Publishers Partner Across the Pond to Launch New Imprint: Soho Press’s Laura Hruska Talks About Her Company’s New Venture with British-based Constable & Robinson
Extra: What are the challenges facing smaller independent publishers, such as Soho Press, in the coming year?
Hruska: I think we all feel that books are not, unfortunately, as significant to people as they were 100 years ago. … At one time, the book was it. It was the only way to get a wider experience than what you saw in your daily life. We’re [now] in competition with other diversions that offer that experience. On the other hand, there is a hardcore, devoted group of people who want that reading experience, and it cannot be substituted by any of these other diversions. The hardest and the saddest thing is that there are people who don’t make that leap to read for pleasure. … We’re in the business of providing books. We hope it will always be out there. I don’t think there is a huge, mass audience [for Soho Press titles]. I don’t expect to sell millions of copies of a title. We hope to sell a few thousand.