Interviewed by Dorothy Rice
The words “No Bullshit. Just Books.” on its website — and just about everything Unsolicited Press produces and stands for —resonates with me.
So I was excited for the opportunity to interview Summer Stewart, co-founder and publisher of the womxn-owned, Pacific Northwest-headquartered small press. Unsolicited Press produces an eclectic, diverse, and boundary-pushing array of literary fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, including Hippocampus’ own Lara Lillibridge’s The Truth About Unringing Phones.
Summer, a well-published poet, was delightful and generous. And what I learned during our conversation reminded me of how vital it is for anyone who loves books that don’t fit neatly within the mainstream to support small presses by buying their books, going to their events, and volunteering and donating if and when we can. Here is our conversation.
Dorothy Rice: What made you decide to start a press?
Summer Stewart: I was a student at the University of California Davis. My peers and I were finding that it was hard to find places to our send work. So initially I co-founded a literary journal with a few friends. After about 18 months, we began accepting books. I wanted to start a press that honored fringe work and that created space for noncommercial work.
My daughter was two at the time. Ultimately I realized that what I needed was a way to support us that allowed me to raise her and work from home, independently, not working for anyone else! Freelance writing and editing ticked those boxes. It worked for us. I’ve been able to homeschool my daughter and work from home while writing and publishing books that I believe in and feel good about championing. She’s fourteen now — I made the right choice 12 years ago.
Unsolicited Press has been a labor of love. We don’t make money off the sale of the books, at least we haven’t yet. Every dollar earned is plowed back into producing and promoting our books. We do charge a $5 submission fee, but that’s a lifetime submission fee, as in one-time, and the fee really does help.
DR: You now publish a mix of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Are there targets or percentages you shoot for in these broad genres?
SS: No, there aren’t targets, it’s based on what comes in and we get a lot of submissions. Given the high numbers we receive, around 1,000 a month, our acceptance rate is less than 3 percent.
Most of what comes in just isn’t for us. Either because it’s too commercial, or, and this is most often the case, the submitter obviously didn’t even check to see who we were or what kind of material we publish. You’d be amazed at the inappropriateness of some of the material we receive (flagrantly sexist, racist, homophobic, you name it). Mostly it’s a matter of writers doing massive mailouts where they don’t even bother to change the name of the editor or publishing house they are sending something to. That’s an automatic rejection.
DR: And what do you look for in authors or manuscripts?
SS: What are we looking for? Essay collections. Poetry. Experimental anything. Hybrids. Literary novels. Novellas. Short story collections. Memoir. Nonfiction.
Personally, I’m looking for poetry and nonfiction right now. I enjoy weird, experimental, and cross-genre work. One of our nonfiction books that I love and recommend to Hippocampus readers is Dream Pop Origami: A Permutational Memoir About Hapa Identity by Jackson Bliss, for a couple of reasons. It’s a memoir in essays, written in a very ambitious and also fun way — as a choose your own adventure. Also Jackson is an amazing performer, a powerhouse reader of his work, which makes for the ideal publisher/author partnership, which is such an important part of the equation, particularly for an independent press.
It has surprised me that some writers don’t appreciate that their work doesn’t end when they have completed the manuscript; that they in fact need to help promote and sell their work out in the world or it might not happen at all. We even had one author decide she didn’t want to be a writer anymore after we published her book! She literally did nothing for her book. That publishing slot could have gone to a writer who really wanted to be published.
DR: Oh my. With that said, what are your expectations of the authors you choose to work with?
SS: Naturally, we prefer to work with polished manuscripts, but if we’re excited about a book that comes in, we may enter into a contingency contract with an author. Generally our edits are in the form of comments and suggestions as we much prefer our work with authors to be in the form of a conversation, rather than a line-by-line, strict dictation of changes. And generally, the editorial process takes about a year, with a two to three year time frame to publication after entering into a contract.
Other than the $5 submission fee, we don’t ask for any money from our authors — none, not for marketing, or anything else, that’s firm. We do value collaboration, during the editorial and design process, and during the marketing of the book, and if authors want to pay for things themselves, of course they can, but we don’t ask. Often it’s the case that authors know the built-in readership for their work as well, if not better, than the publisher; they are in the best position to leverage this knowledge and they should do so. That doesn’t mean we won’t help as best we can, and we do. We develop marketing plans for each book and schedule events. I personally put my own money towards the press and marketing of our books. As I mentioned earlier, what we make on the books goes into the books. It’s that simple.
Communication and collaboration are key. I expect authors to put the work in and to do so in a timely manner. And to not be assholes or condescending. By which I mean, an author shouldn’t imagine they are our only priority. There are other authors who are equally important and who also need our time, so be respectful of that. Also, be open to changes. Just because you wrote it doesn’t make it perfect. We want to help make it the best it can be (even though we are human and miss things too!). Some writers don’t seem to believe that and resist every little change; it’s just too much effort, aside from being disrespectful — it goes against the point that all we’re trying to do is improve your book.
DR: Any other advice for submitting to Unsolicited Press?
SS: Read the guidelines before submitting. It’s amazing how many writers don’t. We want to know the author’s name. Yes! We actually get a lot of manuscripts without any name attached. That’s very aggravating. And we would like an actual query letter, personalized, to this particular press. Not Random House or an editor or publisher at some other place, which happens far too often. Meaning, do your research and make sure Unsolicited Press is the right place for your manuscript. Buy a book from Unsolicited Press in the genre you write in and read it.
DR: Going back to some of the challenges of running a small press, did the closure of Small Press Distribution (SPD) earlier this year affect Unsolicited Press?
SS: We weren’t distributed by SPD but the closure did affect us in that it slowed down our distribution because the Ingram warehouses were affected. And warehouses were still having staffing problems from COVID, so it created real problems for us. Our book shipments were seriously delayed. For a small press competing with Amazon, any delay is a problem.
We could see that orders were coming through. What we couldn’t see was that customers weren’t receiving their books, because the warehouses weren’t shipping out orders due to the problems created by the hundreds of small presses with books tied up in the mess with SPD. It was only when individual customers would email us that we realized there were problems.
DR: Any final recommendations for Hippocampus Magazine readers who may be interested in publishing with Unsolicited Press?
SS: Yes, I do! How about this, write me an email. Tell me what you are writing and ask me what you should be reading based on what you are writing. I’ll curate a list for you and email you an eBook if I can. And remember, I love nonfiction and am on the lookout for essay collections, particularly the unusual and cross-genre. If that’s you, read those guidelines carefully, do your homework, and get that manuscript in shape.
DR: I call that a very generous offer indeed! Thank you, Summer.
Dorothy Rice is a writer, freelance editor, and the managing editor of the nonfiction and arts journal Under the Gum Tree. Before joining the Gum Tree team, she was a Hippocampus essays reader for several years. In previous lives, Dorothy cleaned up toxic waste sites and abandoned tire piles with the California EPA, earned an MFA in Creative Writing at 60, and raised five children. She has published two memoirs with small presses (GRAY IS THE NEW BLACK and THE RELUCTANT ARTIST). Her essays and flash (fiction and nonfiction) have been featured in many places, including Hippocampus Magazine, The Rumpus, the Brevity Blog, Literary Mama, and Five South. dorothyriceauthor.com.
