March is Small Press Month. I don’t quite understand these themed months, actually, like when they have National Poetry Month and I don’t quite find myself scrambling for a poetry book to read.
However, the launch of my own small press accidentally has coincided with Small Press Month.
One company that I’ve come across is Small Beer Press, an independent publishing company (with the greatest name) that has existed since 2000 and, against all odds, seems to be doing very well.
There’s an article in Is Greater Than featuring Small Beer Press and its two founders, Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant.
One of my well-read coworkers had hand-sold dozens of copies of a short story collection called Stranger Things Happen, which featured great Vintage Nancy Drew-style cover art and a blurb from Jonathan Lethem describing the author, Kelly Link, as “the exact best and strangest and funniest short story writer on earth that you have never heard of at the exact moment you are reading these words and making them slightly inexact.” It was true: I’d never heard of her, but I became increasingly curious about this book that, at least in our little store, was outselling The Da Vinci Code.
Link and Grant, wife and husband, are an inspiration to myself and my wife as we jump into the ruthless world of publishing, a world where even giants get swallowed by bigger giants.