Grassroots Book Publishing & Publicity

Reflections on the first year

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When I started the press in earnest, one thing immediately stood out to me as critical to our role: actively supporting our authors. I’d spent enough (read: too much) time on Twitter and surveying the broader small press landscape to have a sense that the default expectations for small presses in this area tend to be minimal, if not simply nonexistent. As we started signing on more authors, I felt a deep responsibility to show them they weren’t making a mistake taking a chance on a new press with such a small track record.

Then the realities of the book industry became increasingly prominent. I went into it with my eyes open and a fair amount of research, yet there are certain things you learn better (or only) through practice. I tend to resist the act of bemoaning things in public—I would rather channel my limited energies toward building something good—but the lack of perspective or access to information that many players in this industry seem to have is troubling. I’m convinced that certain aspects of this work need to change on a fundamental level if we have hope for building sustainable systems in the future beyond corporate publishing.