A CALL FOR CHANGE
Will Evans of Deep Vellum Publishing
THE FUTURE of independent publishing must be innovative. The future of independent publishing lies not in breaking into the corporate system but rather in creating an alternative to the corporate system. Independent publishing can lead the way in creating a new industry paradigm that not only seeks to create noise with individual books, but also establishes an alternative system for the creation, production, and dissemination of literature.
If independent publishing is the construct we are working around, then it is instructive to define what is not independent, or rather, is dependent: corporate publishing and its ever-increasing demand for books that fit the blockbuster model at the expense of publishing serious, boundary-pushing, avant-garde literary fiction, poetry, translation, and nonfiction. (The general public will likely recognize the same thing in a Hollywood movie industry that has all but abandoned serious narrative storytelling.) Independent publishers have long filled the editorial gap in producing literature that propels the art form forward, but we must do more to nurture an alternative industry for literature outside of the structures created and dominated by corporate publishing, corporate bookselling, and corporate media.
The strength of independent publishing has long been its ability to reflect the diversity of American literature in any form it has taken—from artistic expression to demographic and geographic diversity. Independent publishing is what’s happening far from the streets of Manhattan. The future of independent publishing is about nurturing and actively growing
a community of readers—anywhere and everywhere—who seek out and appreciate independent alternatives in literature. This can be done through expanded literary programming that at once makes literature a more approachable, enjoyable medium to experience in the public sphere (outside of the transactional nature of bookselling or the inviolable experience of taking the time alone to read) and increases opportunities for readers and writers to engage with literature as an art form on the printed page, in their ears, onstage, on-screen, and in all facets of public life.
Literature is to be treated with the same high artistic respect as the visual and performing arts. Independent publishers can lead the way in establishing collaborations between literature and other art forms to broaden the possibilities of the written word while inviting a more expansive discussion about what literature can be. We must create a new language and a new system that puts the focus on connecting authors with readers outside of a sales transaction. And we must reject the New York City–centric focus of the literary industry, because the future of independent publishing must see the readers and writers of Dallas, Atlanta, or Las Vegas (and their suburbs, exurbs, and every town in between them) as equally important as the readers in New York, London, or Frankfurt. The future of independent publishing is in Minneapolis and Dallas just as it is in Brooklyn and San Francisco. Every city deserves a publishing house to share its stories; every neighborhood deserves a bookstore to reflect the interests of its community.
We cannot just publish books. We must create and support bookstores that stock, support, and nurture readership for independent publishing. We must support media outlets to critically engage with literature as an art form. We must program inclusive literary events that bring new readers into the world of independent publishing. There are plenty of successful case studies for the combining of independent publishing and alternative bookselling: City Lights, the legendary independent bookstore and publishing house in San Francisco; Malvern Books, a community space and bookstore in Austin, Texas, that specializes in titles from indie publishers, which grew out of Host Publications; Two Dollar Radio and Two Dollar Radio Headquarters in Columbus, Ohio; Hub City Press and Bookshop in Spartanburg, South Carolina; City of Asylum in Pittsburgh; and my own Deep Vellum in Dallas.
The future of independent publishing will be written in these spaces and the spaces yet to come. The future of independent publishing is to help the industry grow into one that is as reflective of the creative and individual diversity of the country that writers and readers call home. The future is unwritten; let’s write it.