City Spotlight: Exploring Seattle's Book Ecosystem
“I think there’s less of a publishing scene and more of a book ecosystem in Seattle,” says Gary Luke, Sasquatch Books’ President and Publisher. Rather than just editors and agents comingling, the publishing landscape in Seattle is more of a literary pastiche, and the result is a vibrant, active community of people and businesses coming together around books in all their various forms. “There are publishers here,” Luke said. “But along with that, I’d include bookstores, the Richard Hugo House, food bloggers, 826 Seattle, the libraries, Hedgebrook, Town Hall and, of course, Amazon.”
We’ll get to the others, but let’s start with the publishers. As the publishing industry as a whole transforms itself, so too is publishing in Seattle changing. Luke says Sasquatch, which was founded to publish the Best Places guidebooks, has found that there’s a lot more content and great ideas out there than just travel guidebooks. “We remain a regional publishing company. That’s our mark in the entire national book scene.” And those great ideas are print driven. Ebooks only account for a tiny percentage of Sasquatch’s book sales.
- Companies:
- Amazon.com