How Does the Nobel Change A Small Press?

(With the news that this year's Nobel prize went to Jean-Marie Le Clezio, an author completely unrepresented in the U.S. by large publishers, I was curious to see what kind of effect this would have on one of the small publishers that do publish his work Stateside. What would a small press do to make the most of its virtual monopoly on the 2008 Nobel laureate? And how would it react to Simon & Schuster's plans to rush out a new Le Clezio book for the December 10 award speech?

Last week I conducted an email exchange with Daniel E. Pritchard of Godine, which has published Le Clezio's novel The Prospector in English since 1983. Besides working in production at Godine, Pritchard is a writer, translator, and publishing professional from Boston. He publishes a blog, The Wooden Spoon, and is a founding member of the Boston Poetry Union. Daniel's upcoming projects are a website of literary criticism and culture, The Critical Flame, and his first collection of verse.)

SE: To start out, I’d like to ask some general questions about Godine. From your website, I know that Godine was founded in 1970 and is based in Boston. Most of the press coverage has identified Godine as a "small press." How many people work there?

DP: You're going to laugh. Inclusive of the three seasonal unpaid interns, there are a dozen of us at Godine, with the editorial offices in Boston and warehouse/distribution center in New Hampshire. And yet, we never have fewer than two Jennifers working here at any given time.

SE: About how many books do you publish per year?

DP: We publish around 30 new titles each year, and have a backlist that refuses to accept the term “Out of Print.” They just keep moving, even if it's slow.

SE: Is literary fiction Godine's primary focus?

Our only focus is on good books—the Godine slogan is "Books that matter, for people who care"—and it is a very honest ethic, as corny as it may sound. We do photography books, children's books, literary fiction, typography, biography, translation, cook books, humor and gift, and of course "other." There is definitely something that is essential to Godine, but I have no idea how to explain it: it all comes from David [R. Godine’s] tastes. I'd say if you can't find a Godine book you like, there's a chance you don't like books at all. Especially since we've acquired Black Sparrow.

SE: Godine publishes Le Clezio’s novel The Prospector. Have you read it?

DP: I really enjoyed it, which was surprising only because I knew a bit about his style and it isn't normally what I'm drawn towards. But it is beautifully written, and translated, and by the end the book has led you to a kind of . . . well, I liked it and I'll leave it at that. The best way to know is just to read it. And if you can't buy it, ask your library to order it. They do that. Free books! The Boston Public Library is practically my living room.

SE: How exactly did Godine find out that Le Clezio was the recipient? Was this something the publisher was following closely beforehand?

DP: I found out that morning from the NY Times website, I think. And I believe Gallimard called David at his house to let him know. We had no idea it was coming, none at all. It was a huge shock.

SE: What was the atmosphere like on the day it was announced? Did you get a lot of normal business done, or was it pretty much all Le Clezio?

DP: We got done what had to get done that day, but we spent most of it taking phone calls and orders, responding to emails, that sort of thing. It was hectic but celebratory. David was at temple because it was Yom Kippur so he was out of touch for the morning and I had never read the book so all these people from the NY Times and Publishers Weekly wanted to know about it and I—well I was an ignoramus. So I read the book between tasks and overnight that night, but by the time I had answers David was back and I resumed my usual relative-unknown status. It was fun though. We all felt like we had won something.

SE: Sounds like the Swedish Academy should note the holiday in the future. Beyond the NY Times, PW, and other print publications, was there much interest from blogs or web-based media?

DP: Not a lot of web media. A few emails from people with whom I'd been in contact online, but overall I think bloggers and web people are still tepid. I think they feel like the poor kid in a room full of yuppies. I can relate to that. But it is a shame, because they're nearly in charge of book culture in America, and they hardly even know it. Well, you're certainly aware of the change, and do a great job with your sites. But if a blogger is getting 2,000 visitors over a month, that's probably not so different from a local book section in terms of effect, and it’s needed now that the newspapers are dying left and right.

SE: You've mentioned elsewhere that at the time the Nobel was announced, Godine had about 400 copies of The Prospector, out of 6,000 originally published 15 years ago. You've since gone back to press on a paperback edition. What's the run on this, and what have orders like been so far?

DP: That's right, we had 400 copies of The Prospector in stock to ship that day—thank God we print with quality material, or it all probably would've been unsalable after 15-odd years. Our books practically don't age; it's astounding. Someday a goat herder will find them in ancient clay pots in mountain caves. Now we're reprinting the hardcover and producing a new softcover as fast as a little house can, doing what is probably a modest run by the big-boys' standards; it's hard to say in this climate what kind of sales a book like this will get over the course of a year, especially where we don't have marketing capabilities as extensive as the conglomerates. Godine doesn't have a newspaper or movie studio or a radio station. Plus this is our first Nobel. Notice I say first. We're such optimistic folk. A big house would probably print something like five hundred thousand books, make a movie with Russell Crowe, and pulp whatever copies remain. (That's a depressing site if you've never seen it: pulping books; a sin.) The back orders are really strong, in the two to five thousand range for both the hardcover and the softcover, rising, and we expect it to pick up some more in November and December. I'm hopeful that we'll be reprinting again when his next novel, Desert, comes out in 2009.

SE: Could you generalize a little about the kinds of new bookstores this announcement has brought to Godine? Are they largely coming to you? Are they making large buys or just sticking a toe in to test the water?

DP: I think most of the stores are independents that we just hadn't been in contact with, who now have a name to google; you know, the industry just turns them over and over so we do our best but it’s impossible to keep track perfectly. Most people know David. There are a lot of stores going out of business but at the same time there are new ones being opened, too. Mayhem. A lot has to do with physical distance—we don't get down to Texas, Tennessee, Iowa, Indiana, for example, as much. For purely practical reasons. They're big places. It's very spread out, and David is our primary salesperson for the most part, so he ends up driving for hours and hours to make appointments. It's hard. He'll visit a city on his way from place to place as its possible. And then chains have obviously contacted us. I think B&N called towards the end of the day that Thursday Le Clezio won and ordered every copy we had left. Because they knew it was only like 100 books by then! No one is diving in, I don't think, and we don't expect them to do that in this economy. I think if they have a good showing on the books they DO buy, they'll come back.

SE: Simon & Schuster has pretty aggressive plans to publish a number of Le Clezio's older titles. Is this something Godine is taking into consideration moving forward?

DP: I heard that rumor. In the NY Times I also read—well, I think I did—that Anne-Solange Noble at Gallimard was really running the hard bargain on US publishers, not even discussing Le Clezio's newest titles before they agreed to go ahead with his older ones. Good for her. It's smart for the houses because they build a list (which seems like a lost art form altogether these days), and it's also good for the author, and good for the United States—it might be a fair complaint, that we're too damn insular here.

SE: Do you feel like Godine has an advantage vis a vis presses like S&S because it had Le Clezio in print when the announcement was made and thus has been a part of the press coverage of the Nobel?

DP: I'm not sure what effect S&S will have on Godine as far as Le Clezio goes. There isn't anything good about running out of books so quickly (it'd be nice if the Nobel people would call us a few weeks beforehand), although we will be able to fill those back orders before the Schuster title comes out. So that's good; we won't lose anything and there's no extra competition or anything. I'm not sure it would've mattered anyway. But S&S will probably release the book at a lower price than Le Clezio's other titles on the market now; they'll take out ads in all the major periodicals, run an Amazon ad campaign, buy some expensive rack space in the chain stores. Which is nice, for them, it'll sell their title. Might even sell a couple of our titles by osmosis. But already having him in print when the announcement was made has gotten us a lot of good press. Motoko Rich shadowed David at Frankfurt and that was in the Times. We're getting new bookstore accounts and more interest in our other translated titles—it's the kind of publicity you can't buy. We had a tough time with some of the translated work that wasn't up for course adoption. But it makes sense, now—the interest in translated titles. You know: who'll be next? Because of course it'll be a Godine author, haha.

No, but there are some important authors on the list that are generally unknown in the US, and people are definitely more willing now because of the Nobel to take a little risk on an author they don't know. Maybe they're feeling adventurous in general, or maybe they never would have before. Hard to say. But if the general reader thinks of Godine as a house where they can get really good translations of great books, where they trust our judgment—which is really David's judgment to a large extent—then that's good for us and, really, I think it's true. Trust is part and parcel of being a small publisher.

SE: Which Godine titles are you trying to gain a little more exposure for via Le Clezio's coattails?

DP: Hmm. I hate that term—riding on coattails. It seems sort of vulgar, don't know why. But it is the way the industry works now. It's sort of what the idea of building a list is all about, and it's what I meant by trust before. This book is good, so maybe these are as well. It's the publisher's job to make sure that's true to some extent and not just to push any old book into the reader's hand for a buck. I would love people to read more Georges Perec. He's taught all over the country so I think the momentum is growing but he hasn't gone over to the general reader. A fun, inventive, clever author—his novel A Void has no use of the letter e, in either the original French or the English translation, and it is still a book that stands up to being read all the way through, amazingly. And Life a User's Manual is such a great book, an almost Joycean sort of achievement. Almost. Patrick Modiano too is such a good author, right there with Le Clezio in a lot of ways, and maybe just a bit like DeLillo. We have Isaac Babel and Jose Donoso as well, both masters in their own right but still too little known. To sum up, all of them. Buy one of everything! Haha

SE: You mentioned you have Le Clezio’s novel Desert coming out in 2009, which obviously was in the works before the Nobel announcement. Is Godine looking to build up its backlist of Le Clezio?

DP: Right, Desert comes out in 2009, we're shooting for spring, and that's with the editor and the translator right now. Hopefully Le Clezio will become a solid backlist author, who sells well every year and becomes a kind of cornerstone. We have a number of those, they're our bread and butter. I don't know if we have plans to acquire more titles; I heard David say he's considering a children's book but I don't know where he is with that. It's probably hard to compete, in acquisitions, with big companies who have such large budgets. It would be great to develop a list of his titles, I think, but it's hard to do. You have to be equal parts lucky and clever. Like most times, I guess, we'll see. See where the opportunities are, just take them as they come.

SE: So, bottom line. How large of an impact is the Nobel going to have? In terms of impacting operations, is there a comparable event in Godine's history that you can think of?

DP: It's a big deal. Rich mahogany, leather-bound books, all that. Godine is really out in the middle of it for the first time in a while. I think with an even playing field this would be a huge boon for us: we'd be able to take on some big, expensive projects that would be out of reach otherwise, renovate some of our operations as well. But, things being as they are, I'd say no one is entirely sure. It is definitely a boost at a time when we can all use it (I just saw that disheartening article on HarperCollins' recent struggles) but whether The Prospector will stay in the public eye long-term is tough to gauge, when the public doesn't seem to be focusing on literature and the purse strings are tightening. The only other book on our list (as far as I know) with this level of achievement is Richard Howard's translation of Les Fleurs du Mal, which won the American Book Award for Translation and, as a result of that recognition, has been a strong backlist title ever since for both the general reader and for course adoption, and collectors—for a book of translated poetry (even Baudelaire) it's remarkable. I don't think it is a stretch to hope for the same for Le Clezio, that people will be interested in these titles for a long time.

SE: Are there any of the other recent Nobel winners that you've particularly enjoyed?

DP: Of the recent Nobel winners—let's say the last ten—I'd already read half: Pamuk, Coetzee, Naipaul, Grass, and Saramago. All deserving recipients, I thought. Coetzee's Disgrace is one of my favorite books, he could've won for just that. Lessing I'd heard of but never read; as well Pinter and Xianjiang. Jelinek, I'm a blank slate, embarrassingly. Not bad for a Yank though! The Nobel gets a bad rap here, because it's touted as this all-time great artist list, but they still focus on authors who are trying to imbue their work with a type of meaning—be it ethical, moral, social or political—and that's gone a bit out of style here. Maybe not just in the US. But it's noble (no pun intended) to believe in the power of art, because it implies the power of people as well, individually and as societies. It isn't necessary—I mean, for a work to still be great art; there's certainly great works that are centrally aesthetic—but it's really what the Nobel Prize is about, at least to my understanding.

SE: Is Godine looking at how the Nobel has impacted small American publishers in the recent past, either for strategies or pitfalls?

DP: I'm not sure that small presses will have it as good as this year any time soon. Lessing was with HarperCollins, I think. Pamuk a Vintage author. Pinter at Grove Atlantic, who seem on the smaller side of the big boys. I'm not sure if there's a useful model for us, particularly. We'd love their help, if they're feeling generous! A bit of marketing would make a nice Christmas present? No, no, it is something we're thinking about. Planning as best we're able, and I know David has talked to other publishing folk about what to expect and timeframes, that sort of thing. But treating books as if they're interchangeable commodities is a tricky game, so I think you have to look at the author and think about their specific readership too.

SE: Regardless of size of house, what particular factors do you think are at work for Le Clezio? Are you trying to differentiate him from other laureates? Or just go for the Nobel brand and make him more of an interchangeable commodity?

DP: What makes Le Clezio appealing to the Nobel people, from their statements, is the trans-national scope of his work. He is interested in the cultures of places, but those places aren't necessarily defined by the borders of nations as much as by shared languages and values. It is very tied to the way cultures are developing in a globalized world, and it reflects on the state of Europe right now as well, trying to reconcile fiercely independent national cultures with the possible homogenizing effects of the Union. I'm not sure that differentiation specifically, and certainly not interchangeability, is really the goal. What I take you to mean is the struggle to put the right books in people's hands. If you like this, try this; or, this is new and different, try it. It goes beyond quality and enters the realm of taste, and that's difficult. It isn't as if Le Clezio has no authors like him, but I shy away from bunching authors together too much. Especially with an author whose career has been as long and prolific as his. I think the idea is that if you can get across the type of book it is (cover art and ad copy, reviews, etc. all do this), the feeling and the tone, the themes and the ideas, the qualities of the writing, that readers will recognize their own tastes, or be intrigued.