President Obama is already good news for one small press, because the poet, Elizabeth Alexander, whose work was read at the inauguration, is published by them. The Chronicle has done an article about Graywolf Press, and what struck me from it was this:

“The business model of big houses relies on publishing a lot more books than they can pay attention to,” said Scibona, whose novel “The End,” a story of Italian immigrants in 1950s Cleveland, scored the National Book Award nomination. “They’ll drop 50 literary books into the open ocean and throw a party if one of them floats.”

I have been a big fan of small presses for a long time, and I’m only getting more so as time goes on. The problem is not getting good books published, it is getting those books into the hands of readers.