Four Hipster Publishers Try to Turn Less Into More
by Dylan Foley, PW NewsLine -- Publishers Weekly, 9/25/2002
Next month, four literary publishers hope to create a whole greater than the sum of their parts when they launch Bigsmallpressmall.com, a site that offers everything from a calendar of literary events to discounts on bundles of titles.The four--McSweeney's, Open City, Fence and the University of Georgia-affiliated Verse --read like a who's who of hipster magazine and book publishing. Although the presses are geographically far-flung and have distinct styles, they see an advantage in cross-promoting their titles.
"We all have highly individualized approaches to publishing," says Fence magazine founder Rebecca Wolff, but she adds that the group still hopes "that the Web site will lead to cross-pollination between the four presses." (Incidentally, Automatic Media, a similar venture in which a number of commentary Web sites banded together, unraveled in 2001 after participants found that while the whole might be greater than the sum of its parts, it was not, unfortunately, more lucrative.)
Drawing on a joint database of 14,000 addresses, Bigsmallpressmall.com will relay news and reading schedules to subscribers and visitors via e-mail. "The growth of corporate publishing has inspired us to assert ourselves more," says Joanna Yas, managing editor at Open City magazine and its eponymous book imprint. By banding together, our voices are louder."
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