Some members may be interested in this article from The Atlantic, entitled Why American Publishing Needs Indie Presses.
This made sense to me. A bit weird to see them claim that 80% of books are produced by the Big 5 - I think they must be ignoring e-books for this stat to be true. Still, I totally agree that smaller publishers are a great opportunity to avoid homogenisation and support writers who take chances. I think most people who work at the big houses love books, but I think people working at the smaller houses really love books. That's a good kind of person to work with!
I suspect they meant 80% of the money spent goes to the big five (even though that's not likely right either). It's like when they talk about movie success in box office dollars rather than number of tickets sold. Neither one really gives an accurate picture.
The hyperlink for the stat is the Graywolf Press mission page, which seems a bit sloppy. I mean, this is The Atlantic - they can't fact check with original, reliable sources? But that's a bit of a sidetrack, obviously. The Big 5 put out a significant proportion of the books in bookstores - I'll totally agree to that! ETA: I just checked the comments on the article - seems like several people are questioning some of the facts/analysis. But, yes, indie publishers are valuable!
I believe in what an Indy publisher can provide. So long as it is done with as much professionalism as possible. While one might excuse a poor cover, or even bad editing in a self published book, that is never acceptable from a publisher, no matter how small. However, I have seen many books from indy publishers that are, in my opinion, poorly executed on a number of levels. My advice for anyone seeking a smaller press (which I totally recommend) is to look at their catalog. If you can find fault with what they have produced so far, you will probably not be happy with your book either, if they had a hand in it.
It's also generally a good idea to check out their sales numbers on an independent source. Assuming the publisher is aimed at a North American market, go to salesrankexpress.com and type in the publisher's name, select "kindle" from the format area, then skim the first few pages of results looking at Amazon sales rank #s. In my genres, I hope for a good small publisher to have at least a book or two in the triple digits, five or six in the four-digit range, and quite a few in the five-digit range. If I don't see anything until the six-digit range I figure I can do at least as well by self-publishing. Anything in the millions is effectively out of print. ETA: These expectations will vary from genre to genre, I think. And some small publishers seem to focus more on print than e-books, so maybe you'd want to try to get your hands on the BookScan numbers--agents can get those, but I don't know if they're sorted to give you a full picture of a publisher or just of individual books. I don't know where you should go to check sales on books not aimed at the North American market, but I'd try to find somewhere, because having a good cover and editing are definitely important, but the main goal is to get books into the hands of readers.
