We’ve written at several points here at The Hot Sheet about writers’ collectives and why they can be a good idea in an age of fierce competition for discoverability in the market. One mutual-promotion collective we’ve recently been in touch with is Lake Union Authors, which operates on Twitter and Facebook; members help to publicize each other’s work for an Amazon Publishing imprint that doesn’t have a Twitter handle of its own. We also wrote recently about Tall Poppy Writers.
In another instance, we’ve found authors coming together to publish their collected work periodically to a small market: Iceland. Ós Pressan (named for a river delta) comprises mostly foreign-born authors who find themselves living in the small country as expatriates and are trying to attract an industry that caters to a very small market of less than 350,000 people.
The next edition of their collected short works is expected in October and will represent 28 writers’ work. Most Icelanders are bilingual, but the Ós group is willing to publish pieces in each author’s language of choice, whatever that may be.
In responding to questions from Björn Halldórsson for the Reykjavík Grapevine, the group (the collective speaks as a group to the press—no one author is quoted in interviews) cites financial realities and the relatively insular nature of the community as reasons for working together: “It’s difficult to get grants for translations and to publish work that lies outside the norm,” they say. “We’re trying to create a space for ourselves, but there are not many doors open to us.”
Bottom line: While they’re known by some in the Icelandic industry as “the foreign group,” we think Iceland’s Ós Pressan is a good reminder that authors’ collectives can be formed for many reasons and have beneficial effects not only in terms of market visibility but also in the work the members bring to the table. The group voice of Ós says it finds that publishing content in different languages side by side has led to an unexpected effect on their writings: “When you get diverse authors working alongside each other there can occur a natural stimulation from the different cultural and language backgrounds, and you might find some mutations in the work.”
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
