People don’t read anymore. At least according to Mac megastar Steve Jobs, who said so in January 2008, even claiming that 40 percent read less than one book per year. Starting up a small independent press amidst such a decrease in literacy takes a lot of nerve, but that’s exactly what Jonathon Messinger and Zach Dodson have done in establishing Featherproof Press. 

 

The minds behind Featherproof know the odds aren’t with them, but view themselves as the literary equivalent of an independent record label. The two derived some of their techniques from watching bands in the indie rock scene. They learned more directly from Girls Against Boys bassist Johnny Temple, founder of the successful Akashic Books. “He talked with us on the phone and gave us a lot of great advice,” says Messinger. “It really helped us get off the ground." The upstarts found another publishing model in Small Beer Press, run by Kelly Link in Northampton, Massachusetts.  More specifically, the indie rock ethos influences Featherproof in terms of a relationship with readers. In the music scene, Messinger explains, “we see a lot of ways that labels are able to connect with audiences that publishers don’t do. We’re trying to do some of that.” One way Featherproof reaches out to readers is through mini-books, referred to as their “light reading series.” Featherproof’s website (featherproof.com) offers free downloadable mini-books containing one short story complete with cover art. In past interviews, the publishers have equated the mini-books to 7 inch records released by indie record labels. The website even provides directions for folding the printed pages into a book form. By providing the “light” reading, Featherproof  not only finds new readers, but keeps established fans coming back, and therefore aware of new books to buy. While with the mini-books, Messinger and Dodson just want to put out “good stories,” they look for something different in the books they publish. While Featherproof has “no aesthetic in the sense of commonalities in the writing,” Messinger shares,  “we look for very idiosyncratic books, like they could only have been written by one person and come from an unusual, unique mind.” As an example, Messinger cites Todd Dills’ Sons of the Rapture (see review, p. ___), particularly the author’s strange characters and views on the South. “To my mind, I don’t know who else could have written a book like that. It’s very particular to Todd Dills.”