Projective Industries at Entropy!

The editors of Projective Industries--a great, small, "breathless" press based in Chicago and New York--are interviewed at Entropy! Stephanie Anderson, Kate McIntyre, and Karen Lepri talk influences, aesthetic, forthcoming books, other exciting small/independent press publishing, and finances. An excerpt:

What about small/independent press publishing is particularly exciting to you right now?

It’s so great that small presses are currently receiving well-deserved credit for their work. We’ve seen some chapbook presses shutter their doors, which is sad, but there are also lots of new and exciting presses starting up. And that’s part of the beauty of the thing, the proliferation and ephemerality inscribed into these scenes and book objects. In fact, small press publishing is increasingly becoming the model, as technological changes allow for new modes of production and as presses move toward a smaller ethos with the increasing quality of print-on-demand. The possibilities for small publishers are really proliferating right now.

We also think the presses that have been around for a while are starting to feel that there’s enough support right now to stretch and evaluate and experiment. We are close press-buddies with DoubleCross Press, and their new series of shorter, all-letterpress chapbooks is exquisite.

How do you cope? There’s been a lot of conversation lately about charging reading fees, printing costs, rising book costs, who should pay for what, etc. Do you have any opinions on this, and would you be willing to share any insights about the numbers at Projective Industries?

Costs of operation are no joke—and ours went up quite a bit when we started letterpressing a few years ago. But we raised our prices to cover the difference—though we still try to keep them as low as possible. We really feel that production costs should not be passed on to the author, even at the prospective author stage. Our open reading period will stay free. We just don’t expect to make money at this. It takes a fair amount of privilege to be able to say that, but we all have day jobs. And we care about investing in our community. We’ll keep doing it until we can’t afford to.

Inspiring. Read it all here.