Coffee House Press

The finalists for the 34th annual L.A. Times Book Prizes were announced Wednesday morning: 50 books in 10 categories are in the running to win the L.A. Times Book Prizes, to be awarded in April. Two authors will receive special recognition: John Green with the Innovators Award and Susan Straight with the Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement.

We spoke with publishing experts whose social media strategies have yielded loyal followings. They share 25 ways to make your social efforts more effective in 2014.

The PEN/Faulkner Foundation announced last week the winner of the 2013 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: Benjamin Alire Sáenz received the award for his collection of short fiction, Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club. The book was published by El Paso-based independent publisher Cinco Puntos Press.

Yesterday, Book Business had a chance to speak with John Byrd, Marketing Director and CFO of the family-run business. He’s had a few days now to absorb the news, celebrate, watch some college basketball, catch a cold, and recover. Now he shares his publishing insights with BB.

How are things playing out since the award was announced?
It’s been real nice. It’s been kinda hectic for us, especially for Ben [author Benjamin Alire Sáenz], who has made a lot of friends in the literary world in the 20 or 30 years he’s been publishing. He’s getting lots of phone calls and congratulations from people.

2013 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Judges Walter Kirn, Nelly Rosario, and A.J. Verdelle have announced their list of five finalists for the this year’s PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. The winner will be announced on March 19th, and the 33rd Annual PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Ceremony & Dinner will be held on Saturday, May 4th at 7 p.m. at the Folger Shakespeare Library.

Steve Gillis and Dan Wickett are proving that the independent press is alive and well. In 2006, the co-publishers—Gillis, an author who made good in the stock market, and Wickett, a blogger who founded the Emerging Writers Network (EmergingWriters.typepad.com)—founded Dzanc Books with the goal to champion great writing. Now, with two years of business under their belts, the nonprofit press continues to garner attention for its crusade to help put good books into readers’ hands. • What are the biggest challenges facing smaller, independent publishing houses? Steve Gillis: Right at the top of the list is being well-financed. There’s a lot

While working on this issue, I was struck by two things. The first was the comment by Eric Miller, president of the National Association of Independent Reps (NAIPR), in Gene Schwartz’s column “Deconstructing Distribution” (page 34), about why many people in the book publishing industry persist despite facing many significant challenges. “To have a bookstore is part of the American dream,” he said. Shortly after reading his comment, I stumbled upon another very powerful quote along similar lines on the Web site for Independent Publisher magazine (formerly called Small Press). In the magazine’s first issue in 1983, Allan Kornblum, founder and publisher of Coffee