Small Publishers Who Successfully Met the Challenges of 2020

2020 was a record year for US book publishing; both NPD BookScan and the Association of American Publishers reported significant sales growth across nearly all formats and categories, especially consumer book sales. The year-end financials from Big Five publishers will start trickling in soon, and we expect largely positive news. (For example, HarperCollins’s latest quarterly report shows a sales increase of 23 percent over the same period last year, with profits up by 65 percent.) However, during the early months of the pandemic, considerable anxiety surrounded the fate of small and independent publishers, especially those who sell print predominantly through brick-and-mortar retailers.

We reached out to four independent publishers that experienced success in 2020—dramatic success, in some cases, with record-breaking sales. They are Microcosm Publishing (Portland, Oregon), Cider Mill Press (Kennebunkport, Maine), Heyday Books (Berkeley, California), and Wolfpack Publishing (Las Vegas). Heyday ended 2020 with the best sales revenue in the company’s history since it was founded in 1974; it was able to increase staff salaries. Microcosm had to add an additional warehouse for distribution and increase staff by 50 percent by the end of the year. And both Wolfpack Publishing and Cider Mill Press saw increased sales over 2019.

While each publisher is unique and experienced a different path to success, three of the four have something particular in common: direct-to-consumer growth.

Both Heyday Books and Cider Mill Press put new focus and energy into their website and direct-to-consumer sales. Before the pandemic hit, Heyday expected to redesign its website and “bring it into the 21st century,” said Steve Wasserman, the publisher. Then the website became top priority by spring and was relaunched ahead of schedule in mid-summer 2020. Direct sales doubled. Moreover, Heyday decided to launch a paid membership club and—right away, to their delight—about 100 people signed up. That number continues to steadily increase. Similarly, Cider Mill Press didn’t start selling direct to consumers until late 2019 with the launch of a new website; sales to consumers increased dramatically as a result. And Microcosm saw its existing consumer mail-order business grow by 384 percent.

Microcosm went a step further: in 2019, the publisher left its distributor and started self-distributing. Founder Joe Biel says Microcosm was protected from a dramatic downturn in 2020 because of this prescient move, and that the publishers he spoke with—those with distributors—were seeing sales declines and unprecedented returns. “I think 2020 showed the weaknesses in the distributor model because there clearly was not a lack of interest in buying books.” Those weaknesses include, according to Biel, the basic costs of working with a distributor but also its limitations. “[The distributor] only knows how to do one thing: sell to its known channels, which are primarily going to prioritize Amazon, Barnes & Noble, major outlets, wholesalers, and to some degree indie bookstores to create tastemaking. When something like the pandemic hits, all of these systems collapse.”

Cider Mill Press’s catalog was well positioned to perform well during a pandemic, as they publish cookbooks, cocktail- and spirit-related titles, and children’s books. Still, at the end of March, founder and publisher John Whalen said CMP did a thorough review to identify titles that might be better served by publishing in 2021 or 2022 and moved those titles out accordingly. CMP also looked at developing new titles to address pandemic needs; for example, they extended their bestselling adult coloring book series, F— Off I’m Coloring. They’ve now reprinted F— Off Coronavirus, I’m Coloring eight times since April 2020 and are awaiting two more reprints.

Heyday had a very important release planned for fall 2020: The Forests of California by Obi Kaufmann. It’s a followup to Kaufmann’s illustrated book The California Field Atlas, which was a bestseller for Heyday. Both are fat tomes, more than 500 pages, with a price to match: $45–$55 retail. Because Kaufmann is a charismatic, engaging personality, Wasserman had an extensive in-person bookstore tour planned for the author, which Heyday could no longer roll out when the pandemic hit. But delaying the book wasn’t an option: the sales were needed to survive, especially for Heyday, “held together by Scotch tape and pixie dust,” Wasserman said.

But Heyday was able to successfully pivot to a virtual launch by hiring an outside marketing team, Wildbound PR. Wasserman was impressed by their work with the Bay Area Book Festival, which had to cancel its spring event and go online. Wildbound’s work on Kaufmann’s launch was “fantastically successful,” Wasserman said. The book made the San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times bestseller lists; Heyday ran out of the first printing of 10,000 copies by the end of the year and has gone back to press for a similar printing. By summer 2020, Heyday was recovering from its spring nosedive. “It was a kind of miracle. I would not have predicted it,” Wasserman said, especially since Heyday lost a good chunk of its annual sales, about 20 percent, from gift shops, state and national parks, and museums. “Amazon was a huge part of the recovery, without question.”

All of the publishers we spoke to, except for Microcosm, saw increased sales through Amazon. Partly that’s because Amazon has never been an important account for the publisher, comprising just 1 to 9 percent of its sales prior to 2019. It stopped dealing with Amazon entirely in 2019. Note that Microcosm is the publisher of How to Resist Amazon (and Why) by Danny Caine, so you might say it’s in the company’s DNA to ignore the retailer. Regardless, Biel says, Amazon continues to obtain and sell Microcosm titles through Baker & Taylor and Ingram, although the books can be purchased more cheaply through Microcosm.

Cider Mill Press sales were up in most every channel, but especially through retailers considered essential businesses. Whalen said the publisher enjoyed very strong growth with the warehouse clubs, the national large box retailers (such as Target, etc.), but also with booksellers—which is notable, considering the challenges faced with lockdowns. Also notable: Biel said Microcosm enjoyed increased specialty and gift sales in 2020 through small boutiques and mom-and-pop shops. “There were weeks in April when we would get an order from a boutique in Wisconsin and wonder if they knew about the pandemic,” he said. But he says such businesses can pivot faster than chains.

Wolfpack Publishing benefited from Amazon’s growth and dominance in 2020. Founded by Mike Bray, Wolfpack publishes genre fiction and is known for bestselling Westerns. It sells primarily through Amazon/Audible, and is in fact exclusive to Amazon on its digital books—meaning it earns not only through unit sales but also through the ebook subscription service Kindle Unlimited. Bray said Wolfpack’s KU income saw the highest year-over-year growth, adding, “I honestly believe KU readers consume more books than all of the other [non-Amazon] digital book platforms combined.” On the print side, Bray says Wolfpack saw a significant sales increase through Ingram, but the increase through Amazon—which represents 75 percent of Wolfpack’s print sales—was even more profound.

Bottom line: In our discussion with Biel, he mentioned that when Microcosm took over its own distribution, the coherence of its publishing program—that Microcosm represents a movement (focused on DIY and punk values), with a shared ethos across books—was accentuated and became a strength. Readers feel like they are involved at every level. Similarly, Wasserman at Heyday expressed how they’re getting better at discovering brand loyalty to Heyday and reaching their far-flung community of supporters and readers. “We are in the enviable position of commanding respect” of readers, he said. When a publisher has a direct line to readers and/or becomes known and recognized as a brand in itself, that connection can have protective powers.