Ben Rockwood: The Publisher Who Rejected the Question

▶ Listen to this episode · 1h 3m

Ben Rockwood and his wife Tamara started Bainbridge Island Press out of frustration — she was writing better and better work and getting nothing but silence from publishers. So they decided to get on the other side of the fence and find out why. Four years later he's designing books, sitting in working groups with Penguin Random House, and helping write an international standard for royalty reporting. He also rejected the show's opening question, which results in an interesting answer.

Key topics

• Why he doesn't think of any of it as a cost
• The dinner in Harvard Square where the press was decided
• Why most publishers won't give writers feedback — and what they do instead
• The man with thirty years of handwritten poems in boxes under his bed
• Hybrid and vanity presses, described generously and then honestly
• Why he tells authors to publish before they think they're ready
• The economics of poetry, and why so many poetry presses are nonprofits
• Whether a regional name helps or hurts

Timestamps

01:28 Rejecting the opening question

02:28 Starting the company in rage

03:24 Harvard Square, and the decision to see it from the publisher's side

05:06 A reader and a writer, coming at books from opposite sides

06:48 What it's given back: being in a position to actually help

07:43 Why they answer every submission — and why most presses don't

10:09 The man who'd never read in public before

11:44 Thirty years of poems, handwritten, in boxes

13:02 Walking in knowing nothing, and why that was right

14:17 Learning enough to ask an intelligent question

15:15 Working groups with the big houses, and what publishers won't tell each other

16:38 How nuanced the industry actually is

17:34 Paper mills, high-art presses, and everything between

19:12 What's been disappointing

21:47 Why poetry is a tough space

22:34 Lots of poetry writers, not many poetry readers

23:44 What he'd tell himself, and what wouldn't have stopped him

25:14 Learning InDesign, and why poetry breaks every word processor

26:13 The Chicago Manual of Style, and the books already on your shelf

27:09 Write it down when you're a beginner, not when you're an expert

29:09 Advice for poets facing rejection after rejection

30:26 Hybrid and vanity presses — the pitch, and the reality

32:24 The people who want a book for their grandchildren

33:06 On being a gatekeeper

34:37 Chapbooks as a way to say yes

34:07 Thank-you letters for rejection letters

35:03 Authors as bands: make the album, tour, make another

36:57 Why poets keep switching presses, and why that stings

37:35 Chapbook or full collection — how they decide

40:34 Contest fees, and the poet's vice

41:54 Where a poetry press's revenue actually comes from

42:55 Why they chose for-profit over nonprofit

43:23 Copper Canyon, Wave Books, and where they want to sit

45:28 Quality first — and covers designed like album art

47:50 Whether "Bainbridge Island" helps or limits them

50:58 Prose, memoirs, and possible imprints

52:50 A real Tuesday: printers, proofs, royalties, letterpress

57:06 Five kids, a nightly fire, and a wall of book covers

59:54 What's next, including an international royalty standard

1:01:33 Is it worth it? Tech aged out. Books last.