Two-Way Street

Last winter, Writer's Digest profiled Komenar Publishing. Hits on our Web site doubled and tripled. E-mails and calls increased by 15%. Submissions doubled and threatened to triple. This when Komenar publishes only two new titles a year. The deluge was amazing, satisfying... and frustrating.

Columnist Jordan Rosenfeld presented Komenar as a practical yet idealistic, approachable company. Passionate about good reads. Using traditional and innovative approaches to advance book sales. Very writer friendly, providing editors to polish away common faults of first-time novelists.

People called, asking for me by first name, as if they were old friends, to converse about writing and the industry. E-mailers declared our “oneness” with their own ambitions. Submissions included “at long last” cover letters telling of the relief writers felt in finding a publisher they were confident was as passionate as they. Everyone shared hearty support along with hopeful expectations that we would be their salvation.

But I hadn't raised Komenar from a flood of publishing options and a mass of fellow publishers for any simple reason—though I knew we had targeted ourselves for authors-in-waiting to set manuscript-arrows in flight in our direction. Instead, I had hoped readers and writers would realize that we are a community sharing common goals. That in providing some good old-fashioned support for writers and their books, we in turn would become something more than a destination for manuscripts, an audience for a pitch or a FEMA for writers who had made bad choices. I expected people to read excerpts of our books, maybe realize that we publish some extraordinary novels. Maybe buy a book or ask a library to provide them with a copy to read. Maybe help sustain a small publisher they saw as valuable. To adopt, as we had, the maxim: a rising tide floats all boats.

Unfortunately, that isn't happening. Even a simple increase in sales above our normal sales growth is not apparent at any level, even libraries, as a result of that article. The same thing occurs after every writers' conference, group and panel appearance or free one-on-one consultation with editorial comments most writers claim are helpful and generous. That means too many writers want us to publish their manuscript and focus solely on what we can do for them. They aren't looking at the cool fact that supporting our ability to meet business goals enables us to meet theirs.

Years ago, I submitted a short story to Howard Junker at Zyzzyva. He returned my story with “an invitation to subscribe” to his magazine. I thought that was funny because I regularly purchased his magazine at the now-defunct Cody's on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley. Then again, how was Mr. Junker to know?

But a fellow writer, a PEN/Faulkner award-winning author, was angered by the subscription card returned with his manuscript. Who was this guy? Didn't he know that writers just scraped by? Well, that writer wasn't “just scraping by.” Nor did he want to invest in the ongoing success of Zyzzyva, something he should have recognized as essential to writers.

At a writers' conference panel, I interjected that authors could best get the attention of booksellers if they bought a book and then, at the cash register, asked about the store's policies for carrying new titles. After all, those authors were there to press their economic and artistic needs, and booksellers (my husband is one) are like everyone else out there. Show respect and appreciation for their need to make a living, and they would, in turn, work with you. A simple formula to make everyone successful.

Three writers laughed at me outright. Two put their heads together and snickered. The third told me she wasn't made of money and I was an idiot. That memory comes back to me now. And it should. A friend of mine likes to counsel: you can't squeeze the flower to make it grow. In other words, don't expect Komenar's success to depend on the very population who counts on us for theirs. After all, my passion to publish good new fiction and develop new writers may be praiseworthy, but this is the arts. Basic business realities are for your day job.