Tin House Editor Rob Spillman Spills All to Poets & Writers

Tin House editor and writer Rob Spillman is interviewed at Poets & Writers! "Spillman entered the book industry the old-fashioned way: with a much-loved job at a used bookstore in high school," writes Michael Szczerban. Now he's here to talk about his coming-of-age memoir, All Tomorrow’s Parties, which was released by indie publisher Grove Atlantic this past April. They also discuss Spillman's early days in the publishing industry, what it's like for Tin House now that they're up to issue 67, the magazine's approach to gender balance, the contemporary state of independent publishing, and more. Here's some:

What’s the downside of your position as an independent publisher?
On the book side, it’s always depressing when a book doesn’t find an audience. It happens. Our goal is to have everything stay in print, so we keep it in print and hope for a long life, that people will come back to it. On the magazine side, the hardest thing is rejecting good work and people that you like personally. I’ve been doing it for a long time now, so I reject my friends all the time, and that is a crappy part of the job.

One of the things that I love about indie publishing is that it is a very tight, small community, and we are all rooting for each other. When I’m on the road, the things that I talk about tend to be other indie presses’ books. I think I’ve hand-sold more copies of Maggie Nelson’s Bluets than any other book. I’ve physically put that in a couple hundred people’s hands now, and that’s from Wave Books. It’s like being in the coolest, nerdiest book group. You get to hang out with and hear what people like Ethan Nosowsky at Graywolf are excited about. I feel very lucky to exist in the same plane with them.

Do you look to anybody as a role model?
Barney Rosset, for the way he mixed incredible literary work with revolutionary politics. He’s responsible for publishing Samuel Beckett but also the diaries of Che Guevara. The iconic image of Guevara was from the cover of that book. He was firebombed by the FBI and blacklisted. He’s definitely a hero. Fiona McCrae at Graywolf is a contemporary hero for the way she’s able to consistently bring in very high quality work and be a champion of her authors over the long haul.

Do you have any advice for people who are thinking about getting into independent publishing?
You have to really love it. If you aren’t incredibly passionate about it, walk away right now. If you’re doing it for money, you’re doing it wrong. If you’re really passionate about it and you don’t care about money, then go for it.

I would also emphasize that the whole business is predicated on relationships, and it’s a small world—for good and for bad. I’ve gotten so much work by just being punctual and clean and not being an asshole. The assholes get weeded out very quickly. Because you’re not doing it for money, you can choose who you want to work with. I’ve gotten work just from writing a thank-you note, just common courtesy. It just goes a long way. Be persistent, but recognize the fine line between being persistent and overbearing. Be able to go with the flow.

I think you have to have an open mind about patching together something that doesn’t look like your traditional forty-hour workweek. It’s an all-consuming, multihyphenate set of roles. You’re throwing yourself into an ecosystem, and to keep that ecosystem alive you need to contribute to it in different ways. Most people I know do many things in this field...

Read it all at Poets & Writers.