A guide to independent publishing: interview with Arachne Press founder Cherry Potts

A couple of years ago, frustrated with her publisher, writer Cherry Potts decided to set up her own publishing company, Arachne Press. She’s now published five short-story collections (one of which had a story of mine in it), and has a novel and a poetry collection in the works.

In this interview, Cherry shares some of the lessons she’s learned, and gives some tips and warnings to anyone who wants to follow a similar path.

From the trick she uses to persuade bookshops to stock her books right down to the nitty-gritty on printing and book-binding techniques, it’s all here. I think it’s an interesting insight into life as an independent publisher.

Poets take note: the video also contains details of a forthcoming narrative poetry collection for which Arachne is currently seeking submissions.

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There are 7 comments

  1. Andrew, this was lovely! I really enjoyed watching the interview and thought it was quite informative and interesting considering I’ve been published by a small independent press and am now doing things myself because they closed their doors. Thanks for sharing this!

    1. Glad you liked it, Michelle. I think Cherry was very honest about both the good and the bad parts of setting up a publishing company. It’s not an easy thing to do, but it’s certainly been an interesting experience! Good to hear that it was helpful for you.

  2. Thanks for this post, Andrew. It is wonderful to know about Cherry Potts and Arachne press and the wonderful work they are doing.

    1. You’re welcome, Vishy. It is a very interesting story, and quite a journey that Cherry has been on. It sounds as if it’s quite hard to make a good living as an independent publisher, but I hope she makes it work. She publishes a good range of books, and seems to base her judgements on literary merit rather than commercialism.

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