Six Authors Demystify Publishing with a Small Indie Press

Last fall, five months after my debut memoir was published, I was invited to return to my graduate program in Tucson for a colloquium panel and reading with a few other recently published graduates. Each of our books had come out from an indie press, and it was clear that the students who had gathered in the small auditorium were most interested in our publication stories, hoping to gain insight from those who’d just been through it.

As the panel unfolded, I was fascinated to hear about the variance of our experiences, from the way editors interacted with our manuscripts to each press’s processes for publicity and design. But I was also struck by the similarities in our narratives: Unlike colleagues who’d published with the Big Five, as first-time authors none of us had really known what to expect, beyond the opportunity to see our less conventional books in print.

In the US, there are dozens of popular independent publishers (publishers that are not part of large conglomerates or multinational corporations) and countless more small and micro presses, whose catalogs can range from just three handsewn chapbooks per year to stacks of commercial novels a season. Some of these presses are not able to pay advances, while others can and do offer more competitive advances. Some small presses have garnered literary cult followings; others publish only poetry or academic writing. The landscape is broad, and each press has its own particular identity, capacities, and appeals, so it can be difficult to define one characteristic that unites them all.

Not long after the panel, my friend Jessica Gross sold her debut novel to an indie press, and she turned to me with her own queries—and, in the months since her book was published, she too has fielded inquiries from other writers who are hopeful, excited, or wary about going indie with their manuscripts. We saw, in all this curiosity, an opening. Why not make public what it was like for us with our smaller independent presses, alongside the experiences of a handful of other writers (Chaya Bhuvaneswar, Noam Dorr, Sarah Minor, and Tyrese Coleman) who also published their first books with indie and small presses?

In order to both demystify the process and get a sense of the range of what first-time authors can expect from small presses, we asked several writers—including each other—to respond to the most common questions we’ve fielded over the last few years.

- Nina Boutsikaris

Tell the story of how you sold your first book.

Chaya Bhuvaneswar (White Dancing Elephants, Dzanc Books): Like other short story writers I admire tremendously, I won a contest that offered publication to the winner. This places me alongside colleagues, including Amina Gautier (Elixir Press, PEN/Malamud winner), Dana Johnson (Flannery O’Connor prizewinner), and others. Publishing White Dancing Elephants also led me to write several essays about literature, culture, queer and feminist identities, and politics; to be a reviewer and interviewer supporting other writers; and to have cherished writing residencies.

Publishing my book with an indie press opened doors for me. It was widely reviewed, received broad press coverage, and was taught in writing workshops. Knowing this can help erase the artificial distinction between “indie” and “Big Five.” The goal for so many writers is to be part of a larger conversation, and I know indie books that started and reframed those conversations: everything Danez Smith and Kaveh Akbar have published with indies, Hanif Abdurraqib with Two Dollar Radio, Azareen Van Der Vliet Oloomi’s and Sabrina Orah Mark’s books with The Dorothy Project, etc.

The other positive of publishing by winning a contest: It made me more aware of all the other contests that a book can enter into, including the PEN/America awards, and I was thrilled when my book was a 2019 Finalist for the PEN/America Robert W. Bingham Debut Fiction Prize, which wouldn’t have come about if I hadn’t been alert to submission deadlines!

Nina Boutsikaris (I’m Trying to Tell You I’m Sorry, Black Lawrence Press): I did have an agent, and she was successful at getting the manuscript in front of a handful of editors at bigger publishers like Penguin Press, Grand Central, and Random House, who, for the most part, sent back encouraging rejections along the lines of “we would love to see her next project but this one is outside our wheelhouse.” I’m grateful for the introductions my agent made, but I was doubtful that this weird little book would fit in at a large publishing house; it was an experiment in structure for one thing, and what was it? A memoir in essays? A collection of essays? I still struggle to define it, though at the time I saw that as a beauty mark rather than a flaw.

It quickly became apparent that if I wanted to publish commercially, I would need to revise the manuscript into a totally different book. At that point I had been living with it for three years and it had become a highly personal and complex time capsule, not just of story and state of mind, but also on the craft level. I wasn’t sure if I could untangle and remold it into something else, and, frankly, I wasn’t interested in trying. I wanted to move on. After a few months of my agent shopping it around, I sent it out myself to a few small presses that didn’t require agents. This was how Black Lawrence Press eventually decided to take on I’m Trying to Tell You I’m Sorry. Smaller presses are homes to the books and authors who have been most formative for me and who make me want to write and think in the first place, and the truth is I had been writing for one all along.

Tyrese Coleman (How to Sit, Mason Jar Press): I wanted a piece of art, a beautiful book with literary merit. I knew that, due to its hybrid and experimental nature, it was not a commercially viable book, and I did not have an agent. So I submitted the book to several small presses with open calls and/or contests. I searched for small presses and came across Mason Jar Press. I liked their catalog and the fact that they were local to me, and so I submitted the manuscript via Submittable just as one submits a story or an essay to a journal. Luckily, Mason Jar saw merit in the book and decided to publish it.

Noam Dorr (Love Drones, Sarabande Books): Sarabande has an open essay reading month in September. I sent the manuscript towards the end of the period and they contacted me in early November to see if it was still available. I had a list of maybe ten publishers and contests to send it to, but Sarabande reaching out meant I never sent it to the others. The decision to go with an indie press, and Sarabande in particular, was pretty easy—Love Drones is a very strange project, a collection of essays that examines violence and intimacy (especially as it relates to intelligence surveillance and military violence) in Israel/Palestine through experimentation with form and language. There were only a few publishers I could think of that would make a good home for it, and Sarabande was at the top of that list. I never really considered sending it to an agent or big publisher simply because it never occurred to me that the collection might have mainstream appeal.

Jessica Gross (Hysteria, Unnamed Press): My beloved agent, Stephanie Delman, worked so hard to sell my novel, and I am so grateful. If I recall correctly, she sent it to forty places. Some rejected it because it wasn’t to their taste; others found it too risky. It’s a short book and covers ground that makes some people uncomfortable: female masturbation, anxiety, shame, the Oedipus complex, psychoanalysis, and Freudian theory. Unnamed Press was the only one that offered me a contract, and I’ve since come to understand the depth of their commitment to publishing unconventional books.

Sarah Minor (Bright Archive, Rescue Press): I sent my manuscript to open reading periods and book contests for about nine years, revising the book each time it was rejected. I moved four times, taught thirty college classes, and gradually added essays to the collection. Through this, my first book (as well as my chapbook and second book) found a home at indie presses without an agent. I did briefly consider seeking an agent, but because I’d learned about the challenges of literary representation from other writers, and because I understood that if my experimental book “sold” it was very likely that I’d need to reduce or remove the visual forms, I stuck to my path. Bright Archive was listed as a finalist and semifinalist at small press contests for three years. People around me kept telling me, “Keep going. This means you’re close!” and this is now what I say to writers who have been sending out the same book for years. The very next year, two presses ended up expressing interest in my book in the same month. I chose Rescue because their editorial vision for the project excited me.

How much did you know about different presses/houses—or the taxonomy of publishing in general—before embarking on this process for the first time?

ND: I think one thing I found challenging about the process of sending my work to indie publishers is that some are such small operations. If the few people in charge are directing their attention to other things, the press might in effect be on hiatus, but there’s no real way for a hopeful author to know. I love, for example, the books that Essay Press and Tarpaulin Sky publish. But when it came time to send out Love Drones, the information on those websites was outdated and made it seem like the presses weren’t actively accepting submissions and it wasn’t clear when they would, so I had to give up on them. (Fortunately for us as readers, both presses have since updated their websites and are once again accepting submissions!)

CB: I thought, and still think, of the writing process as completely separate from the publishing process, an outlook that has kept me resilient and focused. The way various books explain it, though, does make a lot of sense. There are so many steps involved, including with a Big Five publisher, for a book to succeed, to find its audience, to even be “seen” by reviewers and major outlets. I was also captivated by the story of how Terry McMillan found her audience of readers, long before large publishing houses understood the power of her stories. Or how Jesmyn Ward and Kiese Laymon were first published by indie presses, along with Sandra Cisneros. They all worked tirelessly to show, beyond a doubt, that there were readers for their books. When you promote your book, you’re really (or should be) promoting books you love in general, and literary culture in general, as so worthwhile.

SM: Before publishing this book, I’d felt pretty confident in my knowledge of the aims and processes of both big and small indie presses, university presses, and Big Five houses and their imprints. I have both an MFA and a PhD in creative writing, as well as some experience working as a reader for and editor of literary journals. I thought this meant I knew what I needed to know about books. Looking back, I really only understood what it meant to “send” or “pitch” a book to presses of different types, and I knew little to nothing about how dissimilar editing and distribution feel (depending on the venue and the editor) or about the many differences between specific indies and the Big Five.

NB: As a nonfiction writer with a penchant for the lyric and the small, I had been reading chapbooks and books published by small presses for years. This was thanks in no small part to my peers at the University of Arizona and instructors like Ander Monson and Aurelie Sheehan, who expanded my knowledge of experimental forms and lyric essayists. When deciding which presses to submit to, I went through my bookshelf and made a list of where the authors I loved had published their debuts. It’s helpful (and encouraging) to trace the path of a writer whose career you admire, like Chelsea Hodson, for instance, whose chapbook, Pity the Animal, was originally released in a limited run by Future Tense Books, then as an Amazon Kindle single by Emily Books, and finally included in her collection Tonight I’m Someone Else, which she sold to Holt. The holy grail for me was (and still is) the independent presses who have published those authors who’ve significantly influenced my work.

JG: Basically nothing. My agent was patient in explaining everything to me along the way. (If you’re looking for an agent, I would highly recommend prioritizing the personal/emotional aspects of the match—i.e., your chemistry. Having a sensitive, empathic agent who could nonetheless be realistic with me was vital as I went through this process.)

What surprised you the most about working with your publisher? What were the benefits and drawbacks?

CB: Until I sat down and really talked with Dzanc about publicity, I did not understand how much the economic resources available to an indie press affects their ability to promote books. Even printing galleys can be hard. Moreover, Dzanc lacked the time and staff to send out those printed copies or to publicize the book via email and pdf galleys, the latter of which had no mailing cost.

I feel for their position because it’s all about budget and sheer, understandable, exhaustion. I was warned by other authors, including Amina Gautier, to really stay on top of things like making sure they mailed advance copies to the trade review journals (Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, Library Journal, Booklist). I found ways to print low-cost galleys using Kinko’s; designed email lists, materials, and newsletters; and used Twitter to maximize outreach. The latter helped me find people who clarified where to send the book to be considered for all the various “best of” lists it ended up on. I also studied the successful campaigns of books by other queer and BIPOC authors and identified places (and readers) who care about our work.

I had to advocate for myself at every moment. I learned to take nothing personally and just not be deterred. Everyone benefits from an indie book that makes it. Including writers who follow you (i.e., the next queer brown woman writer). Even if your press can’t invest up front to promote your book, they will try to help you in any other way they can, especially once you have some momentum, which in my case was coverage in NPR early on and a front-page review in the Los Angeles Times.

Just. Keep. Negotiating. Don’t. Give. Up.

JG: What I loved most about working with Unnamed was the intimacy of the process. Olivia Taylor Smith, the founder of Unnamed, was also my editor and my publicist. This meant that the person I worked with most closely in promoting the book knew it inside and out and was incredibly devoted to it. Unnamed publishes just one or two books a month, so when Hysteria came out it wasn’t competing with any other titles at the press for time and attention. It came out during a pretty rough time, in August of 2020—in the midst of the pandemic, and in the lead-up to the election—but thanks to our collective efforts we’ve still managed to get solid press.

NB: In a past life I worked as a book publicist at a small, overworked publishing house, so I don’t know why I was surprised by this (other than some fantasy I had about being a published author), but there were no galleys created for my book and it wasn’t sent anywhere unless I explicitly asked and followed up. I knew going in that I would have to set up most of my own events and readings, and that made sense to me—that’s the kind of outreach and promotion I understood how to do on my own. But there wasn’t a publicist to do even a basic press release or automatically send review copies to Kirkus or other pre-pub places. I wish I had understood this better going in so that I could have stayed on top of it, and I urge other first-time indie authors to assume they might be fully spearheading such efforts themselves. And to keep in mind how critical those first four-to-six months are for getting the word out about your book. Even though I felt like I tried to be proactive in brainstorming people, podcasts, mags, blogs, etc. for the publisher to help me with outreach and promotion, there were missed opportunities.

TC: I think publishing with an indie press allows you to build a fan base. It proves to agents and editors that you can pull off a book-length work, which means that there will be less of a gamble with you for future titles. There is a level of involvement that is nice, and it really feels like you and your publisher are making something happen together, rather than you turning over your work and then letting your baby go.

I don’t know if I would say that there are drawbacks, but it is important to be realistic. You are not going to get rich, nor will you get famous publishing with a small press. You will have to do a lot of work yourself in terms of promoting, handselling, and setting up gigs. No one is going to fly you out anywhere or pay for your travel expenses. Be prepared to spend money to travel to a reading where you might sell one book if you are lucky. You’ve got to be prepared to hustle.

What was the editorial process like?

ND: I worked with Sarabande’s editor-in-chief directly, and it was a pretty substantial process. When I sent Love Drones out, I thought it was 90 percent done. The book took a long time to write—about seven years at the time I sent it out—and I revised a lot prior to submitting it. I had a romantic vision of the editorial process, like the editor was an acupuncturist who would be able to read the manuscript, take a holistic view of the book, and find a few points to apply pressure to and then the whole thing would open up and the qi would flow in total harmony. The reality was far more challenging.

My editor sent me a letter that at the time felt like it requested substantial changes. She made it clear that they wanted the book to appeal to as wide an audience as possible and that they were hoping that the editorial process would make the book more accessible. Love Drones was always premised on the notion that essays are constructed as a conversation with the reader. The essays push on the boundaries of presentation and design—they play with form and sound, asking the reader to learn to read each essay. The book was always about challenging conventional narratives and how we tell them.

I had somewhat of an existential crisis then. I’m not a very confrontational person, but I found myself having to really fight hard for parts of the book to stay. In the end, I think we actually were on the same page when it came to the project’s ethos. And ultimately the editorial process made the book far stronger. My editor had a great eye for structural problems and line edits. It’s a far better book than it was when I first sent it out. The editorial process was just a much more emotionally rocky process than I expected.

SM: My editing process for Bright Archive felt collaborative and also very thorough. For example, Caryl Pagel of Rescue recommended significant developmental edits to some essays, small-scale edits to all of them, revisions of experimental visual forms, and a “selected works cited” list for the end of the book. None of the recommendations felt “required” but instead part of a conversation that was in support of the aims of the larger project. The Rescue team also talked me through the genre of “acknowledgments” and brainstormed an inventive way to include an essay that was too large to print in traditional bound pages. Through these processes, I had several very meaningful conversations that taught me more about my own work, as well as what it meant for my unusual, visual forms to live in the hands of a reader.

NB: There were no major overhauls to the text. But, while I hear from some writer friends about how difficult it can be to swallow harsh notes from their editors and spend a year or more revising manuscripts that they thought were complete, perhaps in some ways I was looking for that experience—someone to push me and tell me what to do. I imagine the balance between those two poles is one of those inner conflicts many other writers struggle with, right? (. . . Right??!?)

JG: I worked very closely with my editor, Olivia Taylor Smith, throughout the process. I did two or three major revisions of the book after I sold it. Each time, Olivia sent back comments; then we had an extensive phone call in which we went through anything and everything I wanted to discuss about her feedback. Olivia was an invaluable brainstorming partner and was clearly interested in helping me make the book into what I wanted it to be. She pushed me to take the manuscript in some more surprising, nuanced, and interesting directions—ones that were challenging to get right on the page, and which, through her edits, she helped me develop the skills to pull off. Hysteria is so much better for her feedback, and I am a better writer for it, too!

CB: Michelle Dotter is an extremely talented and nuanced editor. I credit her for two major moves—helping me cut down from thirty stories to the sixteen I initially had in the collection, and then supporting me when I wrote a new story specifically for the collection, literally a few months before the galleys were made (during several cold winter days at MacDowell). She also helped get that particular story onto LitHub. I would say that’s a strength of indie publishing. I never felt Michelle was trying to make my writing something it didn’t want to be.

If your book won an award or was reviewed, how did that come about? Any advice for first-timers?

NB: My publisher was super helpful in the award arena, reminding me from the very start to work on a list of contests I wanted my book to be submitted to, as well as offering some funding to pay for the price of admission, if there was one. I did quite a bit of digging to come up with a solid list of awards specifically for “first books” or “new writers.” This was time consuming, but in the end my book managed to win the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award for Creative Non-fiction. I actually completely forgot that I had submitted to this contest, and I just recently received the news, which was a lovely surprise.

TC: In terms of reviews, the press handled some of that, but I also was approached by friends who wanted to review the book or do an interview with me. The lit community is amazing and generous. Everything about How to Sit felt like a community effort between myself, Mason Jar, and the lit world.

In terms of the PEN Open Book Award, I randomly saw that they were accepting nominations and contacted Ian and Mike (of Mason Jar) and said, Hey, can you nominate me for this award, and they were like, Sure, why not. It was on a whim and none of us thought it would become a finalist. I don’t know if my publicity played a role. I doubt it. We all put in a lot of effort in promoting the book, but there is only so much that a small team can do. To me, this makes the fact that I made it that far even more special.

JG: Olivia, my agent, and I worked together to come up with a list of people to send galleys to before the book came out, and Olivia was persistent in following up for coverage. So far Hysteria has been included on a number of books-to-read lists and has received a handful of reviews; I’ve been interviewed for Electric Literature, The Brooklyn Rail, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere; and I’ve done a number of Zoom readings and other events. It’s all very impressive for a media landscape that often favors books from bigger presses. Of course, the point of all that media attention is to get the novel in the hands of individual readers, and I’ve been so moved by emails and messages from people who have found their way to Hysteria and saw themselves in it, or saw themselves anew through reading it. So, the process ends as it began: with intimacy.

At what point(s) in the process were you most involved? Which decisions did you have no control over?

ND: Love Drones is a design-heavy book, with a lot of visual play, so I did get to weigh in on some formatting aspects. Sarabande works with a fantastic designer, Alban Fischer, who did an incredible job wrangling the very challenging production aspects of the book’s interior design. He also designed (and won an AIGA award!) for the book’s cover. So, Alban and I had some direct conversations on how to make sure the design elements of each essay were successfully translated to the finished book—not an easy task with essays that incorporate images, diagrams, and occasionally Hebrew fonts! I have the feeling like I had far more sway over design questions because Love Drones came out through an indie publisher.

NB: The whole process was fairly laissez-faire, which has its pros and cons. I would have liked to have felt more supported when it came to birthing the book into the world, for instance, and I didn’t feel like I had much control over that. But on the pro side there was room for me to be highly involved in the design process—I know many authors who have felt frustrated about being excluded from this process, and I’m grateful for that opportunity. I messed around with ideas for months but nothing felt quite right, and then one day I was scrolling through Instagram and stumbled upon the artist whose sculpture became the cover image. I was stunned by the wave of recognition I felt—her facial expression, her body language, even the colors of the ceramic glaze. She was us: me, my troubled narrator, and so many other young women. I asked the publisher to incorporate the image, and, poof, she did.

JG: I was very involved in everything. I’ve already described how collaborative the editing process was, and how much I got out of it creatively (and emotionally!). As for the cover, I fell immediately in love with one of the two options Jaya Nicely at Unnamed drew up and didn’t request any changes; it is just perfect. It’s seductive and challenging, even a little scary, and the second I saw it I thought, Yes. It captures just the tone I was going for in Hysteria. I can’t say for sure whether a more commercial press would’ve been bold enough to design such a provocative cover (though I have my doubts), but I can say I’m very lucky to have been published by a press that didn’t think twice about it.

What do you wish you’d known before publishing your book with an indie press?

SM: Through my own process with Rescue, and through conversations with other folks who released their first books in 2020 with UPs, indie presses, and imprints, I’ve realized that mine was a very intimate editing experience where I had a lot more opportunity for input (from cover design to line-level edits) than many of my peers. I used to think that the type of work I made was destined for indie presses because I wasn’t willing to compromise on styles and forms that felt outside of “mainstream” publishing. Now I understand that even writers who have previously published with one of the Big Five will send book-length work to a small press when they are looking for a particular kind of cultural experience in both the process and result of making their work public.

NB: I didn’t expect to make money from my book, but I should have submitted it to small presses during a contest period, rather than an open reading period, as I would have made more money/any money that way. A $2,000 cash prize, for instance, is much more than I will ever make off this project.

What are your plans/hopes for your next book? Would you aim to publish with an indie press again? (Do you want to?)

ND: I’m working on a long-form project right now that’s more of a novel/essay hybrid. It’s looking at three generations of Jewish refugees and their descendants who are living on a kibbutz in Israel. (A kibbutz is a utopian community based on socialist principles where, theoretically, there are no class distinctions, resources are shared, and decisions are arrived at collectively.) It’s trying to think through this question of what it means to try and enact a utopia on a daily basis, how these grand narratives we tell ourselves about the purpose of our lives shape the way we experience everyday life.

The project is still in its initial stages, so it’s hard to tell how wild (or tame) it will look by the time it’s done. Depending on that it might have more of a mainstream appeal than Love Drones, but I’d be happy to publish with an indie press again if it felt like the right place for it!

CB: I’m working on two projects that hopefully will go out soon—a novel and a memoir. My novel is a queer coming-of-age story/historical fiction set in the 1980s, and my memoir is structured around my uncle’s schizophrenia and my evolution as a queer BIPOC female psychiatrist.

The whole “indie press” question is complicated, but in a nutshell, sure! I would publish with an indie press again, and certainly with a press or editor that has a cutting-edge, indie sensibility even within one of the Big Five. For example, books like Tell Me How It Ends by Valeria Luiselli (Coffee House Press), All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung (Catapult), and Milkman by Anna Burns (Graywolf Press) are incredible, prizewinning books that were brought to a really wide range of readers by indie presses.

We don’t have to think in terms of “Big Five” versus “indie”; instead, we can think in terms of getting our books into the hands of editors who will love and nurture them. What’s really exciting about publishing now, in general, is that one can’t predict “where would be the easiest” to publish any book, given that a novel like Luster, with its frankness, and an essay collection like Minor Feelings, with its courage, both came out from Big Five publishers (who were informed by some of the exciting work being published by indie presses). Then there is something like the National Book Award–shortlisted debut collection by Deesha Philyaw, which is so adeptly written but also has broad commercial appeal and was published by an indie press.

SM: Yes! I understand much better now what it means to “aim” for presses of different “sizes” and also the kind of income, learning, affirmation, and community that a writer seeks out by sending their book to a press of each type. It feels important to state here that I work as a professor of creative writing, and at the moment I am not seeking for my main source of income to come from my creative work. Perhaps someday I’ll be interested in writing something or sending something to a press of another type, but my second book, an image text entitled Slim Confessions: The Universe as a Spider or Spit is coming out from another indie (Noemi Press) next year! I feel excited about being involved in the transition of that project from a Word document to a bound book form with images, and about developing relationships with editors who are also writers and artists through the process.

NB: I’m Trying to Tell You I’m Sorry, with all its unconventionality and quirkiness and resistance to fit any one mold or expectation, became a bona fide book with an ISBN in a beautiful package because an indie press took it on. Strangers read it and reached out to tell me it changed their lives. I learned a lot from this first go-round that I will take with me. Knowing that indie presses exist and are working their asses off to find and publish exciting new work gives writers like myself permission to have more creative freedom— so, yes, the answer is yes.

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