Students spent time listening to the pros and cons of being a publisher in Arkansas from three panelists as a part of the Arkatext Literary Festival on Wednesday, March 2.

The three publishers were Danielle Jackson from the Oxford American, Erin Wood from Et Alia Press and David Scott Cunningham with the University of Arkansas Press. 

The panelists started by sharing their day-to-day duties at their jobs and describing what it’s like to work as a publisher. 

Jackson said finding a publishing job is hard to do right out of college, as there isn’t a large market for it in Arkansas, so she moved to New York. A lot of her work consisted of marketing and doing marketing research, “all the while I was freelance writing,” Jackson said.

Being a publisher takes a lot of writing, and Jackson said that participating in writing workshops was how she got ahead in her publishing career. 

“I think the theme is like, just to always be submitting, that would be my big advice. Just always be exchanging work with people and sending work out,” Jackson said.

The network she built from those workshops has continued to help her in her career today. The other panelists agreed that the workshops were incredibly helpful in the long run and that they still reach out to their old colleagues for advice. 

They explained how good writing is a crucial part of being a good publisher because they do a lot of editing. It’s difficult to edit work without a good background in writing, and they encouraged students pursuing publishing to take advantage of the workshops offered on campus. 

Wood is the owner of Et Alia Press, a small publishing company that works mainly with first-book authors. Her story of how she came to publishing was that she started out doing law school and working in law firms. She loved the writing but felt like she was pleasing others in her work and not herself. 

“I loved persuasive writing, forming arguments, thinking about what moved people to this version of facts, which is very similar, I guess, to what you do in creative nonfiction,” Wood said. 

After her father passed away, Wood moved back to Arkansas and went back to school to get her master’s in technical and professional writing. Towards the end of her education journey, one of her professors approached her and asked if she would be willing to join the small press he was forming. 

She had no idea that saying yes in 2010 would lead her to her role of owner and publisher for Et Alia Press. Looking at other small presses that were doing well, she noticed that they all had a niche, and finding her’s would lead to great success. 

Wood said, “When I took it over four years ago by myself, it became very focused on nonfiction and children’s books with a strong tie to Arkansas. I thought, if I’m going to do three to five books per year, it’s like, why not promote the state that I’m from, the state that I love, there’s so much richness here.”

Although she’s had a great time working for Et Alia Press, there were, and continue to be, new challenges every day.

“It can be frustrating at times because I think some writers can lean on me a little bit too much. I always try to be very careful that the book stays within their vision and not my vision,” Wood said. 

Cunningham spoke on how the relationship between publishers and writers can be complex and difficult at times. 

“It’s a weird almost inappropriately close relationship between editors and writers sometimes,” Cunningham said.

There’s a lot of late nights and pouring over words and lines, and publishers and writers are working closely alongside each other the whole time, he explained. 

A lot of her time is spent doing what she said is “the boring mechanical stuff” such as typing emails, writing proposals for new books and doing social media campaigns to boost readership. 

Wood said, “I’m just struck more and more how publishing is like gambling. It’s 10% how good the book is and 90% marketing.”

Cunningham agreed and said, “The type of book determines so much, it determines how you market it and the readers you send it to.” 

Jackson said the biggest challenge print publishers face is a declining audience base. Being competitive in advertising and marketing is key and relying heavily on network building and the resources that come with it is critical, she said.