Arcadia Publishing and The History Press, publishers of books on local and regional history and interests, have acquired publishing services company Palmetto Publishing Group. With the acquisition, they have also launched a new "hybrid" imprint, Vertel.
PPG, which based in Charleston, S.C., will continue to be overseen by its founder, Michael Shannon II. Since PPG works with indie authors who are self-publishing, taking no royalties, the company does not have a backlist. It was the services that PPG offered which were of interest to Arcadia. As Shannon put it: "When Arcadia purchased Palmetto, they were not purchasing titles, they were purchasing a service-based publisher in an emerging market."
While PPG publishes books of many stripes, Vertel, a "local, regional hybrid publishing division" will remain in Arcadia and History Press's wheelhouse, Shannon said. The imprint will operate as something of a farm team for the group, with titles that, according to Arcadia, "show promise" eligible to be published as part of Arcadia or History Press's catalogs.
"If we find books that are submitted to Vertel...but could fit with Arcadia or the History Press, they're going to get automatically moved up," Shannon said.] If they fit with neither—that is, if the book is, say, a fantasy, rather than a historical or regional title—PPG would publish the book.
Richard Joseph, Arcadia's CEO, elaborated how Vertel will work. “These are titles that do not fit into our current publishing model due to the population or local retail climate," he said. "Instead of sending the authors away, we want to continue to provide them with the highest quality product, customer service and help preserve worthy pieces of history by using an alternative model."
