American Literature Needs Indie Presses

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From The Atlantic:

For better or worse, writers and readers live in an age of the million-dollar book deal. The Big Five publishers (Penguin Random House, Hachette, Macmillan, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster) increasingly gamble on massive book advances in hopes that they might put out one of the biggest hits of the year. Last fall, Knopf—a division of Penguin Random House—paid an unprecedented $2 million advance for the first-time novelist Garth Risk Hallberg’s City on Fire.

. . . .

These large advances correlate with grandiosity on multiple levels: Each of these books is between 400 and 1,000 pages long, costs around $30 for a hardcover, and aims boldly for success on a scale that remarkably few works actually achieve.

. . . .

But when editors and publishers feel they need to fight for every moment of planned reading, and readers are experiencing a shrinking cultural attention span, it’s surprising that large books inherently make the most market sense. With this pattern of investment behavior, major presses are inadvertently helping foster an environment where American indie presses can thrive by doing the very thing they’re best at: being small and, by extension, focusing on creativity and originality over sales.

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Another notable press subverting traditional publishing standards is Dorothy, which is “dedicated to works of fiction or near fiction or about fiction, mostly by women.” Run by the experimental writer and book designer Danielle Dutton, Dorothy publishes just two books a year, and the books are small, beautiful, and cost only $16. Dutton started the press when she found out that Renee Gladman, a poet she admired, had written a trilogy of novels about the invented city-state of Ravicka. These books are absurd and surreal, and are stabilized by an eerie interior logic: Think The Phantom Tollbooth for adults. Dutton told Gladman she’d start a press if Gladman let her publish these books. Thus, Dorothy was born.

Dorothy powerfully demonstrates the deft curation that’s possible with a small press.

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Each Coffee House Press book concludes with the tagline, “Literature is not the same thing as publishing,” and that mantra nicely captures the valuable position from which many indie presses operate. Two Dollar Radio markets to the “disillusioned and the disaffected.”

Link to the rest at The Atlantic

7 thoughts on “American Literature Needs Indie Presses”

  1. The Big Five model is geared more toward stable careers—and translation and movie deals…

    Not any more it’s not. The Big Five are geared toward chewing up and spitting out the vast majority of the writers who publish through them in the hope of glomming onto the next blockbuster and drinking down its profits.

  2. “For better or worse, writers and readers live in an age of the million-dollar book deal.”

    J.M beat me to the ‘not any more’. 😉

    The qig5 are hoping for a ‘golden BB’ (magic bullet) to shoot up to the best seller list. Sadly they over-pay the ones they ‘think’ will be the magic BB at the expense of all their midlisters and newbies. A smaller list means less chances of any of the BBs they’re firing being a magic one.

    They also handicap their sales with overpricing – and then wonder why the forecasted sales fall through.

    Indie/self publishers can fire shotgun shells full of bird-shot – as many e/books as they can pump out – at priced at what they think will sell.

    The qig5 also have shotguns, but it seems they loaded them with solid shot – and aimed them at their own feet …

  3. What would be better is to put out relatively inexpensive books, lots of them, and forego the mega-book nonsense.

    Pocket did it in the 60’s. Made them a fortune.

  4. “Last fall, Knopf—a division of Penguin Random House—paid an unprecedented $2 million advance for the first-time novelist….[blah blah blah]”

    How is this news different from advertising sales of lottery tickets?

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