Tools of the Trade

This month, Europa Editions' founder and owner, Sandro Ferri, published "Tools of the Book Trade" in Italy ("I ferri dell'editore," in Italian), a slim but fascinating reflection on his thirty-five years as a publisher and the owner, with his wife Sandra Ozzola, of Edizioni EO and now Europa Editions. He writes of the thrill of discovery, about reading works like The Lovely Bones, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, and the works of Massimo Carlotto for the first time, about EO's first publications of literature from Eastern Europe, about the way a publisher reads, the digital revolution, the teamwork that is an essential part of any successful publisher, and the many relationships that are created and must be nurtured in order that a publishing house fulfill its promise.

"A good publishing house, after a few years in business, becomes a strange hybrid, a space in which the publisher and readers themselves debate and "decide" what will be published. It's not a process that happens publicly via open, explicit negotiation, via questionnaires, surveys, requests for opinions, assemblies, or anything like that; rather it happens indirectly, through meccanisms that allow the publisher to take stock of the public's reactions and to correct his or her aim. If things take an extreme turn and readers reject all that the publisher puts forth, refusing to buy even a single copy of his books, the publisher will have failed, for his project is not to publish the books he likes, necessarily, but to convince a certain number of readers that his editorial choices are worthy of their consideration."

Congrats to Sandro on an illuminating text and a terrific career.