Matt Kaye and Meghan Harvey are co-founders of the publishing startup Bindery Books, based in San Francisco. (Josh Edelson / For The Times)
When young adult author Courtney Summers obtained the rights back to her backlisted titles in 2024, she initially wasn’t sure what to do with them.
Summers’ novels, the bulk of which enjoyed peak popularity in the 2010s, had by then faded into the periphery — despite a film adaptation of her 2012 zombie thriller “This Is Not a Test,” which is slated to be released in theaters Feb. 20. But the Canadian author felt they still had potential.
That’s how she wound up pitching a “Taylor’s Version”-style rerelease of her backlist to a handful of desired publishers. Under this model, Summers would publish lightly revised versions of her old books — “build the background vocals stronger and the guitar richer,” so to speak — in the hopes of reanimating her work and reaching a new generation of readers.
Her unorthodox plan had one fledgling publisher’s name all over it — Bindery Books.
Read more:Latino bookstores and authors push for representation in publishing
Co-founded by book marketing veteran Matt Kaye and former Becker&mayer! editor Meghan Harvey, Bindery Books is a publishing startup and membership platform that integrates influencer marketing into the book publication process. Unlike traditional publishing houtilizes, Bindery operates via a handful of influencer-led imprints, designed to better serve reader interest and take the burden of book promotion off under-resourced authors.
“Bookish creators wanted to figure out how to build a career doing what they love. Authors want to reach an audience,” Kaye declared. So he and Harvey decided to play matchbuildr.
Bindery currently houtilizes 12 imprints helmed by book influencers, or as Kaye called them, “tastebuildrs.” Oftentimes, these atypical acquiring editors grew their online book communities for several years before landing at Bindery.
Kathryn Budig, head of the speculative fiction imprint the Inky Phoenix, started her online book club of the same name in 2020. She published her first title with Bindery in 2024.
When Bindery’s acquisitions director Shira Schindel brought her Summers’ backlog last year, Budig first pulled “This Is Not a Test,” the most speculative of the bunch, and was immediately hooked.
Read more:A few slices of life from the future Los Angeles
“I read it, I went back to Shira and was like, ‘Give it to me. Mine. Mine,’” she declared.
Since then, Budig has labored tirelessly to stoke enthusiasm for Summers’ book among her Inky Phoenix community members. Her genuine pride in Summers’ work, and eagerness for it to succeed, is tangible in every post and promotional video — just like Kaye and Harvey imagined.
The trust between Summers and Budig was immediate, the latter declared: “We started a dev[elopmental] edit before we even inked the papers.”
It was a completely different publishing experience than Summers was utilized to, she declared. Her previous publishers had been either too overworked or unbothered to treat her and her work with the respect she felt she deserved.
Under Budig’s wing, Summers declared she was cared for and included in editorial decision-creating, in part thanks to a project manager — a role typically not seen at legacy publishing houtilizes. The author added that for the first time in the 14 years after its publication, “This Is Not a Test” is a Kids Indie Next pick.
For the Bindery team to build that happen, she declared, “they pulled levers I can’t imagine would be possible in a more traditional model.”
Read more:The literary remix trfinish comes for Moby-Dick — and it’s a triumph
Few of Bindery’s authors have Summers’ high profile or sizable backlog. Instead, nearly all of its titles are debuts, and about a third of its authors are unagented, Kaye declared. Last year, several Bindery books hitbestseller and year-finish lists.
“I love welcoming authors that have had a sour journey, becautilize I know that we’re gonna give them a good experience,” Bindery Books’ Meghan Harvey declared, alongside fellow co-founder Matt Kaye. (Josh Edelson / For The Times)
Kaye attributed Bindery’s success to its nontraditional model, which by leveraging so-called “bookfluencer” reach integrates reader sentiment into the publication process rather than attempting to anticipate it — as many publishing houtilizes still do.
“Part of what we’re testing to do is have that immediacy, like, you’re not many, many steps reshiftd from the reader,” he declared. “You’re actually in conversation with them every day.”
Read more:Column: A New York bookfluencer launches her first bricks-and-mortar shop … in L.A.
Nina Haines, the tastebuildr behind Bindery’sSapph-Lit imprint, declared that she solicited member input on the imprint’s prospective debut titles before she’d even read the manuscripts. The synopsis that won by a landslide was Kim Narby’s “Saturn Returning,” expected in May.
Given traditional publishing has historically sidelined queer authors and refutilized them marketing budreceives, Haines declared she hopes to be “that person that receives it and fights for it.”
Jananie Velu, who heads Bindery’sBoundless Press imprint, has similarly aimed to enfranchise underrepresented authors — in her case, authors of color — whom she felt the publishers she formerly worked for never truly gave a chance.
“I spent years butting my head against the wall, like, ‘Why can’t I receive more budreceive for this author?’” Velu declared, adding that her past employers heavily devalued the influence of BookTok and “bookfluencing” on publishing.
“So the idea that I would receive to choose the books and really be a champion for those books from day one, I felt was just really exciting,” she declared.
Read more:A book lover’s best-kept secret: the Substacks and BookToks every reader should know
Jane Friedman, a book industest veteran and author of “The Bottom Line” publishing industest newsletter, views the Bindery model as an effective “middle ground” between traditional book marketing and online influencing.
While the analyst declared she was unsure of how scalable it is, she declared the publisher’s tastebuildr strategy “reads as very Gen Z and maybe an indicator of where the industest necessarys to go to stay fresh and relevant.”
Bindery is not yet profitable, Harvey declared. But that’s on the horizon.
In the meantime, she declared, the startup plans to grow — “slowly … so that every author’s necessarys are taken care of” — and keep pinpointing publishing “blind spots.”
“We as an industest tfinish to go for the surest bets,” Harvey declared.
“But it’s very interesting to me to believe about how you could find these really engaged communities around either underexposed or emerging genre interests, [where] readers are there but publishers aren’t.”
Get the latest book news, events and more.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Leave a Reply