Interview with Mike Simpson of Indigo Sea Press
AJ: Mike, you are presently the head of Indigo Sea Press, a new publishing company located in North Carolina. Tell us a bit about your personal history in the publishing industry.
MS: Anita, as a child, I was always the kid who could be counted on to “take a dare.” Back in 2007 I was participating in an on-line literary contest with a number of other authors. Some of the really good writers in the contest formed a critique group and invited me to be a part of it. During our discussions and reading, I voiced the opinion that it was a tremendous injustice that the prevailing system of the book industry prevented so many fine authors from being published. The others in the group dared me to start my own publishing company. So the next year we started our first publishing company, Second Wind Publishing. Indigo Sea Press is actually our fourth incorporated publishing house.
AJ: Are you driven more by a love of books or by a spirit of entrepreneurship?
MS: Most people will tell you I’m not a businessman—although I get savvier day-by-day. Our priority from the very beginning has been to help quality authors become published. As I realized years ago, there are a great number of writers deserving of publication and our whole reason for being is to assist authors as they make their fine work available to the world.
AJ: What is the significance of the name of your new company?
MS: First of all, we knew we needed a name that wasn’t derivative—so we weren’t going to use “wind” or “second” in the title. Indigo is a new venture entirely. You may know that I have a background in ministry and spiritual development. I’m struck by the great number of individuals from many faiths who describe the Creator as being surrounded by a fluid place of darkest purple—literally by an indigo sea. The best description of this, I think is in Eben Alexander’s account of his out-of-body near-death experience in Proof of Heaven (which, by the way is not a religious book and doesn’t have much to do with heaven; it’s a demonstration of what happens when publishers get to choose names and genres). Certainly very few of our titles deal with spiritual matters, but to us Indigo Sea Press is descriptive of the highest values possible.
AJ: Most of the authors from your previous company, Second Wind Publishing, have been transferred to Indigo Sea Press. What will be the difference for the reading public as a result of this name change?
MS: As I said, Indigo is a completely separate entity. It was our privilege to invite to Indigo those authors who 1) evidenced the highest literary sensibilities and talent and 2) were interested in supporting the work of other authors. We did not at all focus on inviting authors according to book sales; as I say, at times I’m not much of a businessman. We are very pleased that 112 authors accepted our invitation. In contracting with the new company, a number of these authors have taken this opportunity to make changes in their manuscripts and also to submit new titles. Going in, Indigo will offer greater exposure, greater quality control and more networking. So the net result is quite positive for authors and readers.
AJ: Have you made any changes to your team?
MS: Definitely. While implying no criticism of former co-workers, I have to say that those working to create Indigo’s books, website and business structure are really topflight professionals. I’ve learned over the years just how important it is to surround yourself with dependable, creative, mature co-workers.
AJ: What are your biggest challenges as a publisher?
MS: I think my greatest challenge can be subsumed in the one observation: I have to quit trying to please everyone. For me this means I have to follow the guidelines we’ve set up for the company and stop trying to give special privileges to authors, bookstores and readers. I’ve had to learn to live with the tension between efficient, profitable business practices and being a compassionate publisher. The second challenge is find printers in Canada, Ireland and Europe so we can print and ship books affordably overseas—although you only asked about the biggest challenge, right?
AJ: What gives you the most satisfaction?
MS: About a year ago a young woman—a stay-at-home-mom—sent me a photograph of herself holding a copy of her newly published novel. She was just beaming. Clearly she felt as if we had done something really nice for her, and I suppose we had. Seeing it from our point of view, we felt really lucky to have discovered such a talent and to have brought her work to publication. And from a long-term perspective, we did literature a favor because this author has so much to offer the art of writing and the body of English language literature. The truly beauty aspect of this is that we experience this phenomenon repeatedly. More than 100 times now we have debuted the work of quality writers to the literary world. I find that incredibly satisfying.
AJ: How do you feel about the phenomena of e- books and social media, and their effect on the publishing industry?
MS: Back in 2008 when we first started publishing, we knew e-books were coming. We’re really in the third chapter of the digital book revolution. We also know now that print books are here to stay. So everything we do is set up to accommodate both print and digital publication. Social media is, obviously, the best way to let the world know that a worthwhile book is out there, waiting to be read. The problem is the glut of data that makes it difficult to find effective ways to use social media, plus the fact that this platform changes constantly (who uses My Space or Gather anymore, and each was once the default choice for internet interaction). These are facts of life for publishers and we are watching them develop and striving to use them to best result.
AJ: What are your short-term goals for the company?
MS: Ha! We hoped we would have 100 authors accepting the invitation to bring 200 titles to Indigo. We have 112 authors with 240 titles and counting. We underestimated the tasks involved in having everything ready to roll by November 1, 2015. Still we are making progress and our short term goal is for every book to be available on line, on Amazon, in digital format and being promoted for the 2015 holiday sales season.
AJ: Where do you see yourself and your company ten years from now? How do you see the publishing industry as a whole?
MS: One thing only is certain for the publishing industry and that’s change. Since I first started publishing books less than ten years ago, we’ve seen the emergence, explosion and contraction of digital books, the demise of two major bookstore chains and an entire generation of on-line publishers going under. The large publishing houses have maintained their relative profitability because of contractual agreements with distributors and big bookstores. Meanwhile Amazon has become the world’s largest bookseller. The next ten years will see continued foment in the publishing world. Technology will continue to advance, making digital books more attractive and granting them to an extent a greater market share—but also alienating some readers because of the incursion of the digital world into our private space (people read books to escape into a new world created by an author; “digital creep” is the attempt of wily internet retailers to invade that private space). As for Indigo Sea Press, in ten years we anticipate having about 500 authors and several thousand books in publication. We expect to have developed successful marketing/promotional avenues using social media and to have made inroads into developing some of our titles with other media presentations (i.e. helping some of our authors turn their books into movies and television shows). Regardless of our success in these realms, however, our underlying principle will remain the same: we intend to continue bringing the books of worthy authors to publication.
I would like to thank Mike for taking time away from his heavy workload to grant me this interview. As an Indigo Sea Press author, I am excited about the new endeavor and I look forward to the experience.
