Playing It Safe
Why Do Big Publishers Avoid Experimental Work?
During my years pursuing an undergraduate degree in creative writing, I have come to find that my writing is nowhere near “mainstream.” At heart, I’m a maximalist, but in practice, a minimalist. This comes to fruition in so many ways in my daily life. I hate owning things, yet my walls are littered with postcards, pictures, art—pretty much anything I can get my hands on. My writing tackles a variety of images and concepts, yet I refuse to write a poem that doesn’t fit on one page and articles are my enemy.
My peers and professors love my work. They can see where I’m going with it and where I want to end up, but they all tell me the same thing: it isn’t exactly marketable. What does that mean for me in the publishing sphere? I often have difficulty getting published. The work I do get published isn't the work I consider to be my best. I recently had a poem of mine published in a small 24-hour lit mag on my campus. Out of the five poems I submitted, the one I liked the least was accepted. I keep bringing myself back to one central question: do I have to limit myself in order to get published or do I just have to find the right audience?
Inevitably, I end up telling myself it’s just about finding the right places. In the age of digital publishing, you can find a literary magazine to serve any niche. Fictive Dream asks for fiction with a “contemporary feel that gives an insight into the human condition.” The Common Tongue Magazine is “a dark fantasy & dark speculative fiction online magazine that publishes anthologies of masterfully told fantasy short stories set in fascinating and extremely perilous fantasy worlds.” The issue is that, while there are dozens of literary magazines to fit anyone’s taste, many of these magazines are overshadowed by the “big ones”—The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, Kenyon Review, The Atlantic, etc. Without a “big” name attached, sometimes it’s hard to view your publication as an accomplishment. Those “big” names often don’t publish experimental works.
The same issue is presented in terms of small publishers and the Big Five. When I want to publish a collection, is there even a chance I’ll be picked up by a large corporate publisher? The sad truth is, probably not. Big publishers like Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster tend to “play it safe.” Their algorithmic publishing tactics exclude writers who are focused on craft or experimentalism and replace them with writers they can guarantee a profitable marketing scheme.
Some of my favorite, more experimental authors are published with small presses despite winning numerous awards for their writing. Bhanu Kapil, author of Ban en Banlieue and Schizophrene, has won numerous awards including, but not limited to, the Windham-Campbell Literature prize in 2020 and the T.S. Eliot Poetry Prize for her book How to Wash a Heart in 2021. Even so, she is published through Nightboat Books, an American non-profit literary press based out of Brooklyn, New York.
This is the truth for many poets of the same caliber. Diana Khoi Nguyen’s Ghost Of was published through Omnidawn Publishing as the winner of the Omnidawn Open, a competition in which the winner was selected by Terrance Hayes, a poet whose work Lighthead was published by Penguin Poets, an imprint of Penguin Random House. At the same time, Nguyen was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2018 for that same collection. Despite these accomplishments for this book, it stood little chance at being published by Penguin. Tracy K. Smith, who won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for her collection Life on Mars, was published by Graywolf Press. Another accomplishment overlooked by Penguin Random House acquisitions.
Graywolf Press is perhaps the most well-known, reputable press currently publishing experimental works of poetry and fiction. This is a press I aspire to publish my work with one day. One of the nation’s leading non-profit literary publishers, they acquire approximately 4.8 million dollars annually through efforts such as book sales and distribution agreements. This amount is average for small presses of about the same size. Copper Canyon Press and Tin House Books both brought in approximately 5 million dollars in revenue in 2022.
Comparatively, Penguin Random House reports an annual income of 893.1 million dollars. However, it is rare that the Big Five actually publish works similar to those of small presses. Big Five publishers seek an algorithm-based, money-making bestseller, otherwise known as something “marketable.” And it’s working. A large press, with relatively nothing to lose, refuses to publish works that focus on the ideas of experimentalism and craft.
This isn’t to say that it’s impossible for small poets to be picked up by the Big Five. Penguin Random House has a whole imprint called Penguin Poets to publish this kind of work. It’s just more difficult to have an “in” unless you’ve already proved yourself. Additionally, many poets turn down the Big Five in favor of small presses because of the amount of effort that they can provide. Small presses typically have more time and energy to devote to one specific book in terms of marketing and development because they publish less, while the Big Five publishers publish a greater number of books in a shorter amount of time. Small presses often provide more one-on-one feedback.
Big Five publishers are masters when it comes to marketing, but that isn’t to say small presses aren’t. When Tin House Books published Matthew Specktor’s novel American Dream Machine, they curated a map of Los Angeles that highlighted all the places mentioned in the novel. They often must be more creative in their marketing efforts and put more time into the process. For small presses who only publish about ten titles a year, it’s important to make those titles count. For big publishers, they have a bit of leeway. If one book fails, they know another will make up for it.
The leeway their “marketable,” “algorithmic” based books provide is the exact reason why the Big Five should be publishing more experimental, craft-based works. The Big Five have the money and power to be able to transform whatever they publish into something profitable, so why not something new? Is the small press the only solution to getting these works published if the Big Five refuse to do it? Are the Big Five playing it too safe?
Gabby Grinaway (’23) is a recent graduate from Susquehanna University with a double major in Creative Writing and Publishing & Editing. From the Poconos, Pennsylvania, she seeks more organic uses of language, imagery, and form. Her work can be found in Essay Magazine, Moondial, Flagship, and Rainy Day. When she’s not writing you can find her perusing art museums in the closest major city.