Editing Small press (section)

{{short description|Publisher with low annual sales revenue and/or few titles}}
{{Redirect-distinguish|Independent press|Alternative media}}
{{Redirect-distinguish|Indie press|Indie Press Revolution}}
{{more citations needed|date=April 2019}}
[[File:Dun Emer Press ,c. 1903.jpg|right|thumbnail|The [[Dun Emer Press]] in 1903 with [[Elizabeth Yeats]] working the hand press]]

A '''small press''' is a [[publisher]] with annual sales below a certain level or below a certain number of titles published. The terms "'''indie publisher'''" and "'''independent press'''" and others are sometimes used interchangeably.  However, when a distinction is drawn, there are about 100,000 small presses and about one million independent presses.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Biel |first=Joe |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MxrtDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT22 |title=People's Guide to Publishing: Building a Successful, Sustainable, Meaningful Book Business From the Ground Up |date=2018-12-05 |publisher=Microcosm Publishing |isbn=978-1-62106-313-1 |pages=21–22 |language=en}}</ref>

Independent press is generally defined as publishers that are not part of large conglomerates or [[multinational corporation]]s.  Even when owned by a larger business, an independent press is allowed to choose which books to publish, and the business will survive or fail as a result of how well those books sell.<ref name=":0" />  Many small presses rely on specialization in [[genre fiction]], [[poetry]], or limited-edition [[book]]s or [[magazine]]s, but there are also thousands that focus on niche non-fiction markets.

Other terms for small press, sometimes distinguished from each other and sometimes used interchangeably, are small publishers, independent publishers, or indie presses.<ref name="tck">{{cite web |date=9 November 2017 |title=Complete Guide to Small Press Publishing: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Small Presses for Writers |url=https://www.tckpublishing.com/complete-guide-to-small-press-publishing-for-writers/ |access-date=18 April 2019 |website=TCK publishing}}</ref>

Independent publishers (as defined above) made up about half of the [[market share]] of the book publishing industry in the United States in 2007.<ref name="defined">Herman, ''Jeff Herman's Guide To Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents, 2007'', p. 131.</ref> The majority of small presses are independent or indie publishers, meaning that they are separate from the handful of major publishing house conglomerates, such as [[Random House]] or [[Hachette (publisher)|Hachette]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-01-19 |title=Independent Book Publishers Statistics – WordsRated |url=https://wordsrated.com/independent-book-publishers-statistics/ |access-date=2024-01-22 |language=en-US}}</ref>