This week we look at the announcement of a fascinating new agreement between eight small publishers that revolves around sharing shipping costs as a way to discuss the concept of cooperation in our industry; what do co-op initiatives like this do for the survival of independent publishing–or agenting, or writing, or anything else outside the industry’s largest corporate structures? We talk about how cooperation actually exists in opposition to consolidation, and the ways moves like this can actually free up the ability to take editorial and artistic risks.

Episode 176—Co-ops as the Way Forward

Print Run is a podcast created and hosted by Laura Zats and Erik Hane. Its aim is simple: to have the conversations surrounding the book and writing industries that too often are glossed over by conventional wisdom, institutional optimism, and false seriousness.
 
We’re book people, and we want to examine the questions that lie at the heart of that life: why do books, specifically, matter? In a digital world, what cultural ground does book publishing still occupy?
 
Whether it’s trends in the queries from writers that hit our inboxes or the social ramifications of an industry that pays so little being based in Manhattan, we’re here for it. Probably to laugh at it and call it names, but here for it nonetheless.
 
Print Run is the happy-hour conversation after a long day at a catalog launch; it’s the bottle of wine you drink most of on a Tuesday when the manuscripts are no good. We’re for writers, for publishers, for anyone who’s opened a book and wanted to know—really know—what goes into getting the damn thing made.
 
Join us. We’ll talk about the worst sex scene we’ve ever read and wonder aloud about how millennials will affect the books of the future. We’ll figure out why Jonathan Franzen wants to replace your child with a penguin and whether or not that penguin will be buying hardcovers when he grows up.

Arts

Print Run is a podcast created and hosted by Laura Zats and Erik Hane. Its aim is simple: to have the conversations surrounding the book and writing industries that too often are glossed over by conventional wisdom, institutional optimism, and false seriousness. We’re book people, and we want to examine the questions that lie at the heart of that life: why do books, specifically, matter? In a digital world, what cultural ground does book publishing still occupy? Whether it’s trends in the queries from writers that hit our inboxes or the social ramifications of an industry that pays so little being based in Manhattan, we’re here for it. Probably to laugh at it and call it names, but here for it nonetheless. Print Run is the happy-hour conversation after a long day at a catalog launch; it’s the bottle of wine you drink most of on a Tuesday when the manuscripts are no good. We’re for writers, for publishers, for anyone who’s opened a book and wanted to know—really know—what goes into getting the damn thing made. Join us. We’ll talk about the worst sex scene we’ve ever read and wonder aloud about how millennials will affect the books of the future. We’ll figure out why Jonathan Franzen wants to replace your child with a penguin and whether or not that penguin will be buying hardcovers when he grows up.

Share Episode 176—Co-ops as the Way Forward

Sign up to save your podcasts

Episode 176—Co-ops as the Way Forward

Episode 176—Co-ops as the Way Forward

More shows like Print Run Podcast

Writing Excuses

My Brother, My Brother And Me

Dear Hank & John

The Daily

Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

Maintenance Phase

The Shit No One Tells You About Writing

The Ezra Klein Show

Of the Publishing Persuasion

If Books Could Kill

Publishing Rodeo: The Good, The Bad, and the Bloody Ugly

Paper Trail

The Author Burnout Cure

Flublishing

Pluribus: The Official Podcast