theNewerYork Press Receives National Distribution

An experimental literary publisher based in Los Angeles recently obtained a national distribution deal for their first two books. After selling out from all major independent bookstores in Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco, Greenleaf Book Group was eager to increase distribution of the books around the country.

theNewerYork Press publishes books with a promise to readers that they will end "the triumvirate of novels, short-short stories, and poetry." Their works offer an exploration of experimental, forgotten, or unappreciated forms of literature such as epistolaries/letters, epigrams, flash-fiction, chat-room transcripts, classified ads, faux press releases, aphorisms, artifacts, parodies, and fictional absurdities of all kinds. Their aim is to "be experimental without being obtuse."

Some pages display only faux tokens of advice from public figures. One reads:

Life is short, get wet.
-Ghandi

The first two books, also called theNewerYork, are entirely submission based and each contain forty stories, all paired with original art. They include stories by emerging writers as well as New York Times bestsellers such as Steve Almond. The books are sleek, paperback, high-quality, and measured to fit in your Levi's back pocket. You can download a digital version of the book from their website.

Operating under its slogan "too legit to be lit," theNewerYork raised $15,000 on Kickstarter.com to pay for production of the first two books. After receiving additional funding from private investors whose interest was piqued by the Kickstarter success, the small collection of editors, readers, artists and writers also revamped theNewerYork.com and launched a companion collection of experimental literature online.

theNewerYork Press is itself an experimental business, with revenue streams that include selling the rights to the stories for short film-adaptations, adapting the books into interactive performances called "Literary Carnivals," and selling poster-sized versions of the books' pages in their web store.

On July 2nd, Greenleaf Book Group will make the books available through Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Books-a-Million, Barnes and Noble, and others. Until then, books can be purchased from theNewerYork.com/wholesale or directly from Greenleaf.

To post a comment, you must register and login.