Small publishers can unlock niche markets, writes Bill Wolfe, courtesy of the Courier-Journal:

Film and television director/writer Josh Becker never thought his first book, "The Complete Guide to Low-Budget Feature Filmmaking," would get a lot of attention from big-name publishers. The title, which was aimed at a niche market, would find better reception at a small independent company, Becker reasoned.  His New York literary agent had different ideas. She said, "Here's a list of who I'm going to take it to," Becker recalled, "and it was like the 10 biggest publishers in the world. And after the first five turned her down, she said, 'Nobody likes your book. I'm giving up.' "

 

Abandoning hope of seeing his work in print, Becker eventually decided to place it on his Web site, www.beckerfilms.com. That's when Point Blank Publishing, operated by J.T. Lindroos and Kathleen Martin in New Albany, Ind., came to the rescue. "Immediately, J.T. read it and went, 'Hey, that's a good book. I'd like to publish it,' " said Becker, of West Bloomfield, Mich. Now, after a successful debut by "Complete Guide," Point Blank will issue a second Becker book, "Rushes" in a few weeks, and is working on a third from him. "We can publish books that none of the big companies would touch," said Lindroos, who married Martin and moved to the United States from Finland in 2000.

 

"We can publish a book that is, say, half screwball comedy, half mystery and maybe with a dash of science fiction in it," he said. "No big publisher would publish a book like that," because they're focused on mass-market success.

The husband-and-wife team own Oiva Design Group. It encompasses their work for the Point Blank label, where Lindroos is senior editor and Martin is senior copy editor.

 

Point Blank is a publishing name or "imprint" of Wildside Press, based in Rockville, Md., which concentrates on science fiction, fantasy and horror under several labels.

 

Point Blank, however, focuses on "hardboiled crime fiction … in the tradition of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler," along with occasional film-oriented titles, Lindroos said.

 

Such niche markets are an important part of publishing, said Tina Jordan, vice president of the Association of American Publishers in New York. Helping to push their success, she said, is on-demand printing, which allows smaller book-printing runs than are practical with traditional methods.

 

On-demand printing -- not to be confused with self-publishing or vanity press operations -- limits the need for warehouse space and gives publishers more control over the number of copies they must print, which is "extremely valuable," Jordan said.

 

Point Blank uses both traditional and on-demand printing, depending on the book to be published, Lindroos said.

Read the rest if the article, here.

Reporter Bill Wolfe can be reached at (502) 582-4248. Photo of J.T. Lindroos and Kathleen Martin run a small book publishing company, Point Blank, from their home in New Albany, Ind. (By Chris Hall, The Courier-Journal).

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