Overcup Press is a small independent press based in Portland, Oregon. They say their focus is “on literary nonfiction, art, travel, design, architecture, music, epicurean, and gift titles.” So far they’ve published eight books including two children’s picture books, a cookbook, several books about place, an illustrated biography of Buckminster Fuller, and a book best described by its title — “99 Ways to Make a Pipe: Problem Solving for Pot Smokers”. You can view their full catalog here.
They have a great sense of design and all of the books are appealing to their various audiences. The founder and publisher comes from a design background. One of my few concerns about the press relates to this. On the website they have a custom publishing page, that sells potential submitters on their ability to be paid to publish your work. It is not uncommon for small presses to have a self-publishing arm, but it is becoming more uncommon than it once was. It’s OK as long as the publisher never redirects you to the self publishing arm. Please send me an email at support@authorspublish.com and I will update the review accordingly.
The only other concern I have about them is that they mention having excellent distribution, and they have a web page devoted to that distributor, labelled “our distributor”. This link is currently broken and there is no indicator of who this distributor might be. I’m very happy to update the review is this distributor becomes known.
They are currently open to submissions in the following categories:
- Longform nonfiction narrative and journalism
- Popular science writing
- Environmental and nature writing
- Regional U.S. Northwest topics
- Travel (essay, other related)
- Architecture and design
- Food and drink, cannabis
- Contemporary arts and culture
- Music / Music history / Long-form music journalism
They accept submissions through Submittable. To learn more or to submit, go here.
Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2021 Guide to Manuscript Publishers.
She regularly teaches three acclaimed courses on writing and publishing at The Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish. You can follow her on Facebook here.
