It is an important time in the world for publishing. While academics and highbrow readers sit round and discuss the latest fifty shades of trends, or whether the novel is truly dead, some important things are happening. Small independent presses are changing the game of how things are being done, publishing books that have tremendous value, that are often skipped upon by the major publishing houses because they do not have certain financial guarantees.
That’s why it’s important that we support Broken River Books, for their March Madness launch. Not just for the sake of good literature, but because they are supporting under represented voices.
J David Osborne (Author of By The Time We Leave Here We’ll Be Friends and Low Down Death Right Easy) launched Broken River Books with a successful Kickstarter. Since its creation it has published amazing books, but with the support of their latest Kickstarter, they’re going beyond that.
Coined as March Madness, Broken River Books release twelve books on the same day. This isn’t important just because it is recognized as an accomplishment in small press publishing, but because of the expanding roster being built by Broken River Books. Aside from the usual crime installments we have known to love from BRB (Cody Goodfellow, Stephen Graham Jones etc), the press is expanding by adding two new imprints. King Shot Press, a more literary inspired imprint ran by Michael Kazepis (who wrote The Long Lost Dog Of It, originally published by Broken River Books) and LadyBox Books.
LadyBox books is hugely important, all you have to do is browse the latest releases to see how women are pigeonholed in literature, or in various other ways in the world. LadyBox Books seeks submissions from anyone who identifies as a female writer, and ultimately shows how the battle to change the world is being fought by the small people, who can gradually make a big difference, just as much as the politicians around the world.
Broken River Books has already met its initial goal, but it is important to still donate if you can. Additional funds help it running smoothly, launching a literary magazine that pays fantastically for its writers and creating an office space, for all that water cooler talk.
J David Osborne was kind enough to answer some questions that I had about the press, which should hopefully explain things to those who are unsure, and convince them to punch those digits into the Kickstarter account.
How does the funding of Kickstarter help March Madness and Broken River Books in a way that it wouldn’t be able to function without it?
The funding of the Kickstarter will help first and foremost to establish an audience for these books, much in the way a pre-order might. That way, when the books all drop on March 11, we have a certain number of folks who can dive right in and get to talking about them. Beyond that, the funds are going to help bring Broken River and its imprints to the next level. I’m good at a few things, but promotion is not one of them. Therefore, I’m going to hire someone whose entire responsibility is to promote the press. I am also a shoddy designer of websites, so I’d like to bring on a pro that can create a nice-looking site that people will enjoy perusing and shopping. It’s essentially all of the things that you need to have a press move forward and step into people’s worlds, stuff that I could do if I wasn’t so darn busy doing everything else. There are only so many hours in a day!
With the start of LadyBox books, Broken River Books is expanding an imprint for female authors. What ability does the small press provide for female authors that others do not, and what made you feel like taking the decisive action to do so?
There are a lot of presses that are great for women authors, specifically folks like CCM. They’ve done a great job at having a nice mix of genders on their roster. Broken River in particular started out as a crime-focused press, and while there are countless brilliant female crime writers, I wasn’t having any luck enticing them to BRB. Ladybox is not crime-focused, per se, but it is focused solely on publishing writers who identify as female. That provides a balance (and I’ll continue to do my part at BRB to get more women’s work out there). What really sold me on Ladybox, however, is the aesthetic that Constance Ann Fitzgerald is putting forward, and the initiative she showed to get that vision in front of faces. She compiled a literal box full of chapbooks by seven amazing writers, and sold out of the entire run. I loved what she did with that project, and it gave me full trust in her ability to take those same sensibilities to print books. It’s punk, I love it. I believe it fills a very specific niche that hasn’t been covered, yet.
Almost 100% funded already, how could future donations help Broken River Books with stretch goals?
The stretch goal I’d really love to reach would be $10,000. At that point, I’d be able to pay authors 5 cents a word for their contributions toThe Broken River Annual, a novel-sized “magazine” of short stories, essays, comics, and film criticism. I have a lot of great writers on tap for that, and it would please me to give them more than $50 per story. Moving forward from that, Broken River will be able to set up a legitimate office, where Michael Kazepis (who’s running the phenomenal King Shot Press) and Constance can set up shop, with me, and begin to go about the business of being heard
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