The Joys of Small Press Publishing

Not too long ago I was quoted in a (really great) Toronto Star article about how tough it is to be a small press publisher right now. Spoiler, it’s tough. Of course, it’s been that way for a while. When I started out at Wolsak and Wynn the poet Ken Norris put a poem in his collection called “To the Canadian Publishing Industry in Crisis.” My boss at the time, the brilliant Marja Jacobs, was so delighted by this she printed a large broadsheet of the poem and had it framed. Clearly, publishing in Canada has been hard going, off and on, for a long time. However, it’s especially difficult for small presses starting out right now and many of the other presses featured in the article are just getting going. There’s lots of reasons behind this, but you should really read that Toronto Star article if you want to learn more. Here it is, if you’re interested: https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/indie-publishers-i-make-enough-money-to-put-out-books-but-not-enough-to-pay/article_badf07ee-f8eb-520a-b3a3-192b6f0a2d09.html

I bring this up mainly because one of our staff members foolishly read the comments on the article. One wise fellow said something like “Maybe you should publish stuff people want to read.” Honestly, that had never occurred to us! It’s like the joke where the publisher’s accountant comes up to them and very seriously says “My advice to you is to only publish bestsellers.” And while many an author (and some agents) may tell you that the manuscript they’re handing you will sell millions, (okay it’s Canada, tens of thousands) of copies, there is no surefire way to pick those bestsellers out of the slush pile.

But I think the fellow felt we should be publishing books he wanted to read and I have a pretty short answer to that statement. No. Not interested. We’re publishing books we want to read. The books that you can’t find easily, stories that surprise us, writers that delight us. While we’re also quite sure other people will like these books too, someone here, at the press, has to feel the book is pretty special for us to take it on. Because you really can’t tell which books will take off, someone has to be willing to say, This book is important, full stop. Let’s publish it. I want to read it.

Of course, then we do have to sell the books. Here at Wolsak and Wynn we fall for the book first, then we figure out the marketing. This brings us, in a roundabout way, to this blog post and the W&W blog. We’re going to be resurrecting the blog, which we’ve used a little inconsistently over the last few years, to, frankly, try and sell more books. Not just our books, but other books we love too. And we’re going to have a bit of fun with it. I hope you’ll join us, click some links, buy some books. We’re going to experiment for a while and if it works, we’ll keep it going.

Cheers,

Noelle Allen

Publisher

Wolsak and Wynn