The Fall to Independent Publishing

Fiction writer Jason Brown recounts his experience publishing his new book Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work with the New York based independent publisher Open City.

I knew I didn’t have the force of a major publishing house spending the money to market the book, so at first I despaired. I didn’t have the slightest idea how to do it on my own. My first book, also a collection of short stories, was published by Norton eight years ago and although they did not market it aggressively, they did a few things. Despite this, I knew I wouldn’t be better off with a bigger publisher for this book. Short story collections are not sought after in the industry and, even if I got incredibly lucky and sold the book, marketing would surely neglect it. Publishers, which are owned by large media companies, are increasingly hit driven. It’s a situation that is bad for fiction writers. So, with a certain amount of anxiety and relief I tried to figure out what I could do to promote the book on my own.

I had heard of writers who took cross-country trips with stacks of books in the back of their car. One guy built a raft and tried to advertise his book by floating down the Mississippi. I’m not one for ridiculous stunts, however. Some people have hired PR firms on their own, but I am pretty sure you can’t even pay PR firms to market a collection of short stories unless you mortgage your house. Someone mentioned a website. I thought about starting a website and instead started a homemade blogspot, which not even friends and family will visit. So I basically did nothing to promote my book except contact all the people I knew and tried to make them aware of the book coming out.

I published stories in both books and individually over time, so I knew a few people in publishing and academics and in bookstores, etc. My editor at Open City also knew a lot of people, and since they don’t publish many books, she was able to focus on letting everyone she knew about my book and getting galleys into the hands of reviewers. She also set up readings. These two efforts actually helped a great deal, and I believe the book had a better chance with Open City than my first collection did with Norton.

Key to the Open City effort was their partnership with Grove/Atlantic. Grove distribution got the book into bookstores and carries all Open City Books on their list. Some friends of mine have published books only to discover that no one could find their book at any of the major chains a month after the release date.

In the end, the book sold well. A second edition is being printed. Although major publishing houses will frequently pass on short story collections they can do well given the right support. By being so focused on a few enormously hyped titles, the big houses cede a lot of ground. There is probably opportunity for independent publishers who know how to take advantage of this.

Although my blog was not initially successful, I know Open City uses Facebook. It turned out that people were more inclined to join a Facebook group for my book than register at my blog. It’s a lot more work to build up your own site than participate in an existing community. Next time I publish a book I will keep that mind. In the meantime, I do what I can without acting desperate, which would not be pretty for anyone.