Notes from a Small Press

Anne Trubek
Think of these as signatures, unbound. Thoughts, explanations, and screeds about the publishing industry by Anne Trubek, founder of Belt Publishing. For the bound version, pick up "So You Want To Publish A Book?" Belt Publishing, July 2020.
Created 14 Oct 2019
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  • Achievement unlocked
    20 Dec 2021 • < 1 min read
    I had one dream goal for the press in 2021: to be acknowledged by a major national award committee. Last week, we achieved that, when Elizabeth Catte’s Pure America was long listed for the (insanely) ...
  • The Intellectual Life of a Publisher
    13 Dec 2021 • 4 min read
    Six years ago, I left academia for good. It had been a slow goodbye, with unpaid leaves and minimal teaching (and pay) for years before I finally told TIAA-CREF I was no longer employed by the college...
  • This (Amazon Third-)Party Is Getting Out Of Hand
    07 Dec 2021 • < 1 min read
    I have long been a book collector. Well, to be precise, I am a book scout. I love finding books for less than they are worth, and then selling them, because, despite what you might assume, I’ve never ...
  • Bad Press Release Friends
    17 Nov 2021 • < 1 min read
    I used to hate, hate, hate writing the sorts of paragraphs required by publicity: the back cover copy, the email press release, the “sell sheet” that we fold in half and wrap around the front cover of...
  • Whatta fall
    28 Oct 2021 • < 1 min read
    This morning is the first since Labor Day that I have started the workday without an intense amount of anxiety and stress. It has not been all bad: anxiety and stress are ways to motivate, after all—t...
  • Agents
    19 Oct 2021 • 4 min read
    Last night I was a panelist on a zoom presentation sponsored by the Author’s Guild, moderated by Jane Friedman. The other panelists included an editor from Little, Brown, a literary agent, a publisher...
  • "A Novel"
    07 Oct 2021 • 3 min read
    I have a strong memory of being in grad school, and my (illustrious, MacArthur-winning) PhD advisor talking to us about the then-new (?) trend of putting “A Novel” on the cover of novels. We were disc...
  • Beanie Babies & Books
    28 Sep 2021 • 4 min read
    A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR Hello my adorable sign ups! (in Substack parlance, “sign ups” are the free readers, and “subscribers” are the paying ones). I am gearing up for a fall of heftier, in-depth and,...
  • Changes :(
    21 Sep 2021 • < 1 min read
    For as long as there has been a Belt Publishing, Martha Bayne has been integral. We began working together in 2014, when the EIC of Belt Magazine, then the central “Belt,” —the press having only publi...
  • The Preorder Revolution
    31 Aug 2021 • 3 min read
    I am a huge fan of Mike Duncan, whose Revolutions podcast I’ve listened to for years. I recently yelled excitedly to my similarly-Duncan-obsessed son, “it’s finally February 1917!!! Lenin is headed to...
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