Just ended up on this quite randomly.
I'm not active on AW (I created an account a couple years back because a post on my website - "The Biggest Mistakes Writers Make When Querying Literary Agents," in which over 50 agents pitched in with their thoughts on the topic - was getting a bunch of traffic from AW, and I came on here to thank a few people for spreading the link; I think those have been my only posts on here to date), but I wanted to make sure there is some info on Atticus Books for anyone who is interested.
My debut novel, The Great Lenore, was published with Atticus in 2011, and my second novel should be coming out with them next summer (although, not everything is set in stone just yet, so I don't know the dates). Thus far, my experience with them has been nothing but positive.
The editing process is fantastic; they only take on 4 books a year, so they are able to devote serious attention and fantastic back-and-forth in perfecting each of their books.
The cover designs are almost all done by Jamie Keenan, who has designed covers for Junot Diaz, Nick Hornby, Garrison Keillor, Stephen King, Irvine Welsh, and others.
The promotion process is not going to blow you away, but it is a lot more (a lot more!) than you would get from a major publishing house.
And they're awesome about working with you on anything and everything, they have a great reputation among indie bookstores and reviewers (very important), and they truly take care of their authors.
My book was a staff pick at several bookstores around the country and was a display book at Barnes & Noble's flagship store in Manhattan, and we recently sold the Italian rights to one of the largest publishing houses in Italy (all of which, of course, does not happen without Atticus doing a great job getting the book out there). Atticus also helped me set up a 10-city book tour when the book came out.
So, do you know who I am? Probably not (not unless you are one of the 4,000 readers who have marked "The Great Lenore" as "to read" on Goodreads, and seem unlikely to ever actually read it!
), and if you publish with Atticus - or with any small press - people won't "know who you are." Not unless you're Jaimy Gordon and you win the National Book Award publishing with McPherson, or are Paul Harding, and you win the Pulitzer Prize publishing with Bellevue. But Atticus is about as good as it gets for small presses (and if it counts for anything, Atticus is friends with McPherson and Bellevue!).
It should be mentioned: Atticus did not ask me to write this, nor do they know I'm writing it. And certainly, I cannot speak for all the Atticus authors (although, all of them I have had opportunity to interact with seem as happy with Atticus as I am), but my experience has been fantastic. If you're looking for a small press that cares and takes care of you, Atticus is worth checking out.
