuff!
I would add another powerful source that could influence what appears in bookstores and libraries: the major book prizes. For instance, this year's shortlist of six finalists for the International Booker Prize consists entirely of books from independent presses. (Good for them!) These books find their ways into major book reviews and onto bookstore shelves.
I'm sure there are also various Substackers who discuss small and independent press books. For instance--(ahem, utterly shameless plug)--I sometimes do this at my own Substack, https://frommybookshelf.substack.com/. It's by no means my only focus, because I cover whatever happens to interest me at the moment. But in the past few months I've written about Jon Fosse's "A Shining" (Fitzcarraldo/Transit Books), Hebe Uhart's "A Question of Belonging" (Archipelago), Zsuzsanna Gahse's "Mountainish" (prototype), and Teffi's "And Time Was No More" (Pushkin).
I'm sure there other Substackers who do much more of this than I do--and who have a bigger audience!--and I would love to hear other recommendations.
Yes, there's some brilliant reading happening in newsletters! Hopefully it makes the process of finding small/independent books easier for readers, who deserve to discover these wonderful novels in a friction-free way! I just subscribed and am looking forward to what you review next. :-)
And it occurs to me that I should also have given a shout-out to Ann Kjellberg at Book Post (https://books.substack.com/), who not only publishes a range of good book reviews but also does a lot of valuable writing herself about the publishing industry.
That is a nice story of serendipity that also illustrates an important point. Since small presses typically cultivate their own distinctive identities, the more attention they get, the more opportunities potential authors have to identify a publisher where their work will be a good fit.
I will try to donate to creators I like at Patreon and Substack.
As for book stores... What I really want is Membership. I would love to pay a monthly fee to my bookstore, like public radio. Because I want to go in there and browse. But I don't want to feel obligated to buy books I'd rather have in eBook anyways. But if the bookstore is gone I'm very unhappy because it's almost my favorite place to be.
They should have author talks, and musical performances too. Selling tea.
Inculcating the value of scholarship in the kiddos.
But I can't possibly keep my local bookstore alive by trying to buy bushels of dead trees and hoping they get a 10% margin.
This is a great idea. I wonder if an enterprising local bookstore could try it. I’ve already encountered the desire to bundle substack subscriptions, because I can’t pay for all of them — kind of like reinventing the magazine. But your bookstore version would be great!
Wild Books! A magnificent term. The antonym would be “factory books.” if I take nothing else away from this post, I take a brand new term for what all of us wild children are doing here and elsewhere on the web. And in a lifetime of juggling words, I have found that if you can conceive of a good descriptive name, you own the playing field. The big five are factories. They can make a few writers rich, but in the process, they have to exclude divergent minds and scribblings. This term makes me think of one of Dolly Parton‘s greatest hits, wildflowers don’t care where they grow. And she was the ultimate wildflower, still is. Doing her own thang, bless her heart. The wild ones among us may not put out as many blossoms, but we are learning how to propagate ourselves across the new wide open meadows of popular culture. Thank you, ladies, ladies of Persuasion, for giving me a new way of looking at the landscape of book publishing and writing in general. —Evan Maxwell
Yes: “After too-often plunking down $30 for a well-reviewed but ultimately disappointing new release,” people want better options. But mainstream reviews “seem to function more as extensions of the Big Five’s PR teams than independent book reviewers.”
Great books are being written. I've seen many of them. But they're not getting chosen. And that's why the frontlist is an ever-diminishing share of publishers' revenue compared to the backlist. People do still want to read good stuff, as evidenced by backlist sales.
100%. And it hurts the deserving Big Five books too, to have an NYT hype machine that runs on automatic. I read Allegra Goodman's brilliant recent release, ISOLA. To me, this book is perfect . . . but I almost didn't pick it up because I wasn't sure whether to trust the reviews. Now I'm so glad that I did because I recommend it to everyone, but I can't be the only person whose trust is shaken, and it's really terrible when that affects authors who deserve high praise.
I will look at that book! But this is the perfect example of what you’re talking about: the reason I’ll consider your recommendation is that you’ve shown yourself willing to admit that something isn’t good just because the Big Five puts it out. If the source of the rec is instead an outlet or person who’s proven themselves unwilling to do that, then their rec is meaningless.
It definitely hurts deserving Big Five books, when readers who used to look to them for contemporary literature—like me—have basically given up on looking there, as a result of lost trust over the last say 8ish years of their publishing stuff that’s just not up to snuff.
I remember interviewing for an editorial assistantship with a prestigious literary Random House imprint. This would’ve been about 2014ish. In the last round of the interview, they gave me a manuscript and had me give comp titles. I comp’ed it to Judy Blume. It came out comp’ed to Grace Paley and Amy Hempel.
One way to support small presses could be a monthly subscription to a press. I've done this with Archipelago Press (which specializes in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry books in translation). For a monthly fee I receive in the mail all their latest books as they launch. I do this because I have absolute faith in their editorial curation and integrity. So, rarely a disappointment. And also a thrill to see what surprise has arrived in the mail.
I also have the Archipelago membership! They do great work. It's a good deal, and--like you--I always enjoy seeing the latest surprise, along with knowing I'm supporting a worthy enterprise. (A few years ago I wrote a little paean to Archipelago: https://thedispatch.com/article/a-literary-world-tour/. I try to put in a good word for them whenever I can!)
I just read your essay about the press, and am further delighted to see that you were moved by Yuri Rytkheu's A Dream in Polar Fog. One of my favorite novels. A recent fave is the Indonesian novel People from Oetimu, by Felix Nesi. Also, the press's Elsewhere Editions for younger readers have been a big hit with my grandchildren, especially Claude Ponti's My Valley, and Eno Raud's The Gothamites.
Thanks for the link to your essay. We subscribers need to stick together.
Very happy that you enjoyed the essay. I really liked the Rytkheu. I have just finished up a semester teaching in London and am now visiting my in-laws in Germany, so I have not yet gotten to see the titles that have appeared this spring. I'll look forward to the Nesi and other surprises waiting in my mail when I return. And how nice to learn that you also like Elsewhere Editions. We have a number of those as well--I often buy my wife a few each year at Christmas (no grandchildren to read them yet, but perhaps one day!).
I am the Director of Incision Press, an Australian based queer & trans press that is only 5 months old. I wanted to add that there is an opportunity here for those of us who are not US based, but have a large US readership. I am working fast to try and figure out how to get our books into the underground of queer & trans networks where they are already being shared from person to person. On my instagram page, people write to me weekly to tell me they have our queer erotica anthologies and it has made them feel seen, and literally kept folks alive in crazy places like Texas.
There is opportunity here for me to use my leverage as being on different soil to Americans, if I can work out how to do it. I have a creative team of six people, one of which is based in LA and one in NYC. I'm thinking big, because the community are asking big things of us. Really hoping I can keep catching the wave we are riding and stay strong in this growing noise.
Are we asking the wrong questions? I assume that small publishers have lower overhead costs - costs above and beyond physically printing and distributing books - and can operate with thinner profit margins. However, small publishers also may be at a disadvantage because the cost per book physically printed and distributed may be higher than large publishers that have huge production runs and access to online publishing. So the questions become why can't small publishers (a) find readable authors to publish, and (b) connect with potential customers.
I'm the non-fiction buyer at a mid-sized public library, and I really appreciated the advice in this column. Thank you and keep this sort of thing coming! I'd like to add one thought about novels in particular: it would be great if we could get back to prioritizing stories that are just that--great stories--rather than thinly-veiled moral fables for whatever the author or publisher's agenda is or "arty" exercises in post-modern metafiction. Maybe I'm just another plain vanilla Midwestern type, but those things make me yawn, wince....and long for better.
Thank you so much! My taste is similar; I don't want to moralized at, but I do want a story that grabs my heart, in spite and because of the characters' complexity. Vanilla is a precious flavor for a reason. People who don't like it have only had the artificial stuff!
I would add another powerful source that could influence what appears in bookstores and libraries: the major book prizes. For instance, this year's shortlist of six finalists for the International Booker Prize consists entirely of books from independent presses. (Good for them!) These books find their ways into major book reviews and onto bookstore shelves.
I'm sure there are also various Substackers who discuss small and independent press books. For instance--(ahem, utterly shameless plug)--I sometimes do this at my own Substack, https://frommybookshelf.substack.com/. It's by no means my only focus, because I cover whatever happens to interest me at the moment. But in the past few months I've written about Jon Fosse's "A Shining" (Fitzcarraldo/Transit Books), Hebe Uhart's "A Question of Belonging" (Archipelago), Zsuzsanna Gahse's "Mountainish" (prototype), and Teffi's "And Time Was No More" (Pushkin).
I'm sure there other Substackers who do much more of this than I do--and who have a bigger audience!--and I would love to hear other recommendations.
Yes, there's some brilliant reading happening in newsletters! Hopefully it makes the process of finding small/independent books easier for readers, who deserve to discover these wonderful novels in a friction-free way! I just subscribed and am looking forward to what you review next. :-)
And it occurs to me that I should also have given a shout-out to Ann Kjellberg at Book Post (https://books.substack.com/), who not only publishes a range of good book reviews but also does a lot of valuable writing herself about the publishing industry.
That's very kind. Thank you! And back at you in turn. ; )
This is a great point. I found my own press because one of its books was on a book prize list.
That is a nice story of serendipity that also illustrates an important point. Since small presses typically cultivate their own distinctive identities, the more attention they get, the more opportunities potential authors have to identify a publisher where their work will be a good fit.
I will try to donate to creators I like at Patreon and Substack.
As for book stores... What I really want is Membership. I would love to pay a monthly fee to my bookstore, like public radio. Because I want to go in there and browse. But I don't want to feel obligated to buy books I'd rather have in eBook anyways. But if the bookstore is gone I'm very unhappy because it's almost my favorite place to be.
They should have author talks, and musical performances too. Selling tea.
Inculcating the value of scholarship in the kiddos.
But I can't possibly keep my local bookstore alive by trying to buy bushels of dead trees and hoping they get a 10% margin.
This is a great idea. I wonder if an enterprising local bookstore could try it. I’ve already encountered the desire to bundle substack subscriptions, because I can’t pay for all of them — kind of like reinventing the magazine. But your bookstore version would be great!
Wild Books! A magnificent term. The antonym would be “factory books.” if I take nothing else away from this post, I take a brand new term for what all of us wild children are doing here and elsewhere on the web. And in a lifetime of juggling words, I have found that if you can conceive of a good descriptive name, you own the playing field. The big five are factories. They can make a few writers rich, but in the process, they have to exclude divergent minds and scribblings. This term makes me think of one of Dolly Parton‘s greatest hits, wildflowers don’t care where they grow. And she was the ultimate wildflower, still is. Doing her own thang, bless her heart. The wild ones among us may not put out as many blossoms, but we are learning how to propagate ourselves across the new wide open meadows of popular culture. Thank you, ladies, ladies of Persuasion, for giving me a new way of looking at the landscape of book publishing and writing in general. —Evan Maxwell
Love this, and you know as two southern ladies, we LOVE Dolly. Perfect reference. Thank you, Evan!
Yes: “After too-often plunking down $30 for a well-reviewed but ultimately disappointing new release,” people want better options. But mainstream reviews “seem to function more as extensions of the Big Five’s PR teams than independent book reviewers.”
Great books are being written. I've seen many of them. But they're not getting chosen. And that's why the frontlist is an ever-diminishing share of publishers' revenue compared to the backlist. People do still want to read good stuff, as evidenced by backlist sales.
100%. And it hurts the deserving Big Five books too, to have an NYT hype machine that runs on automatic. I read Allegra Goodman's brilliant recent release, ISOLA. To me, this book is perfect . . . but I almost didn't pick it up because I wasn't sure whether to trust the reviews. Now I'm so glad that I did because I recommend it to everyone, but I can't be the only person whose trust is shaken, and it's really terrible when that affects authors who deserve high praise.
I will look at that book! But this is the perfect example of what you’re talking about: the reason I’ll consider your recommendation is that you’ve shown yourself willing to admit that something isn’t good just because the Big Five puts it out. If the source of the rec is instead an outlet or person who’s proven themselves unwilling to do that, then their rec is meaningless.
It definitely hurts deserving Big Five books, when readers who used to look to them for contemporary literature—like me—have basically given up on looking there, as a result of lost trust over the last say 8ish years of their publishing stuff that’s just not up to snuff.
I remember interviewing for an editorial assistantship with a prestigious literary Random House imprint. This would’ve been about 2014ish. In the last round of the interview, they gave me a manuscript and had me give comp titles. I comp’ed it to Judy Blume. It came out comp’ed to Grace Paley and Amy Hempel.
Wow! That interview anecdote is fascinating.
As usual, an excellent essay!
One way to support small presses could be a monthly subscription to a press. I've done this with Archipelago Press (which specializes in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry books in translation). For a monthly fee I receive in the mail all their latest books as they launch. I do this because I have absolute faith in their editorial curation and integrity. So, rarely a disappointment. And also a thrill to see what surprise has arrived in the mail.
I also have the Archipelago membership! They do great work. It's a good deal, and--like you--I always enjoy seeing the latest surprise, along with knowing I'm supporting a worthy enterprise. (A few years ago I wrote a little paean to Archipelago: https://thedispatch.com/article/a-literary-world-tour/. I try to put in a good word for them whenever I can!)
It's so good to meet another Archipelago Admirer!
I just read your essay about the press, and am further delighted to see that you were moved by Yuri Rytkheu's A Dream in Polar Fog. One of my favorite novels. A recent fave is the Indonesian novel People from Oetimu, by Felix Nesi. Also, the press's Elsewhere Editions for younger readers have been a big hit with my grandchildren, especially Claude Ponti's My Valley, and Eno Raud's The Gothamites.
Thanks for the link to your essay. We subscribers need to stick together.
Likewise!
Very happy that you enjoyed the essay. I really liked the Rytkheu. I have just finished up a semester teaching in London and am now visiting my in-laws in Germany, so I have not yet gotten to see the titles that have appeared this spring. I'll look forward to the Nesi and other surprises waiting in my mail when I return. And how nice to learn that you also like Elsewhere Editions. We have a number of those as well--I often buy my wife a few each year at Christmas (no grandchildren to read them yet, but perhaps one day!).
I am the Director of Incision Press, an Australian based queer & trans press that is only 5 months old. I wanted to add that there is an opportunity here for those of us who are not US based, but have a large US readership. I am working fast to try and figure out how to get our books into the underground of queer & trans networks where they are already being shared from person to person. On my instagram page, people write to me weekly to tell me they have our queer erotica anthologies and it has made them feel seen, and literally kept folks alive in crazy places like Texas.
There is opportunity here for me to use my leverage as being on different soil to Americans, if I can work out how to do it. I have a creative team of six people, one of which is based in LA and one in NYC. I'm thinking big, because the community are asking big things of us. Really hoping I can keep catching the wave we are riding and stay strong in this growing noise.
https://www.incisionpress.com/
Are we asking the wrong questions? I assume that small publishers have lower overhead costs - costs above and beyond physically printing and distributing books - and can operate with thinner profit margins. However, small publishers also may be at a disadvantage because the cost per book physically printed and distributed may be higher than large publishers that have huge production runs and access to online publishing. So the questions become why can't small publishers (a) find readable authors to publish, and (b) connect with potential customers.