Publishing chaos: SPD Books to Close
I referenced in earlier piece how hard it is to get published if you are a minority writer.
But even worse is how publishing itself is shrinking. RIP to Small Press Distribution. You might not know that in publishing you need a distributor — who else gets the books to stores? For smaller independent presses, they depended on organization like… Small Press Distribution, which would be able to provide a service for many small publishers that couldn’t do it on its own.
And don’t forget that many big books, like Pulitzer winners, start our with small independent books, like Emily. St. John Mandel who wrote the famous Station Eleven, started out with a small press, Unbridled Books. For several novels until she hit it big with Station Eleven, which as your probably know was also made into a movie.
So it’s something to think about, readers, what DO we value? If you loved Station Eleven the movie, it wouldn’t have been here without the novel, and without the small press to get her started, none of this would be here!
RIP SPD.
Small Press Distribution
1969–2024
It is with great sadness and a profound gratitude for the amazing literary community we have served that we must today announce that Small Press Distribution (SPD) is closing its doors effective immediately. We know this news is both sudden and devastating.
For more than five decades, SPD has distributed books for hundreds of independent literary publishers, allowing thousands of writers to bring diverse, experimental, and disruptive literature to audiences across the globe. SPD’s impact on the literary world over the past 55 years is hard to overstate. Against all odds, a tiny distribution service in the back of Berkeley’s Serendipity Books grew to help authors attain some of the literary world’s crowning achievements. SPD-distributed authors won multiple National Book Awards, Pulitzer Prizes, MacArthur “Genius” Grants, PEN Awards, Lambda Literary Awards–nearly 100 awards since 2019 alone.
Unfortunately, these accolades were no match for the challenges of a rapidly changing book industry and funding environment. Several years of declining sales and the loss of grant support from almost every institution that annually supported SPD have combined to squeeze our budget beyond the breaking point. SPD lost hundreds of thousands in grants in the past few years as funders moved away from supporting the arts. The tireless efforts of a world-class staff to raise new funds, find new sales channels for our presses, and exit our expensive Berkeley warehouse couldn’t compensate for these losses. SPD exhausted every avenue in seeking emergency funding and loans to avoid the shutdown.
Publishers: We are honored that you have let us steward your works and authors for these past five decades. Our inventory of 300,000 books is in safe hands, having been transferred to our SPD Next partners Ingram Content Group and Publishers Storage and Shipping (PSSC) over the past several months. You will need to contact Ingram or PSSC to discuss distribution options and the return or disposition of your books. Please see our other, publisher-only email for the appropriate contact information.
The SPD staff has been reduced to a minimal team that is in the process of winding down operations. We regret they are not able to respond to individual queries.
We are so privileged to have worked in the center of the literary community for so many decades. SPD has connected small presses and their authors to readers around the world for more than half a century. SPD was founded in 1969 by Bay Area independent booksellers Peter Howard and Jack Shoemaker, starting with just eight small presses and reaching a peak of more than five hundred. Generations of devoted staffers gave it their all.
Everyone at SPD is heartbroken at this devastating outcome, which seriously jeopardizes the ability of underrepresented literary communities to reach the marketplace. We thank you for your years of support.
