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Hurrah for Small Press Month

You’re looking for something different to read, something unusual. The cookie-cutter paperbacks you’ve been reading have all started to sound the same. In a hunt for the good reads, you start perusing the bestseller lists but it’s just not what you’re searching for. Where does the hungry reader go for a good book? The kind you remember that got you reading in the first place, staying up past bedtime with a flashlight under the covers so your mom thought you were asleep.

They’re in the independent presses, that’s where. Those fantastic one-of-a-kind stories that make you want to tell people “You won’t believe what I’ve been reading!” are right there waiting to be discovered. Artistic, beautiful, heartbreaking, funny, suspenseful – the indie press has it all.

It’s Small Press Month, and although you may think I’ve forgotten, I haven’t. It’s just that I’ve got all these great books here to read, and well, time has gotten away from me as it will when you’ve got your nose buried in a book.

I knew when I started carp(e) libris reviews that I was onto something. I’ve read books by the indies before, and I started to notice a pattern – the only thing these unique books had in common were that they were uncommonly good. In fact, I wasn’t finding anything ordinary about them. And the more I’m reading books from the indies, the more I love them. I have to say that in my reading life, reviewing books for this blog has been one of the best times. (Other than that time I was holed up overseas with nothing to do and nowhere to go, with a bookstore around the corner selling English classics. Bliss.) One of the hardest parts about blogging carp(e) libris reviews is choosing which books get the Goldfish Award. I’ve been comparing fantastic with spectacular time and again.

So if you’re looking for that unique book to give you back the love of reading you remember when you first fell between the pages, don’t search in vain – search the indies.

What is a Small Press?

18. December 2007 · 1 comment · Categories: Small Presses

Since carp(e) libris is focusing on small presses, I thought it would be helpful to give you a little overview of what a small press actually is. You can call them small presses, independent presses, indie publishers – any of these terms are correct. But one thing a small press shouldn’t be confused with is the vanity press, which is a publisher that will print and sell any book as long as the writer is willing to pay. A small press receives submissions and chooses which books they wish to represent, the same as the mainstream presses. But what I find so interesting about the small press is that they tend to publish books out of a sense of love for the subject and a devotion to the book and the author. Oftentimes profits are moved to the back seat in favor of creating a labor of love.

Because of this drive, you will find some amazing pieces of writing. First-time authors are often taken on by the small press. In the large mainstream presses, wonderful writers are often bypassed because they’ve not yet been published, or the subject matter doesn’t seem to appeal to a wide enough audience. But a small press isn’t afraid to take on a book that caters to a niche market.

This quick description reveals why I choose to cover the small presses. A true lover of books is able to feed their reading habit with fantastic fiction, nonfiction, multicultural and other genres by taking a good look at this literary goldmine.