Why Micro Presses Matter

The Bookseller spoke to Sonya McGilchrist, founder and owner of Dinosaur Books Ltd, about the importance of Micro Presses to the UK publishing industry.

Setting up a micro press is not for people who are motivated mostly by money. At the start of my journey, an industry insider shared the joke with me: “Question: how do you make a small fortune in publishing? Answer: start with a large one.” I laughed – and of course it’s funny because there’s truth in it. But the reward, the pleasure, is in publishing books that the larger publishing houses probably wouldn’t commission, in bringing forward authors whom the larger publishing houses might overlook, and seeing what great work they can produce. And, of course, in producing books – because everyone in publishing knows how magical books can be.

It’s tough to get started in any industry where you don’t have a background. Curiously, many of the owner-editor-publishers of micro presses that I meet have come from outside the industry – perhaps because they had no idea what they were letting themselves in for. But the other side of inexperience can be fresh vision, and this is also one of the strengths of the micro press sector: our passion for our products is immense, and the breadth of our shared experiences is wonderfully diverse. We are also playing a crucial role in diversifying UK publishing. At Dinosaur Books, we have a strong vision for our list that is driven by my lived experience as a Black, working-class woman. We’re not trend-driven: we will still be committed to inclusion and diversity once the hype dies away.

What about the bottom line? There are a lot a barriers to making a profit as a micro press. Partly, that’s because publishing is a volume business. But it can be done. The internet helps and, in common with many independent presses, micro publishers are learning to sell from their websites and to drive sales through a strong online presence.  

Running a micro press is demanding, but rewarding. The great thing is that there are no rules – no large company structure to slow you down

For myself, I like sales partnerships. I think booksellers are brilliant at selling books – but for micro presses, getting a look-in with retailers can be challenging. There have been a couple of initiatives to bring indie (and micro) presses together with indie booksellers, and this is an idea that I wholeheartedly support. I invariably offer a better discount than the wholesalers – usually a lot better. But I can see that for indie booksellers, the paperwork involved in talking to many micro publishers, compared with using a wholesaler, is a disincentive.

Partnerships with like-minded booksellers, librarians, schools and charities have helped hugely with getting our books into the hands of readers. We publish fiction for children aged five to 14 and we’ve been delighted to connect with so many people in UK children’s publishing who are committed to embedding positive change in the industry, through support for the smallest presses. And there are some brilliant bloggers too. These help to overcome the disadvantage as a micro press – a more limited marketing budget than most larger presses. Making buyers aware of our books, whether they be consumers or trade buyers, is our biggest challenge.

Finding that gem

But I love the challenge. The reward of finding a gem in the submissions pile and collaborating – often with a début author, helping their voice to be heard – is immense. I imagine that it’s the same for anyone who loves books – booksellers included. There is nothing better than knowing that, through your work, you will introduce a reader to a new world that will become part of their lives and that, for some, that world will stay with them forever. So much has been written about the importance, for children, of reading for pleasure. When we get feedback from parents, carers and children about how much a book has meant to them, particularly if it is the first book that has made a child proud of their culture (we get this with Children of the Benin Kingdom) or the first book that a child has read eagerly and repeatedly (we get this with our Dinoteks series), it makes it all worthwhile.  

Running a micro press is demanding, but rewarding. The great thing is that there are no rules and so no large company structure to slow you down. In common with many micro presses, I am always open to new partnerships or ways to sell and promote our books. Recently, we’ve partnered with two brilliant micro presses, Formy Books and Parakeet Books, to create Strength In Stories – a way to bring our three micro presses together for events and campaigns. And because it’s fun.

We’d love to hear from you, as Dinosaur Books or as Strength in Stories, on how to promote the micro press sector – and especially if you’re a bookseller interested in discovering children’s fiction titles from micro presses.