Once upon a time, in a pre-pandemic age, I woke up and found myself to be a publisher. “Publisher? Cool!” I thought. Then my next thought was “what the hell is a publisher?”
OK, maybe it didn’t quite happen that way (for more background on the birth of Bent Paddle Press check out the website). I’m still working out what it means to be a publisher, but one explanation goes something like this. A publisher (or a “press,” sometimes the two terms are used interchangeably) is a person or group that engages in selecting manuscripts to turn into books, editing those manuscripts, getting them printed and then marketing and distributing the final product. That about sums up Bent Paddle Press.
We publish two to three poetry books per year with small print runs of usually 100 copies. This would put us in the realm of not just a publisher, but a “small” publisher. I have found it funny (and sometimes aggravating) to figure out Bent Paddle’s place in the publishing world. The standard industry definition for a small press in the U.S. (I’ve read) is any publisher with annual sales below $50 million. Is Bent Paddle below $50 million? Check! There are organizations out there (I won’t name names) that purport to help small presses with distribution or other things. Even though they might define “small” in a more relevant way (say, sales of below $50,000) they don’t do much for those that strive to simply break even. Because of that, I’ve taken to calling Bent Paddle a “microscopic” press.
Before I come off sounding whiny (too late?) I love what I do. It’s wonderful to help shepherd someone’s words that I admire and get them out into the world (in an admittedly small way). Also, the process of designing a book (cover, layout, interior architecture) is something I immensely enjoy.
I’ve been writing in the first person. Simply because I hate using the royal “we” in speaking of an enterprise with just two of us involved. But there are two. My wife, Jeanie Tomasko, is invaluable. She’s the one I go to for help with design ideas. Jeanie is the one with a greater poetic sense than I and I trust her judgement on poetic editing suggestions. She’s also a genius when it comes to ordering poems in a book. So, when I say “I” it is we at Bent Paddle Press. Jeanie and me.
Since publishing kind of just happened to us (it was never on my bucket list, not that I have one), it still seems new but also like something that could drop away just as easily. I’ve said “just one more book” more than a few times, so who knows. I am proud that out of the handful of books Bent Paddle has published two have won first prize and one, a second prize in the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets annual poetry chapbook contest.
So, here’s to Small Press Week (which I never knew was a thing until Rita Mae Reese of Arts + Literature Laboratory let me know. Thanks Rita!). And here’s to readers everywhere who will take a chance on a small book from a small independent publisher (all of them out there). Cheers!
Image: Detail from cover of chapbook "All about Breathing" by B.J. Best, cover design by Wendy Vardaman
