But she was convinced her book was good and “really wanted to get it published,” and She Writes Press, which follows a hybrid publishing model in which the author and publisher share the cost of producing the book, helped her do that, she said. The traditional publishing model “requires categorization,” Duva said, and books that don’t fit into long-established genres are at a disadvantage.
As a solution, she and Cambridge author Henriette Lazaridis founded Galiot Press, an independent publishing model focused on telling stories that defy categorization. Both women will serve as managing directors and editors, handle brand relations, review submissions and work with authors.
“We want to help bring the books from this genre convergence to market,” said Lazaridis. a former Rhodes scholar who has published three novels and taught English literature at Harvard. “We want to find books that speak to this diversity.”
Editors and agents receive hundreds of queries each week, which presents a hurdle for aspiring writers looking to stand out from the competition, Lazaridis and Duva believe. The ability to “turn the tap on and off for queries” is a key success factor for Galiot, Lazaridis explained. To that end, they have developed a reservation system that opens at the start of each week so that a limited number of aspiring writers can reserve a spot for guaranteed feedback.
“I’ve been saying for years that publishing is broken,” said Lazaridis, who published her two most recent novels, “Last Days in Plaka” (2024) and “Terra Nova” (2022), with the independent publisher Pegasus Books. Her first novel, “The Clover House” (2013), was published by Ballantine Books, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House.
Both Lazaridis and Duva dreamed of owning their own publishing company and invested fully in Galiot in April last year. Before that, they were instructors at GrubStreet, a nonprofit creative writing center. “We wanted to wait a few more years, but then we looked at each other and said, ‘Why are we waiting? It has to happen now,'” Lazaridis said.
To jumpstart their publishing, the authors launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter in April with a seed capital of $60,000 to cover proof-of-concept costs, rewarding donors with tiered rewards ranging from a $5 shoutout on social media to a $1,000 consultation on the full manuscript.
The fundraising was successful: they reached their goal in mid-May and are now focusing on finding the first three books Galiot will publish. Lazaridis and Duva say they will make their selections by fall 2025.
Print-on-demand technology allows Galiot to produce short runs in small quantities, allowing the company to control production costs and “take artistic risks,” Lazaridis says. When readers place an order, they receive the first 50 pages as a PDF while the hard copy is being printed. printed and shipped.
“When you commit to a print run, you’re taking a financial risk. You’re putting all your money up front into the printer,” Lazaridis said. Galiot authors receive a base advance of $1,000 once their manuscript is accepted. Lazaridis estimates that once a few hundred copies of their book have been sold, an author then “earns” their advance, or exceeds their financial position, and is entitled to royalties of 30 percent, as opposed to the industry standard of 10 percent.
“Traditional publishing has taken on a certain importance,” Duva said. “It’s not that we’re the only ones doing something new – there are a lot of people innovating in publishing – but a lot of that innovation is digital. We’re really trying to bring it back to the reader.”
Adri Pray can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @adriprayy.
