Three Answers: Deidre Green

by Dick Donahue, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 4/23/2007

Three Answers today are from Deirdre Green, publisher of Roaring Forties Press in Berkeley, Calif.

PW: Roaring Forties is a virtual publisher with no central office. What kind of challenges does that present?

DG: My partner, Nigel, is in San Diego and I'm in Berkeley, so at least we're in the same time zone. But the main disadvantage is that we don't have that give and take that you get when you're in the same room with somebody, and sometimes it takes us a long time to make decisions. Of course, that could just be our personalities! And being in a different place can be tricky when a book is in production; then it's definitely harder for us to be separate. One of the biggest advantages—especially given the fact that startups are so intense—is that when we turn off the computer, we're totally off. Even though we wish that we were closer to each other, it's better for our own lives that we're not. If we were in the same neighborhood, that'd be it: we'd only be working.

PW: Your office is in a converted shed in your backyard. What's the hardest part of running the press from home and raising three kids at the same time?

DG: Probably one of the challenges is the same whether I was in a regular office or not—meeting all the publishing deadlines. That's hard no matter where you are. Then of course there's the added concern of trying to keep the kids' schedules in my mind. They're all different ages, and sometimes I do get a little confused. A couple of weeks ago I took one of my daughters to the softball field, and she plays soccer. It took me a minute to realize I had the wrong kid in the wrong place. And sometimes I do have to choose. I do work once a week in my first grader's classroom, and there've been a couple of times in the last few months when I've had to forgo that in order to meet a deadline. And that's hard.

PW: How do you position yourselves, as a small company, to make an impact?

DG: Our whole thing when we started was to produce books that we would buy ourselves. I hope that doesn't sound weird, or snobby, because that's not how we mean it at all. I mean, we don't care about making a million dollars, so we're not going to publish a book about making a million dollars. We actually started talking about having our own publishing company 12 years ago, so we were that much younger and more idealistic. But we kept those ideals when we actually did start the company, and that drives everything. We're trying to produce beautiful little books, basically, because we want them to be affordable, too. And luckily we have great distribution: IPG picked us up right away and they complement us. So partly because of situations like that, we don't need to be too much bigger.

This article originally appeared in the April 23, 2007 issue of PW Daily. For more information about PW Daily, including a sample and subscription information, click here »

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