Publishing Books as a Collective, via Crowd Funding

Alex Alberto, K.G. Strayer, and Caroline Shannon talk with Sari Botton about Quilted Press, a publishing collective, which they launched this week via Kickstarter.

Clockwise from top left: K.G Strayer (they/them), Sari Botton (she/her), Caroline Shanhon (she/her), and Alex Alberto (they/them).

Readers,

This is the ninth in a series of behind the scenes video interviews with authors, editors, and others in the field about aspects of publishing personal essays, essay collections, memoirs, and other kinds of books.

Previously, I’ve interviewed author Elissa Bassist about writing the hard stuff through the lens of humor; Natalie Beach about moving past the viral essay that first brought her to everyone’s attendion, memoirist Pam Mandel about adapting her memoir for the screen; poet Maggie Smith about switching to memoir; author Abigail Thomas about her latest memoir with tiny Golden Notebook Press; Chloe Caldwell about acting as her own agent, Tajja Isen about the limited value of critical acclaim, and publicist Lauren Cerand about aspects of book publicity you can handle yourself.

These interviews are for paying subscribers only. If you’re not a paying subscriber, please consider becoming one. (*If you can’t afford a paid subscription, email me at memoirmonday@gmail.com, and I’ll comp you. )

In this episode, I talk with Alex Alberto (they/them), K.G. Strayer (they/them), and Caroline Shannon (she/her) about their new venture, Quilted Press, an anti-capitalist collective through which they’ll publish books via print-on-demand, and raise money for publication through crowdfunding on Kickstarter.

From left to right: Alexa Alberto’s hybrid essay collection, entwined: essays on polyamory and creating home; K.G. Strayer’s hybrid poetry collection, stellar nursery; and Caroline Shannon’s hybrid memoir, Mother-Eaten. Their Kickstarter campaign essentially allows supporters to preorder these books.

As someone who had difficulty landing a traditional deal with a big publisher for my own memoir, and ultimately had a good experience publishing it with a small indie press, I’m always excited to hear about new, alternative approaches to publishing. After first hearing about Quilted Press from Chloe Caldwell, then seeing some posts from the collaborative’s Instagram account, I became intrigued, and asked to interview them.

Last week when we sat down together over Zoom, Alberto, Strayer, and Shannon told me that Quilted Press’s first offerings—as they figure things out—will be their own three books. They also talked about how they’d each considered self-publishing, but after meeting one another, decided it would be more supportive to publish all three of their books (due out in February) collaboratively.

Additionally, they explained how they’re approaching crowdfunding on their Kickstarter campaign, which went live on Tuesday—namely, making the books the main rewards for supporters, which amounts to signing people up for pre-orders.

Below is our interview. Hope you enjoy it! - Sari