SURVIVAL OF THE SMALL PRESS

Maintaining independence in the arena of conglomerate publishers.

You think independent booksellers have it tough?

HA!

On a good day, author/editor/publishers David A. Ross and Kelly Huddleston from Escape Media Publishers review new manuscript submissions, check and change glitches on their company¡¯s Web site, start or continue edits on upcoming books, keep the books, write contracts, control inventory, negotiate with wholesalers, shippers and printers, and spend hours researching possible ways to further promote their titles.

Then evening sets in, and they hit the phones in their small but sturdy abode in Greece, calling up to fifty chain and independent bookstores in the USA and Canada each night to, in the best sense of the word, implore booksellers to carry, display, and promote their front-list, mid-list, and back-list titles.

Why Greece? Because, as David Ross tells it, ¡°These days the USA has become a rather inhospitable place for artists. The push for money and position has taken over everything, and art has suffered dramatically, not only literature, but film and music as well. So we came to Greece, a very civil country with a long and unquestioned cultural heritage. We run our business by internet and telephone, dealing with writers and retailers and trades people from all over the world.¡± They do, however, maintain a shipping and receiving department in the USA staffed by two dedicated (and vested) employees.

¡°We outsource what we cannot do ourselves: cover design, printing, and distribution,¡± informs Ross, the founder of Escape Media Publishers, which he started in 1998 as a vanity press to publish his first novel, The Trouble with Paradise, and later expanded by publishing two more of his own novels before taking on partner Kelly Huddleston, who is also author of one trade fiction title, The Perfect Pearl. Recently, Escape Media has entered the ¡®next stage¡¯ of small press publishing by releasing titles by two authors not previously associated with the publisher. ¡°I started as many other self publishers start, simply wanting to see my work in print,¡± says Ross. ¡°Now our company is paying out royalties to other authors. But high quality remains the touchstone of our effort. It always will; that¡¯s our credo. There are already too many publishers willing to bring mediocre work to the marketplace; we intend to buck that trend. We may not make a big score with every publication, but, in the end, we will be known for the literary excellence of our books.¡±

All well and good, but as a fledgling publisher, Escape Media constantly operates on a shoestring budget, robbing Peter to pay Paul, and competing for product recognition in the sometimes brutal arena of conglomerate publishers. ¡°We cannot possibly circulate the volume of material that the big publishing houses do,¡± says Ms. Huddleston, designer and keeper of the company¡¯s vast Web site, ¡°so we don¡¯t try to do what they do. Instead, we publish a book that we intend to live with. That¡¯s one thing we offer writers that large houses often do not offer: we keep books in print. We live and die by what we publish, so we take care at every step of the process.¡±

Still, promotion of the company¡¯s books (beyond the word of mouth) remains a challenge. ¡°We cannot buy space in People Magazine or USA Today,¡± says Kelly Huddleston as she closes an MS word file containing the latest manuscript submission. ¡°Our authors are not likely to be invited as guests by David Letterman or Conan O¡¯Brien. We rely heavily on booksellers to get out the word to their customers. We consider the retailers who sell our books (from the mom and pop bookshop on Main Street to the ¡®biggest of the big¡¯ superstore/caf¨¦ shopping mall satellite) to be our biggest allies. And they are great people¨Dall across the spectrum. We respect them, and we trust them. And we hope that they come to recognize Escape Media as a high-quality independent press¨Done that they, too, can respect and trust.¡±

Dedicated to quality fiction and non-fiction titles, here are Escape Media Publishers fall titles:

Uncle Dirty by Mike Morey
Publication date: 10 October 2003
General fiction
ISBN: 0966186192

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Heather Saywell has an artistic talent that she has failed to develop in any formal way. She also has a penchant for voicing opinions that might be better left unsaid. On her sixteenth birthday, after a fight with her mother, Heather escapes the small town tedium of Cornwall, Ontario, only to settle on the seamy streets of Toronto. Afterward, she moves in with her Uncle Odie, a good-hearted, ostensibly blind, and somewhat lecherous resident of twenty-three Fuller Street, a rundown row house that could be best described as a monumental disaster.

A succession of friends and acquaintances lands on the doorstep of twenty-three Fuller, each one bringing his problems and foibles, and looking for support that Heather is increasingly disinclined to give. It doesn¡¯t help that she has six part time jobs ¨C one day a week each ¨C that fill her life with some of the city¡¯s seedier characters.

One of those characters is Peter C. Galloway, a verbose wannabe Hemingway, who discovers Heather¡¯s paintings and can¡¯t resist secretly shopping them to art dealers around town. But when Heather becomes an instant hit in the Art World, she must confront her still angry mother, who suddenly reappears after a ten-year absence.

In his hilarious and often audacious first novel, Mike Morey unabashedly exposes modern-day bohemian culture, and questions the hierarchy of its sordid characters.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Mike Morey lives in Toronto, Canada. He has spent more than two decades toiling in the Canadian film industry. His short stories have appeared in Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine and The Unknown Writer. He was born in 1961, in Hamilton. He is happily married, and is very proud of his three children.

Mike Morey is available for interviews about Uncle Dirty
Contact: Kelly Huddleston at info@escapemediapublishers.com

Windblown Clouds by Thomas K. Shor
Publication date: 10 October 2003
Narrative non-fiction/travel
ISBN: 0966186184

ABOUT THE BOOK:

While Mount Pantokrator, on the Island of Corfu in Greece, might be a high mountain whose peak is shrouded in mystery, it will always remain a solitary peak, one to be scaled from any angle, never far from the sea. It is a great mountain, both conspicuous for its height and for its bareness above lush lowlands. Nevertheless, it can be scaled and crossed over.

The Himalayas present a mystery far greater. Each ridge crossed reveals a new peak, and these are only the foothills. They dwarf the mountains of the West. This chain of jagged, icy peaks pierces the very sky and separates the Indian subcontinent from Tibet, a land itself shrouded in mystery¡­

An inveterate traveler and lover of mountains and their peoples, Thomas K. Shor reveals once again the age-old dichotomy between the philosophies of West and East. First upon a mountaintop in Greece¡ªthe birthplace of Western civilization¡ªand then in the high peaks of the Indian Himalayas, he attempts to penetrate the barriers that inhibit our understanding of each philosophy.

REVIEWS:

¡°Thomas K. Shor¡¯s story reminds us that we are, or could be, travelers in a world of marvels, of love, and encounters with men and women themselves on pilgrimages of the imagination.¡±¡ªKathleen Raine, renowned and decorated late British poetess.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Thomas K. Shor was born in 1958 in Boston, Massachusetts. His first modest foray into higher elevations occurred when he went north to attend college in the Green Mountains of Vermont, where he studied comparative religion, philosophy, and mythology. Having lived high in the planet¡¯s mountainous realms in such places as Chiapas in southern Mexico, Greece, and the Indian Himalayas, it is there¡ªabove 7,000 feet¡ªthat he feels most at home collecting and writing stories. Vermont is his home base, though he spends much of his time abroad, traveling in India, Tibet, and Europe.

Thomas K. Shor is available for interviews via e-mail about Windblown Clouds
Contact: Kelly Huddleston at info@escapemediapublishers.com

Sacrifice and the Sweet Life by David A. Ross
Publication date: 10 October 2003
A collection of short stories and poems
ISBN: 0966186176

ABOUT THE BOOK:

¡°They had never felt the fall, never sensed their descent. They heard only a deafening rumble, and then there was darkness ¨C only darkness and crushing weight¡­¡±

So begins a profound and disturbing collection of eight short stories, four poems and one vignette by award-winning writer and author of four previous novels, David A. Ross.

A lonely and deranged sorcerer; a noon-time Bozo, (a local television-star); observant and bewildered tourists; angry, drunken cock-fighters; obedient anarchists; a guilt-ridden engineer; each one experiences the curious juxtaposition of the two overriding ideas contained within the collection¡¯s title, Sacrifice and the Sweet Life.

In ¡®NL Centrum,¡¯ a drug-ruined anarchist proclaims, ¡°The world theater maintains drama and tension through the perpetuation of greed and injustice and so forth¡­¡± In ¡®La Sorci¨¨re de Seillans,¡¯ a driven sculptor is obsessed to ¡°explore the space within the stones,¡± and in ¡®In Search of the Perfect Former-Communist Beach Town,¡¯ a malcontented traveler observes, ¡°Some of the locals are a bit surly, Sean, so let¡¯s try to overlook ungracious behavior. Just enjoy the shore, the rich red wine and the paprika.¡± One thing is certain as Giuvanni, the lust-ridden Florentine hotel clerk laments, ¡°In our world, sacrifice is unavoidable.¡±

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

David A. Ross was born January 6, 1953 in Chicago, Illinois. In addition to his career as a novelist, he is an accomplished musician and photographer. In addition to Sacrifice and the Sweet Life, his books include, A Winter Garden, Stones, Xenos and award-winning The Trouble with Paradise. Presently, Mr. Ross lives in Corfu, Greece.

David A. Ross is available for interviews about Sacrifice and the Sweet Life
Contact: Kelly Huddleston at info@escapemediapublishers.com