The borough’s best indie publishers

By Hannah Berman

Indie publishing has always been scrappy.

This is of course by design. Many independent book imprints and literary magazines are founded in opposition to (and sometimes with contempt for) the traditional publishing scaffold, where five remaining big publishing houses dominate, resulting in a slim array of perspectives and favoring commercial viability above all else.

“We have a lot of admiration for small presses because they’re finding different ways to provide a platform and a space for voices that don’t fit into regular Big Five publishing,” says Libby Flores, associate publisher at BOMB Magazine, a Brooklyn-based magazine that uplifts independent publishing each year by hosting a Small Press Flea.

Because of its focus on voices outside the mainstream, independent publishing is perennially at risk; recent setbacks like the closing of Small Press Distribution and the skyrocketing post-pandemic costs of paper make the future feel even less certain. Still, the scene persists, thanks to support from indie booksellers and interest from the literary scene.

Here are some of our favorite local publishers of books and magazines, scraping by with a mix of grit and luck.

Book publishers

Akashic Books (Gowanus, founded 1997)

Akashic Books has been around for a while by indie publishing standards; the press started in 1997, and is now considered the grandfather of Brooklyn’s current indie scene by many.

Founder Johnny Temple laughs about the reputation. “I prefer godfather,” he says.

Temple started Akashic because his band, Girls Against Boys, had just been signed to Geffen Records … and was feeling a little ambivalent about it.

“We were happy about getting a big deal, but we had mixed feelings about moving from a mom-and-pop independent record label to a multinational conglomerate,” Temple says. “I wanted my life to still be rooted in independent culture, even as my band was moving to a different level.”

Akashic’s prolonged run has been made possible in part by the success of “Go the F**k to Sleep,” a satirical children’s book by Adam Mansbach published in 2011 that has since sold millions of copies.

“We’re a small enough company that if you have a hit, it can really stabilize us,” says Temple.

When Akashic started up, there wasn’t much indie competition — Temple only remembers around four or five good independent publishers, and none in Brooklyn. Today, Akashic has helped pave the way for several other small presses, and remains one of the larger indies in Brooklyn, publishing 25 titles a year with a focus on platforming musicians and Black and Caribbean writers.

What to read first: “Gathering of Waters” by Bernice L. McFadden, $17.95

Melville House (Dumbo, founded 2001)

In the immediate wake of 9/11, the inbox of Dennis Johnson’s blog MobyLives blew up.

“Most people don’t realize that a lot of the broadcast towers were on top of the World Trade Center, so we couldn’t get any radio or television,” he remembers of the first few hours after the attack. “We went online and found that a lot of people had been writing to the blog about their experience.”

That outpouring of emotion eventually became a poetry book called “Poetry after 9/11,” co-edited by Johnson and his wife, Valerie Merians. Neither had any experience in the world of publishing — Johnson’s background is as a short story writer, and Merians was a sculptor — but they still decided to publish the collection independently.

“All my friends are writers or artists, and what I knew about publishers [then] was that they all sucked,” Johnson says. “All my friends hated their publishers.”

So, Melville House came into existence with a dual mission: for editorial control, and political change. “We were determined to make George W. Bush not be the president anymore,” Johnson recalls. “And we succeeded, by the way.”

Now, after 20-plus years in the business, Johnson is worried about the future of small presses, though, citing rising costs to print and difficulties getting independently-published books stocked in stores across America.

“I think it’s a very dangerous time for indie publishing, period. Full stop,” he says. “Anything else is delusional.”

What to read first: “Hanging Out: The Radical Power of Killing Time” by Sheila Liming, $10.99–27.99

Ugly Duckling Presse (Gowanus, founded 2002)

In its first iteration, Ugly Ducking Presse (UDP) was a poetry zine that circulated throughout the late ‘90s. It was created by a group of friends who wanted to work together to make something “outside of commercial interests,” according to Milo Wippermann, one of UDP’s current editors.

UDP then incorporated as a nonprofit in 2002, and today it’s still managed by a volunteer collective of 10 editors.

Poetry remains UDP’s main focus. Marine Cornuet, a UDP editor and poetry translator, was drawn to join the team by its robust selection of translated poetry collections; she remembers a time when two-thirds of all translated poetry in America was published by UDP.

“As a translator in particular, what UDP does with poetry and poetry in translation, it was kind of a star in the sky for me,” Cornuet says.

UDP is also one of few remaining presses that still chooses to hand-bind books, often outsourcing physical bookbinding to its network of 2,000 ready and willing volunteers.

Because the press is a nonprofit, it doesn’t reckon with the pressures of creating something that will sell. In traditional publishing, “you need a category to put something in, and UDP has never really cared much for those,” says Wippermann, pointing to experimental hybrid work UDP has published and authors like Simone White and Anne Boyer on whom they’ve taken chances.

What to read first: “A Handbook of Disappointed Fate” by Anne Boyer, $20

Archipelago Books (Gowanus, founded 2003)

Similar to UDP, Archipelago Books also found its niche in translation. Founder Jill Schoolman created the press from a payphone — she called up Bill Johnston, a Polish language translator, and asked if she could publish his translation of “Dreams and Stones” by Magdalena Tulli with an independent press that didn’t exist yet, according to Sarah Gale, editor and publicity director.

“He was willing to take the risk with a new press, and from there Jill pressed forward,” Gale says.

Schoolman’s nonprofit publisher has continued to take on literature in translation for the past 20 years, fighting against the paucity of translated work on the American book market. Archipelago publishes both contemporary work and overlooked classics in translation, focusing mostly on novels and short stories, though a few memoirs and poetry books sneak through, too.

“My colleague Emma once told me she sees our authors as being loosely in conversation with each other, and I like this idea,” says Gale. “There’s no formula. We consider if the writer’s preoccupations feel urgent, if their formal choices ignite some unknown part of the mind, if the texture of the writing is surprising, among other things.”

What to read first: “Dreams and Stones” by Magdalena Tulli, $13

Nightboat Books (Greenpoint, founded 2005)

Nightboat Books’s first project was a reprinting of Fanny Howe’s “The Lives of a Spirit,” released for a simple reason — it had gone out of print, and founders Kazim Ali and Jennifer Trappas thought more people needed to read it.

“That is the press’s mission, since literally the first book — reaching back to pull something forward that had been forgotten or overlooked, or was in need of some attention,” says Stephen Motika, director and publisher at Nightboat, who joined the staff in 2017.

Nowadays, Nightboat has a catalog of over 200 books, and publishes 18 titles a year — mostly poetry, with a sprinkling of fiction and intergenre work.

Motika emphasizes that the press’s continued existence wouldn’t be possible without the local booksellers who stock and recommend work from Nightboat and other indies to readers. “It’s like real estate,” he says. “And New York is expensive. [It makes a difference] when you go in and you see a book from Nightboat or Archway or UDP or Wonder or Birds LLC on a table.”

What to read first: “The Lives of a Spirit” by Fanny Howe, $16.95

Wonder Press (Bushwick, founded 2012)

Wonder Press likes things gritty. This indie press was founded in 2012 by Ben Fama and Andrew Durbin to publish books that are “smart, unexpected and have a strong writing voice,” according to Fama.

Most of Wonder’s offerings are poetry chapbooks, with provocative names like “Porn Carnival” and “Mucus in My Pineal Gland.” Its online poetry mag is called “shitwonder,” Wonder Press doesn’t take itself too seriously. Case in point: after the closing of SPD, the press had to pay expensive shipping costs to recover its backstock of books, so it raised money by selling crewnecks with “POET BAD BOY” painted on them in chunky black print.

“I’m curious who will still be around by next decade,” says Fama. “If I’ve learned anything about the spotlight, it’s that the corpses change but the party goes on forever.”

What to read first: “Porn Carnival” by Rachel Rabbit White, $18

Wendy’s Subway (Bushwick, founded 2013)

Unlike many other publishers, Wendy’s Subway wasn’t founded to publish books. Rather, it was created as a nonprofit literary arts organization that provided space for writers to gather — in a members-only loft in East Williamsburg.

Next, the organization relocated to Bushwick in 2016, to a new space with a publicly accessible storefront.

“At that point, we really reoriented our activities towards thinking about public programs and the library as a primary resource for the public,” says Rachel Valinksy, artistic director.

Now, Wendy’s Subway is both a non-lending library and a bustling event space, hosting frequent readings. In 2018, Wendy’s Subway officially joined the ranks of indie publishers, putting out around 10 books a year that Valinksy thinks of as “nimble in terms of genre,” which span from poetry chapbooks to anthologies.

Although publishing and gathering happen separately at Wendy’s Subway, Valinsky points out that the activities are linked by its mission.

“Beyond being a publisher, we are also deeply invested in the life of the book and building community around writing and creative practices,” Valinsky says.

What to read first: “Language Arts” by Justin Allen, $18

Archway Editions (Industry City, Sunset Park, founded 2019)

Archway Editions was founded out of annoyance. In 2019, the script to “Hamilton” had recently come out in print, and co-founders Chris Molnar and Nicodemus Nicoludus were both working as booksellers at powerHouse Books, which they say made for an “obnoxious” time.

“Everyone’s like, ‘Oh my god, have you seen ‘Hamilton’?’” Nicoludus says. “Like, no. I don’t have $300 to go see this. I’m just a guy in a bookstore. Take your ‘Hamilton’ scripts and go.”

This frustration led them to found a literary imprint that publishes more off-beat, hard-to-market work — like Ishmael Reed’s “The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda.”

In 2024, the small press was suddenly vaulted into a new stratosphere of success with “Molly,” a deeply personal account of author Blake Butler’s experience losing his wife to suicide and subsequently reading her diary to discover lies and infidelities. (The New York Times called the memoir an “atrocity exhibition.”) After drumming up considerable backlash, “Molly” has since been reprinted four times, success that Archway Editions never expected.

“I don’t think any of us thought that it was gonna be that big. I mean, I knew it would be good, but —” Molnar says.

“I didn’t think people were going to dox us on Twitter,” senior editor Naomi Falk finishes.

“What takes off is unpredictable,” Molnar says. “And it’s super cool because, yeah, that’s probably the first and last time a super experimental novelist is gonna get in Perez Hilton.”

What to read first: “Molly” by Blake Butler, $17.95

Magazine publishers

One Story (Gowanus, founded 2002)

One Story publishes just that — a single story by an author, individually printed and mailed to their 6,000 subscribers.

The concept came to co-founder Maribeth Batcha soon after 9/11, when she was sending her work to other writers in her writing group via snail mail. Just one story, she realized, wasn’t costly to ship; so why not send out more stories, one at a time?

“It was a time, like now, where a lot of bigger publications were folding that published short stories,” remembers Batcha. “And we were worried that without venues for short stories, emerging writers would get lost in the mix.”

Twenty-odd years later, One Story has published over 300 writers, including the likes of Alice McDermott and Ann Patchett. Writers can only publish one story with One Story, and although they won’t double-dip, the organization loves to celebrate their writers’ subsequent success, hosting literary debutante balls for former One Story authors when their debut novels come out.

Since 2002, Batcha has been witness to waves of success in indie publishing, and also real moments of contraction.

“I don’t know where we are in the wave,” she says. “We generally just keep going, and try not to give up when things feel grim.”

What to read first: “X-Acto” by Kate DiCamillo, $2.50

n+1 (Greenpoint, founded 2004)

This year marks the 20th anniversary of n+1, a thrice-yearly magazine and book publisher.

Six original editors started the magazine during the Iraq war, frustrated by the pro-war leanings of other publications.

“[They] all felt there was a real hole in the culture for a certain kind of magazine to do literary and political work simultaneously,” says Mark Krotov, one of the current editors, pointing to the lack of meaningful criticism in the discourse of the day. “There was a lot of stupid fiction that needed to be critiqued. That’s perennially true.”

These days, n+1 has worked to fill that void, becoming a defining political and literary voice, with fantastic, thoughtful coverage of world events. They’ve also adapted to the times by throwing well-attended parties and events from their offices, often through collaboration with other presses and magazines.

Part of the current collaborative spirit between small publishers — a “comradely network,” according to Lisa Borst, another n+1 editor — comes from their scarcity.

“There’s only so many places a person can write for, and we’re all trying to support the same kinds of writing,” Borst says. “So the idea of picking a fight with Dissent, or something, feels crazy to me now.”

What to read first: “Magic Actions” by Tobi Haslett

The Drift (Brooklyn, founded 2020)

The Drift is a nonprofit magazine dedicated to the interrogation of ideas, started by co-founders Kiara Barrow and Rebecca Panovka in 2020. The pair met as undergrads at Harvard, and as 20-something leftist women, they cut a new profile on the literary scene — so much so as to attract almost-immediate attention (and praise) from the likes of Harper’s and The New York Times.

The Drift publishes interrogative essays, interviews, and fiction. In a gesture to the magazine’s leftist roots, physical copies each feature a reimagined rendering of the cover of an old 1910s socialist magazine, “The Masses,” which was a source of inspiration for Barrow and Panovka.

Part of The Drift’s reputation is owed to their quarterly launch parties, which draw hundreds of attendees, mixing loyal subscribers (who get in for free) with first-time readers.

“As more and more publications shrink or shutter altogether, it’s clear that the broader landscape is still pretty inhospitable to independent media,” Barrow says. “That said, there’s definitely still an appetite for print, for great writing, and for rigorous thinking.”

What to read first: “Now More So Than Ever” by Kiara Barrow and Rebeca Panovka

Cake Zine (remote from Clinton Hill, Park Slope, and Paris, founded 2022)

Cake Zine is a biannual literary magazine with an emphasis on dessert. In its short run thus far, the mag has also found a fanbase through hosting elaborate launch parties that feature bites and readings, and have drawn large crowds ever since the mag’s conception — for their recent Candy Land issue launch, they sold 750 tickets.

“Cake and DJs! Who doesn’t really want to go to something like that?” jokes co-founder Aliza Abarbanel.

Like many indie publishers, Abarbanel and her partner Tanya Bush wanted to create a publication that welcomed writerly creativity, unlike some of the more commercial outlets they had each worked for in the past.

“We delight in setting these very seemingly niche themes, and then expanding them in so many possible ways,” says Abarbanel, citing a piece written for their Tough Cookie issue that explored the world of the cookiecutter shark, a little-known ocean predator that takes “perfect, cookie-shaped bites out of its victims.”

Abarbanel emphasizes that while there’s a lot of attention on Cake Zine right now, this is by no means the era of the “four martini lunch and $50,000 expense account.”

“It’s hard for me to say that it’s the golden age [of indie publishing] if people can’t afford to pay themselves full-time to work on the project,” she says. “But I do think there is a lot of interest and excitement, and we sell many, many event tickets, and not everyone comes to an event and buys a magazine, but a lot of people do.”

What to read first: “Tough Cookie,” $24