Laura Stanfill is the founder of Forest Avenue Press, a small press based in Portland, Oregon. With her leadership, the press has acquired and published books recognized by major awards like the Nautilus Book Award, New American Voices, and the Edward Lewis Wallant Award, as well as featured in national media like Code Switch from NPR, Ms. Magazine, and The Washington Post. Stanfill is also the author of Singing Lessons for the Stylish Canary, a Rumpus Book Club selection.

Laura Stanfill’s new book is Imagine A Door: A Writer’s Guide to Unlocking Your Story, Choosing a Publishing Path, and Honoring the Creative Journey. Imagine A Door addresses everything from how to begin the work of writing to how to query for publication. It’s packed with both the advice of a novelist who went on her own publication journey and the perspective of a publisher. Stanfill sees the industry—and the process—from both sides.  

—Wendy J. Fox

 

Wendy J. Fox: They say there’s no manual for having a baby, but for a “book baby,” you did write a manual. Imagine A Door is extensive—covering almost 500 pages of publishing information, writing advice, and the literary ecosystem at large. What everyone wants to know—and this is just as hard a question as writing a one-page synopsis of a novel—is, How do I publish my manuscript?

Laura Stanfill: You have to write your manuscript first! And then you have to revise, and you ought to get some other eyes on it, because you’re about to submit your “baby” to scrutiny. It’ll get judged on what it is, not on what you meant to accomplish. Then, you need to decide on a publishing path,which isn’t just deciding, because when you’re outside the industry looking in, you only see glints and reflections of how everything works. A lot of those glimpses are fabricated to hide the hard stuff.

Regardless of submission technique and how hard you’ve worked on the manuscript, you can’t wish a “yes” for yourself. There are lots of writers, and only so many presses open to work in your genre. What you can control are: the words you’ve written, how you describe your story, and whether you give up. It only takes one acceptance.

So take a deep breath and look outside the tiny boxes of social media, the flash and the hype and the promises of literary life. Your publishing path doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s! There’s no one best way. Give yourself the time and space to define success for yourself, based on your priorities as a creative person. 

Once you’ve centered yourself and your wishes for your writing career, understand what your goals are—and don’t think of small presses as a last resort. 

Many writers, including those of us who identify as disabled or neurodivergent, tell stories that push against the traditional framing of storytelling. Independents are great publishers for these manuscripts, because we’re not beholden to acquisitions committees that must weigh the value of a story in financial terms. With less overhead, we can take more creative risks.

That’s how you get published: You keep believing in your baby. You keep sending it out, or you pull back to revise, and then you try again.

 

WJF: When writers are in the process of submitting a book, whether querying agents or going directly to small presses, they often need a pep talk. The rejections take a long time and also get old. Plus, the stakes are higher with a full-length than with a short story or an essay. Why not just self-publish? What’s your pep talk?

LS: Self-publishing can be the right answer for some authors, but I don’t recommend it as a last resort. The authors who have gone that route and loved it had the funding and time to take on the work of producing and promoting a book.

With that in mind, if you want a traditional deal, go for that, whether it’s through an agent or seeking an independent press that accepts unagented submissions. There’s too much bitterness, wishing, and feeling left behind if you have your heart set on traditional publishing and you let rejections change your course. 

Believe in your work without being myopic. There are a lot of factors at play when it comes to landing a book contract. Keep going, keep writing. Revise as needed. 

 

WJF: It is my opinion that hybrid presses capitalize on writers’ desire to be published—by asking them to put up some of the capital, but in a model that on the surface is not immediately obvious as pay-to-play.

LS: I understand why hybrid presses charge money. From my work as a traditional publisher, I have experienced the terrifying business model of investing thousands of dollars in a piece of art that’s supposed to sell enough copies, whatever your profit-and-loss statement says is enough, and then waiting to see if those copies sell or get returned by bookstores. If you’re a small press, there’s not a lot of room to miss your financial targets and stay viable as a business. You can have a title come in lower than expected with earnings, or with higher sales, but then you get hit with returns. That’s where the idea of authors paying for services gets traction. It guarantees income (for the publisher—not necessarily for the author). But it’s at the expense of the author, who must put cash on the table to participate. 

The blurred lines of hybrid publishing make it complicated and often not transparent enough, which leads to authors spending a lot more money than they expect when they sign on the dotted line. I’ve had friends feel absolutely wrecked about the distance between what hybrid presses promise and the reality, spending beyond their budgets and being left with cases of unsold books piled in the corner of their living room.

This goes back to understanding your publishing path. Some authors have specific reasons for choosing self- and hybrid publishing. That’s great! However, don’t do it because you aren’t getting traction with the traditional publishers—and this includes small presses—who will absorb all of the production cost for your book. 

 

WJF: I feel very strongly that one does not have to publish to be a writer. If you write, you are a writer. Period and full stop. Publishing is choosing to engage with the business side of writing. What’s your advice, as a publisher and an author, for writers who want to take that step?

LS: I love this insight and totally agree. You are a writer—or an author or a poet or a novelist or whatever you want to call yourself—if you are doing the work of writing. That is completely separate from the work of publishing. The business side requires guts and rejection resilience. Once your book is accepted, you begin a steady but perilous journey toward publication day, which means steeling yourself for reviews, juggling interview requests, writing essays to amplify the content of your book, reaching out to bookstores, setting up readings, and basically doing anything anyone asks of you when it’s in the service of your book.

Not everyone loves this part of the process, but these are essential tasks for writers who want their books to reach readers, and they are nonnegotiable if you want to earn book sales. It’s important to keep tabs on your own energy and health needs, especially if you are disabled, but you can’t just walk away because publicity feels strange and uncomfortable. If you want people to find your work, you have to stand beside it, hollering and waving your arms until someone pays attention. Hopefully others will come stand beside you and do some of the hollering, and this includes your publisher.

 

WJF: I’ve published four books on traditional small presses, with a fifth forthcoming. Through that process, I’ve experienced many of the things people want: positive trade reviews, a write up in The New York Times, and royalty checks. That said, I’m certainly not paying the rent with book money. How should writers understand what it means financially to publish?

LS: Money is the slipperiest, least reliable measure of literary success, because we don’t have full control over sales. There are so many variables. The economy. Your cover. Whether you get those trade reviews or not. Whether your publisher has distribution that allows bookstores to carry your book. Whether a big-box store over-orders copies and your publisher gets hit with a lot of returns. Whether your book fits a niche that libraries want to fill for their patrons. And so forth. 

As authors, we can do all the things our publishers ask. We can win awards and say “yes” to every interview, and none of it is guaranteed to move the sales needle. Sales are mercurial and hard to predict, even for the largest publishers, but we must always remember that when we talk about selling books, especially for those of us who are literary writers, we’re really discussing art, ideas, beauty, loss, and other intangibles. There’s value in putting our hearts on the page, and sharing those musings with others. That is undeniable and important, whether or not a book meets sales goals. I want artists to make real money, but if we can soften our thinking around sales, it’ll be easier to get back to work on the next book. 

 

WJF: Any final advice for writers who are embarking on a publishing journey?

LS: Get out of your own way because publishing is hard enough without putting artificial barriers on the path. I spent years revising what became my debut novel, because I wanted so desperately to land an agent and unlock a very specific kind of literary success. Looking back, I got caught up in chasing what I thought I wanted. I wasted a lot of time that could have been spent writing new material. My best friend didn’t live to see my novel on the shelf of her local bookstore because I kept revising and resubmitting instead of refocusing on small presses.

I think I would have been proud of any one of those versions as a finished book. It’s not “small press as a consolation prize.” It is “small press honoring your story”—even when the truest form of it is not always the most saleable form.

My advice: be honest about your goals. If you want your story on shelves in bookstores, there are lots of paths that will lead there. The publishing industry has a lot of moving pieces, and after you finish writing, there’s a lot of research (and luck!) involved in placing your project.

Keep writing. Keep sending it out. We’re rooting for you.

 

 

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LAURA STANFILL is the publisher of Forest Avenue Press and the author of Imagine a Door and Singing Lessons for the Stylish Canary. Her second novel, The Neighborhood Dames, is forthcoming from Ooligan Press in November 2026. She lives in Portland, Oregon. Find her on Instagram @lhstanfill. 

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WENDY J. FOX is the author of five books of fiction, including the forthcoming novel The Last Supper. She has written for many national publications and authors a quarterly column in Electric Literature focusing on independent books. A lifelong resident of the American west, she currently lives outside of Phoenix. Find her on Instagram @foxwendyj.