Q&A: UHCL graduate student shares story of opening publishing house with fellow Hawks
Dawnbreaker Press is an author-owned-and-operated independent publishing house located in Galveston, Texas. Chandler Barton, graduate student and teaching assistant in the department of liberal arts, used his passion for writing to open a collective-based organization that would build a network of local artists, writers and other professionals to collaborate and work together at every stage of the book publishing process.
Barton describes Dawnbreaker Press as a “trade publisher,” or a publisher that accepts and publishes a wide variety of genres without any special preference.
Q: What inspired you to start your own business, the company Dawnbreaker Press?
A: A few years ago, I got serious about compiling my work and made a real effort to write my first book. When I started looking around to submit my idea to publishers for feedback, I was dismayed to find out that I wouldn’t even be considered unless I was represented by a literary agent. When the few publishers I submitted to that didn’t require an agent got back to me, the communication felt so impersonal and ingenuine that I lost the motivation to continue writing and publish. The pessimist in me saw the publishing industry as another sector dominated and ruined by “hyper-corporate” interests. I would later come to find out that virtually every major publishing company in the world is owned by one of three major corporate conglomerates, so I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised.
Not too long after this, I came across Jason Epstein’s “Book Business”, a memoir of his long career as an editor at Doubleday and Random House. He reminisced about the golden days of publishing, of tight-knit publishing houses and communities of authors mutually invested in producing works of cultural significance; and from there, the decline and degeneration of publishing to the corporate, elitist machine it is today. My experience with big publishers and Epstein’s narrative were what motivated me to start the company based on the notion of author-owned, collective interest. Funnily enough, Epstein predicted a renaissance of publishing and the rise of the small publisher to fill the void that has been left in the wake, so in a way I saw it as an imperative.
Q: What do you publish? Print, digital or both?
A: There wasn’t a specific genre that I had in mind when I started the company. In a technical sense, Dawnbreaker Press is what is referred to in the book industry as a “trade publisher,” or a publisher that accepts and publishes a wide variety of genres without any special preference. Of our current ongoing projects, we have a few books of poetry, a series of children’s books, a handful of novels, as well as a non-fiction work—a fairly even spread as you can tell. We typically publish our projects in both print and digital formats.
Q: How does the process work to get a book published by your company?
A: The publishing process is an incredibly complex beast with many moving parts, but it can be broken up into four rough phases: editorial, design, production, and marketing. Some publications require more attention in certain areas than others; for example, novels and other longer works spend most of their life developing in editorial, while a book of poetry needs much less editing but far more attention in design since the artistic layout and display is of more importance.
The consideration process is fairly informal. Most authors we meet by word-of-mouth, and those that find us online, typically email us so we can get some background information on them and their book project.
Q: How did you get the financing to open your company? How long did it take you to make your vision come true?
A: This is a bit revealing, but the financing for the company came from cashing out my life savings and taking out a small business loan. Most people I’ve admitted this to have called me crazy (and they’re probably right), but you also have to consider that my entire professional career has been in education—which isn’t exactly highly lucrative—so my “life savings” is more akin to a vacation fund for someone with a job that pays a real salary as opposed to being a teacher or a professor.
I started putting the resources together in 2016, which is also when I started researching and self-educating on the publishing industry. After a year of intense study, I officially launched the company in 2017; 2018 has been our year of “settling in,” and in 2019 we plan to be in our own office space with enough projects to support full-time salaries and staff.
Q: Who was the first author to publish a book by your company?
A: Our first author was Miguel Cruz, a poet from Galveston. His book is called “Dancing Letters,” and his style is very heavy in minimalism and blank verse. I highly suggest that anyone who enjoys these styles of poetry to check out his work, which can be found on our website or at virtually any online book retailer such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Q: Does it cost anything for someone to publish their work and If you accept a writer’s work, how does the writer get paid?
A: Dawnbreaker Press is not a vanity press. Authors do not pay out of pocket to publish. Our company fronts 100% of the costs of publication. We believe there is a problematic conflict of interest when a “publishing” company charges the author – the business model is built on squeezing dollars out of the author and not crafting a quality product, hence the stereotypical view of self-published and vanity published books as lower quality. Our payment arrangement is 50 percent split of profits after expenses with the author.
Q: What would you want UHCL students to know?
A: I want Hawks to know that our company is grounded in the idea of being owned and operated by authors, writers, editors, and book people in general—not corporate or big business interests. We’re also focused on hiring locally, especially alumni: nearly all our team members so far are alumni from one of the UH campuses.
Additionally, I know the quality of our humanities and media programs, so I can feel confident that when I hire a Hawk, I’m hiring someone with a great foundational skillset and knowledge in what it takes to be successful in this field.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
A: Our business and correspondence address is in Galveston, but we’re looking at opening our editorial office here nearby campus next year. This is part of our vision to maintain connections and ties with the university and the community, and we feel that close proximity will facilitate that.
For more information on Dawnbreaker Press, visit their website at https://dawnbreakerpress.com or if you’re interested in joining their team or publishing with them, you can send an email to web@dawnbreakerpress.com.
Great article, I’m glad to see former students put themselves out there and accomplish things!