This is Brooke Warner. I just happen to subscribe to your substack through my podcast account. Need to try to fix that somehow... My press (She Writes Press) recently onboarded with S&S distribution and we are not a $5m publisher. Not really even close to that. I think S&S is weighing many more factors than just the bottom line when it comes to publishers they're onboarding. My perception is that they're looking at reputation, at name recognition, at a given publisher's knowledge of the business and the sustainability of their backlists in the cases of onboarding publishers who've been around for a while. They'll take Authors Equity or Row House because they can see that those models/companies are both of a moment and are likely to survive.
Great post, as always! Two questions: (1) I can see how everyone (here) thinks corporate publishing jobs as currently configured are hellish but might there not be merit in advocating for a system in which those who don't have the fortitude or temperament to be free agents (many people) can have a secure income with the possibility of advancement and mentorship and benefits in the book businesss? Yes, publishing is a business and books need to sell, but I think part of the situation we have found ourselves in is an acquiescence in gladiatorial business practices that create in the end an inhospitable environment not just for readers and writers and publishing professionals but for culture generally. It is not a fact of nature that our economy has to starve out viable professions in publishing and the arts; it is a constellation of political decisions. It's also not an accident that AE is distributed by S&S: It's what makes the thing viable at the commercial scale they are envisioning. The AE model is dependent on the monopolies staying where they are, to give these writers who can sell themselves the boost they need to succeed as they expect to succeed; (2) Is physical bookselling out of the picture in your vision? I worry that discovery, in these cultivate-your-own audience models, is very dependent on technology, especially social media, which is itself very volatile, viz the centrality of TikTok, with its majoritarian algorithm, in selling the books that are the models for this new author-centered approach. Sorry for the long comment! Just so interested...
I agree with you 100%. My post was responsive --why I'm not upset with developments others are. But that's different from what I was articulate would be ideal or what we should strive for.
1) It's absolutely possible to have salaried employees with reasonable workloads (right now I'd say that describes me!), and we 100% need more of these positions.
2) Physical bookselling is important! Of course it is! My post was meant to point out how Amazon is actually more accessible than indie bookstores for many authors and presses. (And boy do many people hate it when I point this out!) Plus indie bookstores account for about 4% of booksales in the US, so publishers need to consider to many other accounts to be viable.
Love the convo! I love debating these issues, especially with you ;)
You are so the best! It's great and tough-minded of you to strike out against the grain in these ways. We tend to band together around group think whenever change rears up.
As an indie author/entrepreneur, I am so glad you wrote this piece, I have stopped feeling I have to correct every erroneous statement made by people who are mired in nostalgia for 20th century publishing models, but my rage still erupts, so very glad when someone takes the time, as you did, to cover this sort of thing. Thanks!
Anne, you make such excellent points here about the nostalgic attitudes towards printing and distribution. This in particular resonates with me, as I launch Galiot Press along with co-founder Anjali Mitter Duva: “That the SPD-world tends to cling to a nostalgic model of offset printing and precious print runs is fine, but this model is only possible because of non-profit grants and, importantly, universities (within which reside creative writing departments) which are also non-profits.” We’re bugling Galiot Press to stand on its own two feet financially (we’re doing a kickstarter for startup costs only). We already know a press can exist while funded my grants and donations and the academy. We believe a press can survive and thrive while being a profit-making business. And that’s why we won’t be engaging in the environmentally wasteful and financial ruinous practice of nostalgia printing and distribution. Your newsletter is always so inspiring and galvanizing. Thank you for all the work you do!
And a rhetorical question: why start a new press when there are so many out there already? Is there another press you might approach about working with instead? Presses need a backlist to be sustainable, and that takes years.
That’s a good question and a good point about the backlist. We have a vision for a very different way to do things that we didn’t and don’t think anyone else is doing. So we’ve embarked. That doesn’t mean we wouldn’t want to partner with a like-minded press sometime, though.
When I was researching my dissertation, one of they key publishers/poets I talked to said if I wanted to understand why certain voices were kept out of mainstream discourse, I needed to understand distribution. There was simply NO distributor in Ireland at all -- they relied on British distributors, so marginal Irish voices had no access to book buyers outside of self-distribution.
Because of that point, I decided to spend time volunteering and working at SPD and asking and did not find their working conditions poor, though i was not a staff member. I found everyone congenial, invested in poetry and books, and it was the place that allowed me and many others to begin a Bay Area based publishing career. Losing the Berkeley warehouse was a huge blow to our regional publishing network simply because there are not many other places that let you start learning about the business of publishing in a material way, from the ground up.
I also think that for those of us who DO care abut the material form of our books as a creative and artistic experience (I love that books sit at the intersection of art and commerce and I don't want to lose the art part), even the move to Ingram and POD that they tried to do was a loss. So many of the quirkiest, most beautiful books that SPD distributed would not have worked under that model.
I think it's more than worth it to support small presses with grants etc even if they aren't commercially viable because it allows the reader to encounter a diversity of voices, styles, and experiments with literature and gives breadth to the creation of literature in the US.
And during the PRH/S&S trial, even if it felt like he was talking down to small presses, the guy did say the small press world was like their farm team -- they know the value and creativity of the work being discovered and supported here.
I love beautifully made books too. But that's books as visual art, and the most important thing about books, for me, is their status as an accessible, mass produced, affordable art, in that words--immaterial--are the art.
Small presses could easily become more commercially viable if they wanted to--was part of my point in the post, anyway. Plus those grants--NEA, academic institutions, anything humanities-related--are only going to shrink going forward.
Your post on the S&S board was so useful, and such a useful preamble to this announcement, alongside Jane Friedman's report on Bloom: the leaning in to author branding and direct marketing at the corporate level, the peeling off of old infrastructure …
I know that Row House (a press whose business model seems wildly unsustainable to me) is distributed by S&S. I have a hard time believing they do $5M a year? I wonder what the workaround is.
Weren't they also were started by ppl who had worked in the Big 5 before? Or maybe they just had huge capital before starting -- they must, because IIRC their model is a flat 40K advance to everyone.
I think one of the founders was a former big 5 person, but she’s no longer involved. And yes — their model is a flat $40k advance, but they have been in financial crisis (public, on their Instagram) for at least a year.
See my comment above. My takeaway is that Bex Borucki and what she's doing is cool. She's a mover and a shaker with a truly unprecedented model (as opposed to AE which is not unprecedented). I think S&S thought she was worth the risk and that her model would work. She's not a former Big 5 person, but she's had major publishing success as an author.
You're right-on when slamming the idea that contractors are a bad thing. They're essential to making a living, on both contractor and publisher sides. Misguided article, that one was. SPD's nosedive is getting us all talking about how distribution is a sham for most authors and publishers, too. At least the unwise ones.
This is Brooke Warner. I just happen to subscribe to your substack through my podcast account. Need to try to fix that somehow... My press (She Writes Press) recently onboarded with S&S distribution and we are not a $5m publisher. Not really even close to that. I think S&S is weighing many more factors than just the bottom line when it comes to publishers they're onboarding. My perception is that they're looking at reputation, at name recognition, at a given publisher's knowledge of the business and the sustainability of their backlists in the cases of onboarding publishers who've been around for a while. They'll take Authors Equity or Row House because they can see that those models/companies are both of a moment and are likely to survive.
Great post, as always! Two questions: (1) I can see how everyone (here) thinks corporate publishing jobs as currently configured are hellish but might there not be merit in advocating for a system in which those who don't have the fortitude or temperament to be free agents (many people) can have a secure income with the possibility of advancement and mentorship and benefits in the book businesss? Yes, publishing is a business and books need to sell, but I think part of the situation we have found ourselves in is an acquiescence in gladiatorial business practices that create in the end an inhospitable environment not just for readers and writers and publishing professionals but for culture generally. It is not a fact of nature that our economy has to starve out viable professions in publishing and the arts; it is a constellation of political decisions. It's also not an accident that AE is distributed by S&S: It's what makes the thing viable at the commercial scale they are envisioning. The AE model is dependent on the monopolies staying where they are, to give these writers who can sell themselves the boost they need to succeed as they expect to succeed; (2) Is physical bookselling out of the picture in your vision? I worry that discovery, in these cultivate-your-own audience models, is very dependent on technology, especially social media, which is itself very volatile, viz the centrality of TikTok, with its majoritarian algorithm, in selling the books that are the models for this new author-centered approach. Sorry for the long comment! Just so interested...
I love this comment!
I agree with you 100%. My post was responsive --why I'm not upset with developments others are. But that's different from what I was articulate would be ideal or what we should strive for.
1) It's absolutely possible to have salaried employees with reasonable workloads (right now I'd say that describes me!), and we 100% need more of these positions.
2) Physical bookselling is important! Of course it is! My post was meant to point out how Amazon is actually more accessible than indie bookstores for many authors and presses. (And boy do many people hate it when I point this out!) Plus indie bookstores account for about 4% of booksales in the US, so publishers need to consider to many other accounts to be viable.
Love the convo! I love debating these issues, especially with you ;)
You are so the best! It's great and tough-minded of you to strike out against the grain in these ways. We tend to band together around group think whenever change rears up.
As an indie author/entrepreneur, I am so glad you wrote this piece, I have stopped feeling I have to correct every erroneous statement made by people who are mired in nostalgia for 20th century publishing models, but my rage still erupts, so very glad when someone takes the time, as you did, to cover this sort of thing. Thanks!
Anne, you make such excellent points here about the nostalgic attitudes towards printing and distribution. This in particular resonates with me, as I launch Galiot Press along with co-founder Anjali Mitter Duva: “That the SPD-world tends to cling to a nostalgic model of offset printing and precious print runs is fine, but this model is only possible because of non-profit grants and, importantly, universities (within which reside creative writing departments) which are also non-profits.” We’re bugling Galiot Press to stand on its own two feet financially (we’re doing a kickstarter for startup costs only). We already know a press can exist while funded my grants and donations and the academy. We believe a press can survive and thrive while being a profit-making business. And that’s why we won’t be engaging in the environmentally wasteful and financial ruinous practice of nostalgia printing and distribution. Your newsletter is always so inspiring and galvanizing. Thank you for all the work you do!
I agree; my press gets no grants!
And a rhetorical question: why start a new press when there are so many out there already? Is there another press you might approach about working with instead? Presses need a backlist to be sustainable, and that takes years.
That’s a good question and a good point about the backlist. We have a vision for a very different way to do things that we didn’t and don’t think anyone else is doing. So we’ve embarked. That doesn’t mean we wouldn’t want to partner with a like-minded press sometime, though.
This essay in LARB about Toni Morrison's rejection letters and what they show about publishing's business model is really good and I love that she complains about distribution back in the 70s. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/there-is-no-point-in-my-being-other-than-honest-with-you-on-toni-morrisons-rejection-letters/
When I was researching my dissertation, one of they key publishers/poets I talked to said if I wanted to understand why certain voices were kept out of mainstream discourse, I needed to understand distribution. There was simply NO distributor in Ireland at all -- they relied on British distributors, so marginal Irish voices had no access to book buyers outside of self-distribution.
Because of that point, I decided to spend time volunteering and working at SPD and asking and did not find their working conditions poor, though i was not a staff member. I found everyone congenial, invested in poetry and books, and it was the place that allowed me and many others to begin a Bay Area based publishing career. Losing the Berkeley warehouse was a huge blow to our regional publishing network simply because there are not many other places that let you start learning about the business of publishing in a material way, from the ground up.
I also think that for those of us who DO care abut the material form of our books as a creative and artistic experience (I love that books sit at the intersection of art and commerce and I don't want to lose the art part), even the move to Ingram and POD that they tried to do was a loss. So many of the quirkiest, most beautiful books that SPD distributed would not have worked under that model.
I think it's more than worth it to support small presses with grants etc even if they aren't commercially viable because it allows the reader to encounter a diversity of voices, styles, and experiments with literature and gives breadth to the creation of literature in the US.
And during the PRH/S&S trial, even if it felt like he was talking down to small presses, the guy did say the small press world was like their farm team -- they know the value and creativity of the work being discovered and supported here.
I love beautifully made books too. But that's books as visual art, and the most important thing about books, for me, is their status as an accessible, mass produced, affordable art, in that words--immaterial--are the art.
Small presses could easily become more commercially viable if they wanted to--was part of my point in the post, anyway. Plus those grants--NEA, academic institutions, anything humanities-related--are only going to shrink going forward.
The other reason S&S is distributing Authors Equity is bc Madeline McIntosh is on the S&S board.
Your post on the S&S board was so useful, and such a useful preamble to this announcement, alongside Jane Friedman's report on Bloom: the leaning in to author branding and direct marketing at the corporate level, the peeling off of old infrastructure …
I know that Row House (a press whose business model seems wildly unsustainable to me) is distributed by S&S. I have a hard time believing they do $5M a year? I wonder what the workaround is.
Weren't they also were started by ppl who had worked in the Big 5 before? Or maybe they just had huge capital before starting -- they must, because IIRC their model is a flat 40K advance to everyone.
I think one of the founders was a former big 5 person, but she’s no longer involved. And yes — their model is a flat $40k advance, but they have been in financial crisis (public, on their Instagram) for at least a year.
See my comment above. My takeaway is that Bex Borucki and what she's doing is cool. She's a mover and a shaker with a truly unprecedented model (as opposed to AE which is not unprecedented). I think S&S thought she was worth the risk and that her model would work. She's not a former Big 5 person, but she's had major publishing success as an author.
Interesting! And thanks for these comments.
I see they’ve had some money issues and are doing another go fund me. Will be curious to see how they fare
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-us-publish-more-diverse-voices-that-matter?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer
Agreed! It's a pretty tough thing to sustain, $40K advances/40% royalties. Really ambitious.
They’re about 3 years old
didn't they just start??
You're right-on when slamming the idea that contractors are a bad thing. They're essential to making a living, on both contractor and publisher sides. Misguided article, that one was. SPD's nosedive is getting us all talking about how distribution is a sham for most authors and publishers, too. At least the unwise ones.
Hear hear.