After 15 years, Zoland Books in Cambridge, Mass., will cease publishing new titles following release of its fall list. Fittingly, the four books on the list, which have just been shipped, reflect the range of Zoland's publishing program from the start. The list includes a first novel by Jeff Rackham, The Rag & Bone Shop, which received a starred review in PW; poetry—Fugue State by Bill Berkson and Sheepshead Bay by Boston poet Ed Barrett; and essays and reviews by William Corbett, All Prose.
Founder and publisher Roland Pease plans to actively promote these books; paperback rights have already been sold to Penguin Books for the Rackham book. Given his commitment to keeping books in print—many of Zoland's titles have been in print for a decade or more—Pease has made arrangements with Zoland's distributor, Consortium, to continue to sell the backlist to the trade. Zoland books will also be available directly on the www.zolandbooks.com Web site and at its West Cambridge offices.
"We won't have a frontlist," Pease told PW. "I've been working hard as long as I could and fighting the good fight. The business has always been uphill and a challenge. I like a challenge, but the economics are such that financially there is only so much you can do with literary work." For now, Pease plans to work on his own fiction and poetry.
Zoland was founded in 1987 and had a total of about eight employees. It published over 125 books, including the first three works of fiction by National Book Award winner Ha Jin: In the Pond, Under the Red Flag and Ocean of Words.
