An Interview with...Ghost City Press

This is part of a series of interviews taking place with small press publishers. This interview series will be partially published online and partially in print, as a part of a nonfiction book to demystify publishing, published in January 2020 and written by Isabelle Kenyon. The following is an extract from an interview with Kevin Bertolero, Founding Editor.

Ghost City Press is an independent publishing house based out of

Syracuse, NY.

Kevin Bertolero is the founding editor of Ghost City Press. His

work was long-listed for the 2018 Peach Gold Prize and his poems

and essays have been published in Maudlin House, PNK PRL,

Reality Beach, OUT/CAST, Tenderness Lit, Sea Foam Mag, and

elsewhere. He tweets @KevinBertolero.

How do you continue to build your brand within a busy market?

I think the tradition of our Summer Micro-Chap Series has really helped to give us a broader audience and establish a unique place for us to exist within this market. Other presses publish micro-chaps, sure, but we have such an impressively curated series every year that it’s more noticeable, I guess. Each year, we’ve had more and more subscribers and downloads and the number of donations we’ve received has increased as well. Because the market is so overcrowded, it’s tough to make any money from your work these days, but with the Summer Series we’re able to help our writers out a little bit more, and that’s the goal really.

Any funny publishing stories?

It’s not funny necessarily, but it’s just interesting who you can meet through the publishing process. We’ve been able to establish good relationships with writers, editors, artists, other presses, bookstores, venues, and numerous others since we

started Ghost City. That’s been the best thing about this whole process. I’ve personally made some great friends (some of whom I’ve never met in person), and it’s brought new projects to life and lead to different opportunities. For that I am very grateful.

This interview is part of 'Small Press Publishing: The Dos and Don'ts' released January 2020. You can pre-order the book here.