Scenes: Sorry House: an interview with Spencer Madsen

Could you briefly describe your press’s history?

Emails to friends about this thing started six months into 2012. I wanted the press to be community-run. I explicitly told everyone I wanted to involve that I didn’t want to be the face of things. However it became increasingly clear to me, as talk became increasingly idle, that if anything were to happen I’d have to do it myself. It wasn’t enough to have a good idea.

I have moved six times since starting Sorry House. I have traveled to the other coast and packed my suitcase with books and envelopes and thermal label printer. I’m a one man distribution machine. Wherever I go, I’ve got a pocket full of balloons that say “SORRY” and I’m ready to drop a book in the blue box on the corner.

How would you characterize the work you publish?

In the beginning I put out one book with a cover that was intended to become formulaic, like the Melville House novella series. I wanted something modern and replicable so I could publish a series that would distinguish itself by both quality and a common aesthetic. I wanted to put out a bunch of similar books by similar peers.

Now, having done well with that first book (I will never be beautiful enough to make us beautiful together [2013] by Mira Gonzalez) I have zero interest in doing another book like that one. I want to do something different every single time I put out a book. It can’t just be good, it can’t even just be great. It’s got to be something that wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for me. Yeah, I love George Saunders’s work, and he’d probably never be interested in publishing with me, but I’ll never be interested in publishing him either. He’s written some of my favorite books but they don’t need me. They don’t need me to buy them and they don’t need me to publish them. They’ll be in Barnes & Noble until Barnes & Noble closes down.

Who is your audience, and in what ways are you trying to reach them?

The only quantifiable audience I can point to is the people who follow me on twitter, and that’s exactly how I reach them.

What is your role in the publishing scene?

To take advantage of the fact that I don’t have employees to pay, I don’t have investors to satisfy, I don’t even have an intern (I’m worried they’ll learn everything I know and one day very suddenly overtake me with their own press, stealing my authors and my girlfriend) all I’ve got is myself, the only person I don’t mind screwing over. I can spend $500 on stickers that say “how does n+1 afford an office in dumbo” or constantly mock my authors & their books on twitter. Who cares? No one reads anyway, right?

What’s in the future for your press?

O.K. by Victor “KOOL A.D.” Vazquez, the professional rapper. It’s a novel I guess. Who cares. I should’ve kept acting. I’m trying to be nicer to people. That’s the future of the press. Me being very nice to everyone.