Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Hot Press(ed)

Elation continues over the Scotiabank-Giller jury's praise of Canadian fiction produced by Canadian-owned, independent presses. Now, its the market's turn to respond. For a literary press such as Gaspereau, who actually make their books in-house, the challenge is to make sure people can but a copy of The Sentimentalists (i.e. print a new edition), while keeping their fall line-up on schedule. They are one of the country's finest printers/publishers, but they are a small, tight shop.

A Quill and Quire interview sums it up:

(for) Gary Dunfield, the plan is to reprint Skibsrud’s The Sentimentalists right away, but he and co-owner Andrew Steeves aren’t sure how many copies. “We don’t have a [lot] of extra capacity … right now,” he says. “There has to be some lead time, and we’re very busy with [the fall season].”According to Dunfield, the press is going to do everything it can to capitalize on the nomination, but it can’t afford to postpone forthcoming titles. “That would be a very bad idea,” he says. “[Those titles] need to go forward. They might be next year’s Giller titles.”

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