S263. Why Indie Presses Are Opening Bookstores

Grand Salon A, Marriott Waterside, Second Floor
Saturday, March 10, 2018
4:30 pm to 5:45 pm

 

An increasing number of independent presses are going into the retail book business, morphing into full-service community hubs for book browsing and expanded literary programming. Some see retail floor space as an opportunity to bring more customers and supporters to their front doors. Others see it as an important source of income. This panel, with representatives of three thriving presses, will examine how they did it, whether it’s working, what they hope to achieve, and what they've learned.


Participants

Moderator:

Sally Bradshaw is the owner and operator of Midtown Reader, an independent bookstore in Tallahassee, Florida. Bradshaw opened Midtown Reader in an attempt to provide wide ranging content and programming that provides civil discourse in Florida's capital. Midtown Reader is a New York Times reporting store.

Betsy Teter is the founder of the Hub City Writers Project, a nonprofit literary arts organization in Spartanburg, South Carolina. For twenty-two years, she has been the editor of Hub City Press, which publishes new and extraordinary voices from the American South. Hub City Press has eighty titles in print.

Daniel Slager is the Publisher & CEO of Milkweed Editions, an independent literary press based in Minneapolis. Previously, Slager was an editor at Harcourt in New York, and the associate editor of Grand Street, a quarterly magazine of literature and art. He is also a widely published translator.

Victor David Giron is publisher of Chicago-based award-winning indie press Curbside Splendor Publishing. Curbside Splendor was founded in 2010, and secured distribution in 2013 with Consortium Book Sales & Distribution. In 2016, Curbside opened Curbside Books & Records in Chicago's Loop.

#AWP24

February 7–10, 2024
Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City Convention Center