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Welcome. I was inspired by the folks in the Alphabet Challenge and the Fine Press collectors. I find the future of digital books a rather depressing thought. Hopefully, the pursuit of interesting books from a variety of printers will lead us to a few fun twists and turns.

This sounds like a really interesting idea. There's no reason mom-and-pop publishers shouldn't be able to compete in the marketplace as far as I can tell. To be honest though, I rather rarely pay attention to the publisher and more to the content. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to build awareness of who the little guys are. Are there listings somewhere? Or perhaps the group can build a listing of small-time publishers/printers as we read along. Cool idea and thanks for the invite varielle!

I know in some of the collecting groups there are folks who specialize in collecting from obscure, obsolete or small presses. I will ask around to see if anyone knows of a comprehensive list of publishers.

One list of publishers. It doesn't get down to some of the really small ones or the obsolete and near forgotten ones.

http://www.publishersglobal.com/directory/list-publishing-countries.asp

Wonderful!

What a great idea for a challenge, varielle!

I'm in too many challenges already so I don't know if I'll actually do a personal challenge here, but I'll certainly follow your group with delight.

I just uploaded a more colorful printer pic. Let me know if you come across any cool pics of interesting printers and we'll redecorate occasionally.

Speaking of a tiny press operation- Tinkers which recently won the fiction Pulitzer was published by Bellevue Literary Press, which was started in 2005. It's part of New York University's School of medicine and publishes eight titles per year. They operate with a small budget. Only two of those are fiction. Roughly, they have published ten works of fiction. Now they've won a Pulitzer.

The last small press to win the fiction Pulitzer was Louisiana State University Press in 1981 for A Confederacy of Dunces.

Here's a list of small presses from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_language_small_presses

I don't quite understand what's up with the group pics, but I know there's some debate and ours seems to have disappeared. I'll will drag up another printing press pic shortly.

I have a friend who runs a struggling small press. Does anyone know of a source for grants for such an enterprise?

I have been a slacker admin. Please welcome new member Travis.Dunn.