Indie Publishing?: Broadview Press, Gynocritics, and Anne of Green Gables

I just have an overarching disrespect for business in general, for the forces of capitalism and how they contradict the needs of the people and the interests of art.

Ani DiFranco

Independent recording artist Ani DiFranco spoke these words in an interview with John Teshima to explain why she began to record independently of large, established record companies and, more importantly, why she continues to do so. Independent, or "indie," musicians and artists most often seem to have a political or philosophical message which leads them to, or requires, indie production, a message that they refuse to compromise in order to market and sell their work. I invoke Ani DiFranco and indie musicians because the book publishing industry seems to be faced with a similar conundrum: to produce and market works which will sell and sell a lot or to maintain a commitment to a philosophical world view and trust that the "product" will sell regardless. I do not know if we can fairly call Broadview Press an "indie publisher," but it is certainly an independent book publisher with a clear vision. Based in Peterborough, Ontario, with offices in Guelph, Halifax, and Calgary, Broadview prides itself on its independent status, "with no affiliation to any larger publishing house or media conglomerate" (Broadview website). According to the Broadview Press mandate, this Canadian publishing house produces high quality scholarly books in paperback so that they are immediately affordable for academics, the general public, and students. One can analyze this rationale quite quickly to determine that the textbook market is particularly lucrative for Broadview, especially if they focus on inexpensively constructed paperbacks. Who can blame Broadview for attempting to establish a lucrative niche for itself? In this economic climate where publishers are turning to non-fiction and away from traditional "literary" fiction, where large publishing conglomerates such as Penguin mass produce literary "classics" in paperback, and where the Canadian media corporations have exploded in size (witness the recent Bell Globemedia's takeover of chum Ltd. to become CTV globemedia), any publishing house that manages to survive is doing well. More than mere survival, however, Broadview has located its place in the Canadian market, turning a profit for "eight of the past nine years" (Broadview website). Their editions of older, often only marginally classic texts are quite special, with their detailed, scholarly introductions and fascinating appendices boasting contemporary reviews and excerpts from scholarly works and other material relevant for establishing the cultural context of the piece in question. While the website claims that the term "broadview" represents the wide spectrum of perspectives this publishing house embraces, the introductions and appendices which characterize the books clearly demark Broadview editions as arising from a distinctively cultural studies philosophy.

Of course, most publishing houses attempt to corner a specific market. Ashgate Press, for example, approaches the field with a completely different mandate than Broadview. Ashgate produces only hardcover, small-run scholarly books aimed primarily at the university library. Their editions are expensive, but they enable swift and focused publication. They are not intended as textbooks. On the other hand, the Norton Critical Editions, designed as textbooks, are competition for Broadview. Similar to Broadview texts, Norton Critical Editions append relevant material that establishes the social and historical context, in addition to critical articles, both recent and contemporary. Broadview tends to focus on the historical material.

Broadview's texts are not only affordable and teaching-friendly, however; they differ from Norton's Critical Editions in the way that they are also deftly political. In her landmark essay of 1981, "Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness," Elaine Showalter discusses gynocritics, or the examination of literature by women. Showalter explains that gynocritics is "the study of women as writers, and its subjects are the history, styles, themes, genres, and structures of writing by women; the pychodynamics of female creativity; the trajectory of the individual or collective female career; and the evolution and laws of a female literary tradition" (185). Broadview publishes an array of texts by men and women and in many fields, with a focus, perhaps, on English Studies and other...