collaborative publishing model

In addition to working as a publication designer for a variety of publishers and museums, H&B takes great pride in operating a collaborative book publishing model in order to work directly with talented writers, photographers, and other visual artists of our day. These folks often choose to collaborate with H&B in order to produce books that are substantially higher quality than what many trade book publishers produce (as well as enjoying a more collaborative approach to seeing the design emerge from their content). Examples of special touches include letterpress printing, higher quality text papers, handmade paper covers, higher quality bindings (often utilizing hand-bindings), and other processes which help turn books into aesthetically rich artifacts to create a more rewarding reading experience. 

H&B helps make these higher quality touches possible by providing a discount on labor in exchange for receiving a small amount of the book edition to sell. Meaning, the majority of the books go to the writer/artist to sell on their own, and hopefully they are able to afford more special touches for their books due to the labor discount. H&B then sells its share of books in the gallery and at exhibits, book fairs, etc; and this ends up being a mutually beneficial process to both parties (and a more enjoyable process for writers and artists than going down the time suck rabbit hole of chasing down increasingly fewer publishers in a non-growth industry—which unfortunately seems to be where book publishing is at these days).

All this because as a one-person with a couple assistants design studio, marketing and fulfillment is not something I take on to a great extent compared to larger publishers with dedicated marketing departments. I do enjoy hosting kick off events in the gallery/studio where people can enjoy seeing the work in a beautiful gallery that abuts the work studio where the book was designed. Additionally, I share news of book projects in my quarterly newsletter which goes to a large and curated mailing list. Many artists use kickstarter to drum up buzz about, and initial monies for projects. Like many fields in today's world, crowd funding is becoming a viable means to producing important work and an effective marketing tool to get the word out about forthcoming books.

The press is also continuing to foster evolving relationships with other publishers and distributors to see some titles emerge as partnership ventures with other larger presses and to see our books distributed by national and international distributors who recognize that while we don’t publish dozens of books a year, the ones we produce are extremely prescient and high quality and will age well in coming years.