The press raises over $320 for Gaza Mutual Aid Solidarity!

As always, after a period of book promotion and fund-raising ends, I provide an account of sales as well as receipts for donations. This one will focus mostly on the period from 10/13 thru 11/15, but it also accounts for sporadic sales made throughout the spring and summer of 2024. The rationale for providing the donation receipts is an ethical one, to let people know I’m not just pocketing the money. And the sales information is really for the sake of education and transparency: I think it’s good for people to see this info, especially if they are running a small press, publishing with one, or thinking about such things.

Donation Receipts

During this period, sales from the press’s books have raised $323.25 for Gaza Mutual Aid Solidarity. On Monday, I made a donation to their campaign via GiveButter:

To give a fuller picture of the press’s efforts in the last year with regard to Gaza, we can add that amount to the previous $803.75 we raised for from fall 2023 into spring 2024. Plus, stevie redwood’s book INTIFADA has continued raising money since the spring: in addition to $150 raised through the DMP website (beyond the amount raised in the original promo period for that book), stevie has been selling dozens of copies in Bay Area bookstores, reporting an additional $540 (with more expected soon). If we add all this up, we see that sales made directly through the press have raised $1275 for Palestine, while the broader fund-raising stevie has done raises that number to $1815.

While this amount is humble in comparison to the demand and devastation the Palestinians, the Lebanese, and others are up against, it is nevertheless money that would not have been put to this use without those who contribute to and support the press. My heartfelt thanks to stevie redwood, and my sincere gratitude to all who wrote poems, shared posts, bought books, attended readings, or simply paid attention to what we’ve been up to: without you, we could not have made these contributions.

The Press’s Current Budget

Since the previous accounting in March 2024, the press has sold 134 booklets, and sales from just the last four weeks account for 88 of those. The bulk of these were from Isaac Pickell’s and Giulia Bencivenga’s new releases, but titles from the press’s whole catalogue continue to find new readers as well. Overall, the press has now sold over 600 books in its 2.5 years of existence. And this is not counting any of the author copies that circulate in bookstores and among friends and fellow writers, meaning another 300+ of these books are out there in the world. My thanks to all of you who have supported this tiny endeavor and allowed it to grow.

Altogether, after calculating sales and debits, the press now has a surplus of $240. This means that, despite giving several hundreds of dollars away, the press is not losing money. Granted, this surplus is down by about $140 from last spring, but the larger story is super-encouraging to me: A couple weeks ago I paid $340 out of the press’s funds to 1) renew the Squarespace subscription for the website, 2) replace printer toner, AND 3) replace the printer drum (the press’s three major ongoing costs, with the drum being a rarity); I was worried about this, but the fact the press can actually absorb a sudden expenditure like that and still come out above deficit is a small victory for me. This is even more remarkable considering that this was the first time charging $10 for books rather than $12.

When I started the press, I had no idea if it would be a losing endeavor or not. Almost three years in, it has proven not to be. And while it feels weird sometimes to think about this accounting stuff, the simple fact is I can’t afford to do this if it eats into my personal finances. And so the health of that “surplus” is the main sign I have showing if I can continue running the press or not: all that money goes back into the press—I do not profit from it at all. And seeing the surplus as it is now, even after forgoing profit entirely last fall and getting hit with unexpected costs recently, the press continues to have a future.

Once again, thanks to all of those who have supported. I greatly appreciate it, and thank you for reading if you made it this far <3