Small presses have a long history in Philly. In fact, publishing is one of the city’s oldest industries. Just three years after its founding, the city already had its first printing press. And by the end of the 18th century, Philadelphia had become the center for book printing and publishing in the entire country, surpassing New York and Boston.
Today, centuries later, small and independent presses continue to play a vital role in the city’s literary and intellectual landscape.
Much like publishers back then who helped shape political discourse when ideas like freedom of speech were central in conceiving independence from Britain, today’s publishing houses are increasingly committed to a socially engaged, thought-provoking mission.
To them, the mission does not compromise the quality of content, but rather redefines it, prioritizing voices that have long been unheard and ensuring that publishing remains a space for meaningful encounters and dialogue.
Billy Penn spoke with five small, independent publishers to learn how they are reshaping this legacy, each with their own approach but a shared commitment to promoting diversity, creativity and sustainability.
We are sharing our conversations with them as a series of articles. So far we have spoken to Josh O’Neill (Beehive Books), Linda Gallant (The Head and the Hand), Doug Gordon (New Door Books) and Malav Kanuga (Common Notions).
So, start the presses!
What’s the story behind Paul Dry Books?
We incorporated in 1998 and started first with books that had gone out of print and which I thought should be back in print. And then slowly we started publishing new books too [in] early 2000, 2002, 2003.
What kinds of new books were you interested in publishing?
A small publisher has to be able to acquire the books that interest him or her. So it’s an overlap between what are the books you can afford to acquire and overlapping what are the books you would like to publish.
There are a lot of books you would like to publish, but you couldn’t afford the rights. And then there are many, many books you could afford the rights to, but you wouldn’t want to publish them. It’s an overlap of those two categories.
How have you managed the balance over time between the books you can acquire but wouldn’t necessarily be so interested in and the ones you would be very interested in?
Well, hopefully, you don’t spend much time on books you don’t want to acquire. You may get a manuscript and someone says, “This is really wonderful.” And you look at it and you may immediately say, “No.” You may say “no” after 10 pages or you may say “no” after 30 pages.
And is it still you who is reading the books?
There are four of us, and I would say I’m still the person that reads the books.
What are you usually looking for in a book?
I don’t know.
And do you know when you read it?
That’s right. I wouldn’t abstract ahead of time and say I want X, Y or Z.
I’ll give you an example of a book we haven’t published yet. It came about three months ago as an email attachment. It was a book about a trial that took place in Ithaca, New York, in 1883. The two people on trial were a husband and wife who had a photography studio, where people would come in and have their portraits taken. Well, they also — if you were invited into the back room by the husband and you are a man, you might be shown some girly pictures, or as they were called “French postcards.” And it was that activity that brought them into court and for which the man was put in prison for 6 months because it was bad for the public morale.
Now, we’re in Philadelphia. This is a true story, true trial. How did the couple happen to come by these photographs? They had acquired them at the Philadelphia Centennial World’s Fair. So the transcript of the trial is very interesting. A kind of candid discussion that you wouldn’t expect combined with rhetoric that seems so removed from the rhetoric today.
The woman who wrote the book, who’s in her mid-80s now, was the town historian in Ithaca for 25 years. And one day she was in one of the closets in the office reaching up for something on a shelf, and she almost tripped over a box. She looked at the box and opened it, and it was the entire transcript of the trial. And that turned her into the author of this manuscript.
How much did I read in order to decide I wanted to publish it? I probably read 10 or 12 pages and was fascinated. I thought it was wonderful local history, not local to Philadelphia, but it had this wonderful connection to Philadelphia. And I thought the author did a wonderful job trying to articulate what was it about this activity that conflicted with the town’s understood morals.
I thought this was a wonderful story in itself and then an amazing mirror to put up to ourselves. Where today, as we know, pornography is extremely available and yet we’re always deciding what is permissible or impermissible in writing and in speech.
In other words, there’s always a question of how the community sets its standards for expression and then enforces them. That never goes away. Whether it’s on the liberal side or the conservative side, how do we deal with a language that the community doesn’t approve of?
What makes a good story for you?
I try not to be too complicated. I try not to say, “I like the story, but I don’t like the form.” I just [ask myself] “Is it something I’m enjoying reading?”
What types of books does Paul Dry Books publish, and is there a particular genre you enjoy the most?
It’s open to almost anything, but when you look at the list, you say to yourself, “Oh, they’ve done a number of books of philosophy.” “Oh, they’ve done a number of books about the countries and cities around the Aegean.” In other words, one starts out without, at least I started out without being aware that I would have a niche or focus in a genre. But I seem to have abiding interests that I act on.
If someone sent me a manuscript about the history of Exxon Oil, that could be very interesting, but I might not be the one to evaluate it. We have done a handful of books about Philadelphia architecture. Not that I know about it, but here I am, and it fascinates. I like looking at our buildings.
So, in the process of publishing books, you come to discover what it is you really are attracted to, not because you said you were, but because you pick books that fell into a certain constellation of interest.
Over these decades, what is the most surprising thing you’ve realized you’re interested in?
I didn’t know I would publish a number of books that had philosophical content, but that developed because I met a woman who became an author, and she also became a kind of teacher to my wife and me. Her name is Eva Brann and we published 13 or 14 of her books.
You’ve been a publisher in Philadelphia for a long time. Have you noticed any changes in the industry over the years?
I don’t know much about publishing in Philadelphia. I know Doug Gordon, he has done the typesetting for our books for over 20 years. I know he started publishing. There’s University of Pennsylvania Press, there’s Temple University Press, there’s Quirk … But I think each press does its thing. It’s not quite related to being in Philadelphia. There may be a publishing scene in New York. If there’s one here in Philadelphia, I don’t think I’m a part of it.
How do you sustain Paul Dry Books?
Well, you hope that the sales are enough to cover the cost. Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t.
It’s very hard to sell enough books. There aren’t many independent bookstores [in Philadelphia]. Amazon has become the major seller of books in this country. Over 50% of the books that publishers sell are sold through Amazon. If the local bookstores are active, they may sell one or two of your copies, but how do they hear about your books? … It’s not easy to get the attention of book buyers. And after all, book buyers are readers. They read on the internet, they read on their Kindle. They’re always reading, but they’re also always being bombarded with suggestions of what to read, whether it’s a bound book, or a blog or whatever. It’s not easy selling books, whether you’re a press, a bookstore. There’s just a lot of competition for the reader’s time.
If someone buys a book of ours at our website, then we’re delighted to fulfill the order and take their money. And that’s a wonderful way to sell a book because you have some connection with the book buyer. You know that person has gone out of his or her way to get the book directly from the publisher. We can see if you like book X, maybe you’ll like Y. So that’s terrific when we sell a book. We make more money. The book sales were less than the list price on our website. All of the books are 20% off. And because we don’t have a distributor or bookstore, we make more money than if that person bought the book at list price from the bookstore or from Amazon.
What are some of your plans for this year or the coming years?
If you like what you’re doing, you keep doing what you like. And you hope that one book will catch on more than it might have.
The gardener puts the seeds in the soil. Not every seed grows. If you happen to be just walking along a country path and you sprinkle the seeds on the ground, most of them wouldn’t grow, but some would. Well, a publisher produces books. They don’t all thrive, but every now and then, one thrives wonderfully and kind of is a magic fulfillment of what the author and publisher hoped.
