POETICS Podcast: Episode 48 - The Art of the Book Industry

Most writers learn the publishing industry through rumor: a bad experience relayed at a conference, a thread about an agent, a sense that the doors are locked and someone is holding the keys.This week Ben Rockwood makes a different case. Ben is COO of Bainbridge Island Press, which means he has spent years on the side of the table writers rarely see. His argument is that almost everyone in this business is acting in good faith, and that the small fraction who aren’t get far more attention than their numbers deserve. What looks like a closed door is usually arithmetic.We get into how the Big Five are structured, what hybrid publishers do and how to evaluate one, how a manuscript actually travels toward a yes, and what a book sells in a bookstore once it arrives. Then we talk about what running a press has taught us that no article about publishing ever did.I also ended my intro by saying “okay now off to bed” and that…was me in a rush, and I’m too far away from my microphone to fix it. So, take it as you will. Get full access to Bainbridge Island Press at bainbridgeislandpress.substack.com/subscribe