If you are a dreamer, come in
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer...
If you're a pretender, come sit by the fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
Come in!
Come in!
You know that anxious feeling you get right before a trip? Did I pack everything, did I check the tickets, is everything in place? I get so anxious about the whole ordeal. And then, inevitably, you arrive at your destination, and sure you forgot toothpaste and need to buy a hat, but it’s not a big deal. You’re there, it’s time to make the most of the adventure.
That’s how I feel right now. I spent years thinking about a small press. The idea first came to me when I was in grad school and I started my classes on the publishing process. The publishing industry is…well, it has some flaws. As all industries do, really. It didn’t seem very friendly to adult speculative fiction writers (meaning writers who wrote adult fiction as opposed to, say, young adult fiction), particularly if those writers wanted to write stories that didn’t mirror the most popular series already on the market. I’m not saying there was no home for adult speculative fiction in the traditional publishing world, just that there weren’t many.
And then came the DOJ vs Penguin Random House in 2022. I followed that case closely, given that I was an aspiring novelist and pursuing a degree focused on writing and publishing. The revelations from that case were staggering, and it became very apparent that while traditional publishing had the advantage of benefiting from the systems already in place for their authors, the big publishing houses really don’t care that much anymore. They want to publish more authors, because if the number don’t go up you’re not being a good capitalist, but they failed so many of their authors. Over half of the titles Penguin Random House published in 2021 sold less than a dozen copies. I feel like they should have tried harder.
So I started thinking – I could try putting together an indie press. I care. I care a great deal. I want to see new stories from authors that want to share their views of fantasy. I want to see fresh takes on old tropes, a spectrum of characters from different ethnicities, a rainbow of identities and representation, and worlds that aren’t just magic versions of medieval or modern England. I talked to people, I agonized, I made plans.
And now we’re here. I forgot a couple things, and need to fix an item or two, but it’s time to make the most of this adventure.
Yours in enchantment,
Drea Talley
Ringmaster