Categories
Featured

A mutually rewarding publishing experience

by Vicky Dickson

In 2007, Elizabeth Woodman was looking into starting a publishing company. She’d edited Mary Claire Engstrom’s The Book of Burwell Students, which told the stories of female students who attended the historic Hillsborough school in the mid-1800s. The experience had intrigued her with the concept of capturing “stories we don’t wanna lose.” Woodman wanted to create a company with a commitment to publishing books that explored the history and culture of the South.

But her 30-plus years in the business had taught her that such books tend to lose money for their publishers. And though she well understood that “you don’t get into publishing for the money,” she knew she’d likely need sources of revenue other than book sales in order to stay in business. Forming a nonprofit publishing house, one that could seek grants and donations, seemed like a logical solution, and when her good friend Gita Schonfeld agreed to come onboard,

Eno Publishers in Hillsborough was born.

Elizabeth Woodman (left) and Gita Schonfeld of Eno Publishers. Photo by Eric Hallman

Eno Publishers releases two books a year, which translates into a considerable amount of work for Woodman and Schonfeld when you consider that big publishing houses put 50 to 75 people to work on a single book. The gestation period for one of their books – the time from which an idea is first proposed to the book’s release – is about nine months, and involves everything from grant writing and editing to selecting type and coming up with a marketing plan.

To complicate things further, cover designs have to be commissioned and approved by the author six months in advance in order to make it into the distributor’s catalogue. And reviewers like Publishers Weekly need book galleys three to four months before a book’s publication.

That’s not to say that Woodman and Schonfeld were unprepared for all those challenges. Woodman cofounded Ventana Press, a publisher of technical books once located in Carrboro (in the building now occupied by Acme), and worked there for 11 years before becoming a freelance editor. Schonfeld cofounded Carolina Parent magazine, which was eventually sold to the News & Observer. So the duo definitely knew what they were getting into.

Though the publishing world is in a great deal of flux right now, and getting the word out about new releases gets tougher every time a newspaper or magazine cuts back on its literary coverage, it’s clear that Woodman and Schonfeld relish coming to work every day. Schonfeld especially treasures the opportunities she’s had to meet great authors. Woodman describes the whole experience as “far more rewarding than anything I’ve ever done.”

The publishing house’s existence has also been quite rewarding for local readers. To date, Eno has published six books: 27 Views of Chapel Hill, Craig Nova’s Brook Trout and the Writing Life, 27 Views of Hillsborough, Daphne Athas’ Chapel Hill in Plain Sight, Helen Kraus and Anne Spafford’s Rain Gardening in the South and Suzy Barile’s Undaunted Heart. The books are full of those “stories we don’t wanna lose,” and all are a true pleasure to read. So we’re eagerly awaiting Eno’s upcoming 27 Views of Asheville, which is due to be released in 2012.