Art Over Numbers: On Independent Publishers and Small Press Practices
If you want to hear a writer complain, publish her—that’s the old adage at least. For most working writers there is always something to quibble about. Authors published by the Big Five (Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan Publishers) might complain about advance sizes and lackadaisical publicity departments, whereas authors published on small or independent presses might have a completely different set of grievances, from a lack of editorial input or support to a non-existent budget for cover art and illustrations. Unlike with a Big Five publisher, there are no fully established standards or protocols with an independent press, and different presses of similar sizes and statures might have entirely different ways of doing things. I myself found this out the hard way. Having published several previous books on small presses, in 2020 I had a manuscript accepted by a well-known independent publisher that I won’t name, except to say that it was co-founded in 2006 by a now extremely successful and well-known author and that its moniker rhymes with bank, sank, rank and, most pertinently, tank. My experience with this press was absolutely horrible, involving months-long periods of pre-and-post-publication silence, multiple errors in the final text of my book, and repeated evasions from the publisher when confronted about failing to fill orders of the book and skipping out on review copies, among other things. I wasn’t alone in my displeasure either—as I tried to extricate myself from my publishing contract, it became clear to me, both through emails with other authors from the press and articles posted online, that the noted experimental press that I had thought would be the perfect fit for my book was far from it.
Although my encounter with that press was the pits, it did get me thinking about how each of my small press publishing experiences differed from one another. Some of the presses I worked with gave my manuscript a thorough copyedit, peppering me with comments and questions; others barely touched the text that was accepted by them. Some paid royalties (or promised to pay royalties), others did not. Some were very upfront about publicity, what they could do and could not do, whereas others left the process entirely to me. Print runs differed (and some of my presses used print-on-demand (POD) services, essentially making an actual print run moot), as did book distributors, or the absence thereof. Although there was some common ground from press to press, in the main it was a whole new process each time around.
For the majority of authors, the goal is, no doubt, to be published by a Big Five press, one that has the widest possible vantage point to reach readers (not to mention the largest advances, or an advance at all). But for most that isn’t going to happen—as of 2020 there were, according to one source, 69,709 independent publishers worldwide. In the United States the Big Five accounts for sixty percent of all book sales—a huge number, to be sure—which leaves forty percent going to independent presses. And each one of those presses has, to a certain degree, its own way of doing things.
In the interest of elucidating for prospective authors some of the standard independent publisher practices, I asked five different well-known presses of various sizes questions involving distribution, publicity, print runs, and what publishing on an independent press means for both author and publisher. The answers I got were illuminating.
First, it’s important to recognize that independent publishing has a rich and nuanced history. Many of the Big Five publishers came into being, in vastly different forms, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and prior to their inception, the phrase “small press” would have been unintelligible, as most presses were small, even if they did have overtly commercial aims and designs. As the Big Five solidified their structure and business practices in the twentieth century, however, the nature of the independent press as a separate and viable publishing option for writers of all swathes came into focus. (In a recent series of essays on small press publishing at the Poetry Foundation website, poet, translator, and small press publisher Matvei Yankelevich provides a comprehensive history of how the term “small press” came into being in US publishing and how, at least with regard to poetry, that term has evolved.) The goals of each small press were different, of course. The one thing that did unite all of them, however, was that they had smaller infrastructures and different organizational frameworks as compared to a Big Five press, a matter of practicality as well as political-aesthetic priorities.
That smaller infrastructure, often by choice, is consistent across all of the small press publishers I talked with. Some of the presses I interviewed had unpaid staff editors, whereas others had multiple salaried editorial positions, but none had the person-power or financial capital that any Big Five press might have. And although in the abstract that might seem to be a challenging thing for the prospective author, in reality it might actually work in their favor. Independent presses publish fewer writers and, if the press is worth its salt, give more attention to those that they publish. Small press publishers can hone in and directly focus on specific ways for getting each book into the world, in a way that a paid publicist at a Big Five, someone with multiple titles and authors to represent, simply might not have the time or bandwidth for. (From something as minor as gifting a packet of press stickers with each purchased book package to larger promotional tactics, such as letting the author take over the publisher’s social media accounts the week that their book comes out—small press gestures like that can matter, especially for younger readers.) Kevin Sampsell, the publisher of Future Tense Books, noted how “I always write what I call a “hype note” for each book we put out. I hand-write it and make copies and then slip one into the book when people order direct.” In a similar vein, CLASH Books’ Editor-in-Chief Christoph Paul noted how “[sending out galleys is] key, especially getting them to the right people. Even before we had distribution books like Darryl and In Defense of Ska did really well… because we sent out a lot of galleys to the right people.” That CLASH was willing to take the time to connect with those right people was a given for Paul.
Although independent presses want to sell books, same as a Big Five press, their publishing goals might lie beyond sales. In the words of Rescue Press editor and publisher Caryl Pagel, “Running a small press means running a small press every day. It’s slow, meaningful, long-term cultural work whose rewards can be both subtle and transformative.” A “big” book of poetry for an independent press might mean printing 750-850 copies and selling them off slowly over 2-3 years. A smaller book might sell 150 copies in the first year and 15 copies per year (or less) after that. There’s no other way to say it: a lot of books (small press and otherwise) don’t sell, even if they are of worthy merit. As a result, most small presses print fewer books to begin with. CLASH’s Christoph Paul: “We prefer to do between 1,000 and 3,000 for the first run. Economics plays a role as the more you print, the less the cost of the book. So we want to do a print run for the book to last at least a year or two if it makes financial sense.” A print run of 3,000 also might be massive for some small presses. “We mostly publish lesser-known writers, so we’re usually okay with printing 300-500 copies to start” is what Kevin Sampsell told me vis-à-vis the initial print run of a typical Future Tense text, whereas Caryl Pagel said, “We print between 250 and 1,000 in a first print run based on storage space and genre. We attempt to stay modest, knowing we can reprint at any time.” (Future Tense utilizes a print-on-demand book printing service and Rescue’s printer has a digital printing component.) In Sampsell’s words, “I’m [more] concerned with the art than the numbers.” Big Five publishers care about the art too, to be sure. But there’s no denying that the bottom line (hi, $) plays a bigger role for them than at a small press.
Book contests also play a significant role for some small presses, whereby the (normally un-agented) author wins a (normally nominal) cash prize and publication. The fees generated by these contests keep many small presses afloat, particularly if they publish mostly poetry and/or experimental prose. This can be a fraught formula at times—simply publishing different contest winners year in, year out, doesn’t necessarily lend itself to solidifying a small press’s particular aesthetic—but at this point it is an established one for small press authors (particularly poets).
Of course, some independent publishers are much bigger than others, but the model for these presses still differs from that of a Big Five press. Two of the larger presses that I talked to were non-profits, which is a term that gets bandied about quite a bit, but still might be murky to some writers. Most folks know that nonprofits can apply for grants, have a different tax status than commercial presses, and also have a Board of Directors. There’s more to it than that, though. In the words of Mary Austin Speaker, the Creative Director at Milkweed Editions:
Nonprofit presses do function pretty differently [compared to for-profit presses]— our donors and our Board of Directors are not simply folks who write checks. The Board has been tremendously helpful with regard to running a successful nonprofit business, which allows us the flexibility to publish works because they should be published, not simply because they will sell (though strong sales helps everyone and provide us with important financial stability). We keep our Board apprised of what our authors are up to, and the relationship between our staff, authors and Board is probably a lot less transactional than at a traditional for-profit press. As a nonprofit, we belong to the commons and we take that seriously.
Being a nonprofit also impacts where employee salaries come from and what a press might choose to publish. Stephen Motika, the Director and Publisher of Nightboat Books, states:
We rely on government grants; the total is almost twenty percent of our annual budget. We are working hard to build the board of directors and individual giving program so that becomes closer to twenty-five percent of our budget—it’s about seventeen percent right now. The rest of our revenue comes from earned income, so book sales, subscriptions, and reading fees. As a non-profit press, we are mission driven rather than market driven. If we were a small, for-profit press, we’d need to publish more commercial work, or publish books that we thought would sell a lot of copies, to help pay for operational and institutional expense. Some of our books sell less than 500 copies; a handful sell more than 2,500. So, it would be a different picture if we were not a non-profit, which is a lot of work, but helps us do the work we do in the way we do it.
To a certain degree non-profit presses work outside the parameters of commercial publishing, but hand in hand with this is the fact that, since a certain amount of funding is potentially coming from grants, donors, and (hopefully) the press’s Board of Directors, there are more variables to consider. Should the press publish a risqué book that a potential grantor or donor might take issue with? Good or bad, this is a reality. It’s also important to remember that for every non-profit that gets a lot of grants and has a strong connection with their Board of Directors—such as Milkweed and Nightboat—there are dozens of smaller ones that don’t. These non-profits might possess a different tax status than for-profit presses, but their day-to-day and season-to-season operations are, barring the awarding of a big grant of some kind, likely comparable to one another. (I myself am the Executive Director and Publisher of a small non-profit press called Fonograf Editions. We are considerably smaller than Milkweed and Nightboat, though we also have a Board of Directors and receive some funding from both public and private sources.)
Still, regardless of the size or nature of the press, one thing that I did come up in each of my independent publisher interviews was how important distribution was to a book’s success, as well as to the press itself. The vast majority of booksellers don’t buy books directly from the publisher but through distribution services, and having one’s books available in brick-and-mortar bookstores and prominently and accurately on websites like Amazon and Bookshop (a service distributors typically provide) can be critical. When authors wonder about the status of their book, why it seems to be doing well or not so well, the role of distribution is bound to come up. Independent publishers can’t reach out to every bookstore in the country, especially if they’re of the smaller variety like Future Tense, CLASH Books, or even Nightboat. Nor can they, without distribution, quickly get their books up on all the major online platforms, be it Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Bookshop. Although some bigger independent publishers have staff publicists and marketing directors, they don’t have on-staff sales reps that can pitch their new titles to bookstores. For all of those things, a distributor is key. Still, distributors charge a fee for their services—and it can be a significant one. Caryl Pagel from Rescue stated it directly for me (note that this interview was conducted prior to the sudden March 28, 2024 shutdown of Small Press Distribution):
We work with Small Press Distribution (SPD), who then handles bookstores, for the most part, and some online retail. We also distribute through our website and local or indie bookstores, a few of which (Prairie Lights, Mac’s Backs, Woodland Pattern) have been especially important to us over the years. Of course, all of these places take a cut—usually around 50%, more or less—so once you factor into that the cost of printing, design, shipping materials, etc., and you’re quickly making next to nothing on a book sale.
That fifty percent price point can be extremely hard for an independent press to swallow, especially if they are printing a relatively small amount of books. A nonprofit itself, SPD, until its very abrupt shuttering, was one of the smaller book distributors in the United States but, unlike some of the more prominent ones, they didn’t require their publishers to publish a certain amount of titles per year (at the end of its run it was just two, “ideally”) and didn’t require that their publishers make a certain amount of money per publishing season or year in order to keep their account. (They also never had dedicated sales reps selling their titles to bookstores.) Many small presses (particularly poetry presses) worked with SPD, although newer distributors such as Asterism had, prior to SPD’s demise, gained significant traction.
To be blunt, without a distributor of some kind most small press books are liable to get ignored or lost in the mix. Direct sales, while the most lucrative for press and author alike, normally only account for a small portion of a press’s revenue, and in my experience running Fonograf Editions at least, for every five hundred Instagram likes a post about a new book gets, we’re lucky if ten actual purchases are made. It’s usually less. In getting books into stores and easily accessible online at Amazon, Bookshop, and Barnes & Noble, a distributor acts as a necessary middleman, doing all of the admittedly unglamorous work that so many small presses simply do not have the time (or know-how) to do on their own. Now that SPD is gone, hundreds of small presses are scrambling, and their spring and even fall releases this year are likely suffer as a result.
Even when it’s functional, distribution can still be confusing for author and publisher alike. Kevin Sampsell notes:
It’s always a bit of a mystery as to what stores actually carry [Future Tense] books. As an indie press, it’s a big challenge getting into physical stores. I work at Powell’s Books and we’re lucky to have a small press section that I run and I often take photos of new small press books when we get them because I want these presses and authors to know: Hey, your book is out here in the real world. Strangers are looking at it and buying it.
CLASH and Nightboat are distributed by Consortium and Milkweed is distributed by Publishers Group West (PGW). Both Consortium and PGW cater to bigger independent publishers (they’re directly connected with the Ingram Content Group, which is a massive, international distributor that works with Big Five presses as well) and their ability to get books in front of readers can make a huge difference for a press and its authors. Christoph Paul relates:
[CLASH Books] joined Consortium in the start of 2022 and it's been great for us. [Distribution is] very important, we went from having the majority of our sales be online to now having those sales with bookstores. There are so many amazing indie bookstores and we love having our books there now. Our most recent horror title, Everything the Darkness Eats, is in indie bookstores and can be found nationwide in Barnes & Noble—which is really cool!
Speaking about Milkweed’s relationship with Publishers Group West, Milkweed Marketing Director Joanna Demkiewicz notes:
A healthy distributor-publisher relationship is critical in our business. At its crux, this should be a relationship of reciprocity: we need each other. The distributor needs sellable books and the publisher needs access to national accounts in order to reach a wide and enthusiastic readership. In my role, I manage our relationship with Publishers Group West (PGW); I am in contact with them almost every day, sending publicity updates, troubleshooting metadata problems, pushing for accounts to buy select titles based on their needs, buying habits, and audience, checking in on preorders and sales, etc. At Milkweed, we dedicate significant resources to engaging with indie booksellers, which requires smart collaboration with PGW. Field sales reps at distributors are essentially invisible in our industry—but they are out there, literally, on the road, selling books to independent booksellers and buyers. Their catalogs are massive; they are selling hundreds of books per season at each appointment. It's my job to work with them to make sure Milkweed titles rise to the top of their lists… I could go on and on about the importance of the publisher-distributor relationship. I am trying to get better at making PGW work for us when possible. If we are more visible, if we sell more books, they make more money, too.
Finally, how a publisher’s distributor is able to “speak” with major online outlets like Amazon, Bookshop, and others can be a major factor in determining a book’s success or failure. Pre-sales and pre-publication hype certainly impact how every author’s book arrives in the world. (As does the accompanying metadata.) As noted, even if they work with them, most small presses aren’t puting their books on Amazon, Bookshop, or Ingram’s purchasing database for bookstores themselves—their distributor does that. And if the book is available widely online months in advance of its actual publication date, with all the attendant glittery blurbs and promotional jacket copy, there’s a far better chance that it will make a splash in the world, at least as compared to it being placed online the week before publication. In an attention economy, timing and visibility are everything for most independent press books; in this way they are no different than Big Five titles. For a small press title to be stocked at Barnes & Noble, though, or be purchased by a public library, there needs to be considerable demand for it. Making sure a title is publicized and available online well before its publication date is at least one way of creating that awareness and demand. This is why the distributor-publisher relationship is so symbiotic, and so critical to the publishing economy.
For any small press author, though, it’s important to have a realistic filter. When, at the age of twenty-nine, I published my first poetry collection with a small press based in the West Coast, I had high ambitions—a brief mention in the New York Times, perhaps a review in a journal like Boston Review. Which was silly, both because my publisher didn’t have that reach and, to be fair, the work probably didn’t warrant that kind of attention. That the book did eventually get reviews at places like Rain Taxi and The Rumpus was a success. Independent publishers do get reviews at bigger national outlets, to be sure, but they don’t get them as often as Big Five presses do, even if the work is deserving. This is a fact of the market. The literary world is not a meritocracy, same as the real world. But that doesn’t mean a small press author’s book isn’t a completely worthwhile thing. Review coverage is just one piece of a larger puzzle.
Independent or otherwise, the most successful and well-reputed publishers are clear cut about what they can offer their authors and, in turn, expect from them. Whether they are salaried employees or volunteers, working day jobs or independently wealthy bon vivants (yeah right), such publishers are good communicators, or try to be. In the words of Milkweed’s Mary Austin Speaker:
The best publishers have always been small bands of intense, idealistic people who can authentically get behind the work they publish. We [at Milkweed] really try to live out the values we publish as both a publisher and as an employer and work hard to sustain the energy of the talented people necessary to do the work. Once you find something that legitimately fills a need, do as much of that as you can, and use the capital raised by the response to it to support investment in new work.
The worst publishers—well, let’s just say that they offer their writers unfulfilling outlets for getting their books in the world. Filled with unanswered emails and long months of silence, my personal experience with the well-known experimental press was an extreme outlier, as most presses don’t actively hinder the success of their books and authors. (And in the end, I was one of the lucky ones—I got out of my publishing contract and my book will be reissued by another press. Other writers weren’t so lucky.) Still, it’s important to remember that every publisher is different, and the more information you can accrue at the outset regarding their particular nuances the better off you as an author will be. “Publishers publish to make money” is how Joyce Carol Oates put it in a recent New York Times Magazine interview. That’s one of the reasons. For most small presses, though, the writing is it. Things seem more tenuous than ever, but it’s independent publishers that hold the most hope for literature’s future. Small presses lead the way and take the risks.