inspiration for BOSP, Chance Press, Purple Glow Press, Milk Press, et al. (1 Viewer)

Beautiful.

Canadian media said Gaspereau Press has received offers from a few large publishers, including UK-based Random House, to print more, but it has so far refused, sticking to its mantra of quality over quantity.
 
I'm sure the $50,000 (Canadian - what is that in real money?) takes a little of the sting out of the slow production/sales for the author.

It is always heartening to see someone stick by their guns and forsake the quick buck these days. But the slow production and general lack of availability are only going to make people want it more. It's good, if accidental, marketing.

I don't read books by Canadians (long story, but I grew up in Minnesota, so I know the truth about those filthy savages and their canned spaghetti), but I'm sure it's a marvelous book.
 
I'm intrigued by the book. And since I'm a chump for this kind of shit, I'll probably spend most of December trying to find a copy for myself...

"We respect who they are and what they do. We think the quality of their books is incredible... We're just trying to represent our customers too at this time."​

I hate that douche now. Seriously, "Ultimately the publisher owns the rights to that book and gets to make that decision." No shit assface. I want to run you over with a moose.
 
Gaspereau Press does very nice work. I had a story in their now defunct lit mag Gaspereau Review, and the quality of the production was impressive.

I feel bad that the book will take longer to reach the reading public, but I'm sure the author will get a pretty handsome advance from a larger company for her next book, and Gaspereau Press is getting a little attention from an international audience.
 
Amazing, that such a limited edition got noticed enough to win an award. Props to the small press publisher for saying no thanks to the big guys.

Did anyone notice that the author's name looks like an anagram? "... first-time novelist Johanna Skibsrud ..." Checking an online anagram solver, it is an anagram for all kinds of nonsense, like "Rajah Bison Dunks". Or maybe it's her real name.

[I'm back after a week of battling an evil computer virus. Of course I missed this place.]
 
Looks like a solution of sorts has been reached to get books out to the public for the Xmas rush.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia/story/2010/11/15/ns-giller-sentimentalists-publisher.html

I watched the one hour program that led up to the award presentation. Like most award shows it was hokey and stupid and I'm always glad for the winner.

(Of course, if you want success to come from the small press, you can do like W.P. Kinsella and turn a short story about Shoeless Joe Jackson, published by Oberon Press, into a novel and get a screenplay done from it and have Kevin Costner star in it. Easy, right? Oberon still has Kinsella's short stories in back catalog.)
 
That's great news, but 30,000 is still next to nothing as far as we corporate bookstores are concerned... I'm going to try to order myself a copy ASAP, just in case though.
 
It is a fascinating story and I'm glad that they were able to get the author's work to the mass audience and keep their quality control for the hardbacks. As much as I appreciated their initial unwillingness to lower their standards with a mass market edition, I also felt that they should have done what was best for their author by getting the book in the hands of as many readers as possible.

In the end, it was a literary award, not a bookbinding award, so the author's words are what people want to read.
 
Yes.

But LickTheStar is right when he says that 30,000 copies is "nothing." That's an amount the accountants would round off the sales of an Oprah book club-type book. They lose more than 30,000 copies in the mail. It's a lot to us, but in the scheme of things, insignificant.

Which makes most of our stuff...well, what's less than insignificant? How do you say that? ;)

It's a small crowd, the art and passion set. We are up against a great tide of people who elect presidents they want to "have a beer with," and that tide doesn't even notice us.
 
Other good news for the small press.
Another small publisher that won big is Montrealbased Vehicule Press, whose imprint Signal Editions published Coburg, Ont. poet Richard Greene's collection Boxing the Compass, which won the English poetry prize.
Green said backstage that "after 30 years of writing poems, never knowing if anyone would really pay much attention to them, now it's a bit like you're standing outside a nightclub and the bouncer goes, 'You, you and you -in!' I mean, now I can go have a beer!"
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news...neral+prizes/3839880/story.html#ixzz15amrWWh7
http://hpcanpub.mcmaster.ca/case-study/rise-small-press-movement-canada
 
[...] It's a small crowd, the art and passion set. We are up against a great tide of people who elect presidents they want to "have a beer with," and that tide doesn't even notice us.

We're like barnacles clinging to the pier, beat to hell by forces we have no control over.
 

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