I was blissfully unaware of how small press books were distributed, so I can't claim to contextualize this in any way, but it sounds fairly alarming 😬 :
https://lithub.com/the-small-press-world-is-about-to-fall-apart-on-the-collapse-...
Billypar (Image is by Madeline McMahon from this unrelated article on doomscrolling: https://www.nhmagazine.com/how-to-stop-doomscrolling-and-feel-better/) 3w
Ruthiella What a sad story. 🙁 3w
Billypar @Ruthiella I know - the list of presses the article includes at the end is such a long one too 😔 3w
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Billypar #smallpress #supportsmallpress 3w
vivastory I have no idea what has been going on with SPD for awhile now, but I used to follow them closely. There was a significant period of time when I read mostly poetry & a lot of what I read was distributed by SPD. In fact I used to receive their catalogs & it was always a highpoint to go through & then place my order. I recall that at that time the people at the top of SPD were themselves connected to the indie world, but again this was awhile ago. 3w
vivastory What I can say, is that this is catastrophic for interesting lit. One year when I went to AWP the SPD booth was the largest & many of the others who were there with booths wouldn't have even been able to be there w/o having SPD as their distributors, It's such a shame. 3w
Billypar @vivastory That's so interesting- I didn't even know distributors got involved in sending their own catalogues or attending book and writing-centric events like AWP. I'm in the opposite camp where I've only just discovered the wonders of small presses in the past couple of years. I had been looking forward to trying more and seeing if I could identify some favorites, but seems like many will be threatened by this, especially the smallest ones. 3w
vivastory It's def strange because they when I received their catalogs they would also include a lot of indie presses. So you would see the new releases from publishers like (Copper Canyon, Graywolf, Archipelago) They'll survive this, but it's a shame to see all of the small presses lose distribution. I don't know if you ever listen to Mookse & Gripes podcast, but they often like to spotlight indie & small presses. 3w
vivastory I *will* add that when I received their catalog it was not a given that certain established presses, esp Archipelago would make it. A lot of the indie presses have thrived thanks to breaking through to the mainstream with a few writers (Thinking of Graywolf w/ Percival Everett; Archipelago w/ Knausgard; Europa w/ Ferrante etc) 3w
Billypar @vivastory I think a lot of the small press books I own fall into that 'big small' press category you mentioned since I buy so much of my collection from bookstores. Even those get far less shelf space than the big 5, and breakout authors, as you pointed out, probably make that possible in many cases. I definitely need to use that spd list to start introducing myself to more. 3w
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