Very Literary: The Well Chosen Book

What’s the best part of your jobs?

Meg Storey: The best part of our job is working closely with our authors through every step of the process, from the initial excitement of making an offer and negotiating a contract to editing and revising the manuscript to scrutinizing the printer’s proofs. One of the benefits of being a small press is that we have the time to work extensively with our authors, getting to know them on a personal as well as a professional level, and often creating friendships that extend beyond the business e-mails and that last for years.

How has the digital revolution affected Tin House?

Tony Perez: E-books, frankly, have been a boon for us—some of our digital editions have even started to outsell their physical counterparts. For a small press like Tin House, it’s great to spend less on printing and not have to worry about returns. On the other hand, we’ve always relied on hand-selling from indie booksellers—those are our people, our ideal readers. It’s scary to think that more and more book recommendations are coming from an algorithm that favors the broadest books.

Any trends you’re seeing in current fiction? What upcoming projects are you most excited about?

Tony Perez: I think the best part about working for a press like Tin House is that we don’t have to think a whole lot about trends; our greatest successes seem to come when we publish what we love and trust that readers will feel similarly—which is good, because I have zero interest in working on mommy porn.

We’re thrilled to be publishing Matthew Specktor’s novel American Dream Machine—you’ll be hearing a lot about it next year—and we’re really excited to introduce American readers to a brilliant Canadian novelist named Michael Helm; his book Cities of Refuge comes out in March. We’re also collaborating with Octopus Books to start publishing poetry again, which has been a gaping hole in our list. It’s especially exciting because the first book we’re doing is Brandon Shimoda’s stunning Portuguese.