By Brittain Phillips
Contributing Writer

Shifts in the book publishing industry during the past 10 years have been as predictable as the most contrived novel.

The story: monstrous publishing houses and media conglomerates based in New York identify and produce whichever books carry the greatest marketing potential.

The books are churned out by the millions, lining the shelves of massive chain retailers at the expense of an array of offerings from small publishers who can do little to match the spending power of the industry’s giants. The story always ends the same—variety in the market suffers, and many worthwhile books go unpublished.

One Charleston-based book publisher is convinced that this story can be edited, if not wholly rewritten.

The History Press, now in its second year of publishing regional history and heritage books, is using a variety of tools to carve out a niche in the industry. Perhaps the most important of these tools is technology.

“We strive to leverage the latest industry-specific technology to up productivity, while remaining as agile as possible,” says Kirsten Sutton, The History Press’s founder and managing editor.

The idea is paradoxical: a traditional, European-style press embracing technology, which some publishing-industry analysts cite as a culprit in the decline of literary reading in the United States. But The History Press could not survive, let alone compete, without its technical capabilities, says Sutton.

An integral part of the publisher’s arsenal is the use of File Transfer Protocol to transfer data—in this case, books and image files—to their off-site, state-of-the art printing facility.

This transmission speed helps to drive The History Press’s turnaround, which can move a book from conception to bookstore shelves in six months. With a traditional publisher, turnaround would be more than a year.

“We are able to design and create high-quality products that any large publishing house would be proud of,” says Amanda Lidderdale, production coordinator at the press’s Percy Street office. “And we can do it as fast as any traditional publisher.”

Farther back in the publishing pipeline, electronic data transmission allows the staff at The History Press to call upon a number of freelance editors and designers in locations across the Lowcountry and the nation.

Although the workflow sometimes calls for materials to be digitally distributed to far-flung locations, The History Press’s headquarters remain firmly rooted in Charleston. The city’s rich history makes an ideal setting for the publishing of books that make the events and characters of the past accessible to a general audience. Charleston and the Lowcountry in general have proven to be fertile ground for History Press titles, including Charleston Reborn: A Southern City, its Navy Yard and World War II and Charleston’s Jewish History: Essays by Solomon Breibart, to be released this summer.

To date, the publisher has focused its efforts on the Eastern Seaboard with books that detail the histories of areas from Massachusetts to Florida.

Sutton, who has been in the publishing business her entire career, identified a gap in the market between national publishers, whose editors are often too distant from the books to make consistently good judgments, and university presses. The History Press has positioned itself in the center of these two extremes to help preserve a dying tradition in the industry.

“There used to be hundreds of small, regional presses, and the vast majority of them have been consumed,” says Sutton. These publishers are a crucial part of the market, and their decline is only temporary.

She points to the recent resurgence of independent bookstores as an indication that the book-buying public prefers a more focused, personal product than has been readily available for the past decade.

The History Press produces books that appeal to readers of history, whether casual—last year saw the release of a book of local ghost tales called Haunted Charleston—or academic. Twenty History Press titles were published in 2004, and the publishing program includes more than 50 titles for 2005. Again, Sutton points to technology as the means for such speedy production.

“Our approach is to double our new title output each year for at least the first few years,” she says.

Such rapid expansion will increase the press’s need for talented publishing professionals, and Sutton believes that the nature of The History Press and the allure of Charleston will ensure a strong candidate pool.

In the past, it was generally accepted that presses must be located in New York, the center of the publishing universe. But if a publisher is willing to harness all that technology has to offer, then “high-quality publishing can take place anywhere,” Sutton says.

SUBSCRIBE | REPRINTS | CONTACT US

Phone: 843-849-3100    Fax: 843-849-3122