Speaking Out for the Small Press

Publishing is a constantly changing industry. Every day, new ideas rise out of companies, expertly crafted to improve customer experience, to make book buying simpler. New technology is pushed to the forefront and heralded as the future of publishing; soon, as it is prophecized over and over, all publishers will be using ebooks and turning completely to digital over print.

The Digital Revolution, as it is called, is a fantastic thing. Ebooks have transformed the literary world, have changed the way readers view books and publishers view marketing and much, much more. Social Media gives publishers a voice among the people who love them while also connecting readers to their favorite authors. Blogs humanize these major corporations, give them the opportunity to explain a piece of the publishing world—so long an enigma—to the masses.

But what about the small presses? With the rise of digital publishing, independent (or just physical) bookstores are going out of business. The people who used to peruse the shelves for a new book to read have turned online for a new ebook to instantly download. Sales fall, culture shifts, and suddenly, those small presses that worked with independent bookstores are either going out of business themselves or struggling to change to digital. How is a small press supposed to compete? Technology was supposed to even the playing field for all presses, to make it easier for the little presses to compete with mass market retailers. But that hasn’t proven to be completely true.

Today, we launch a new blog. Earlier this summer, we redesigned the WFUP website. We’ve been working on creating ebooks, and exploring the market for digital Irish Poetry. It is a small step toward the future and compared the the big publishers, it isn’t a whole lot. But we are moving forward, charging into these new fields. We are not giving up. Technology isn’t a nuisance but a brave new world, a new chance to meet new markets. 

We reached some pretty big audiences through a fantastic review of Louis MacNiece’s Collected Poems in The New York Times. Here’s for hoping we get some through this blog, too.