top 5 songs for publishing your book in a collective with Mia Arias Tsang
1. okay. i think we have to back up a little bit first. for those who don’t already know, can you tell us about Quilted Press and how a publishing collective works?
Sure thing. I often refer to Quilted as “self-publishing with friends” — our authors share information, resources, a cover designer, and emotional support, but we are all ultimately self-publishing our own books and directly receiving the proceeds from them. We’ve only put out three books so far, but those books have had incredible reach. Alex Alberto founded Quilted to self-publish their memoir Entwined and found that a lot of book fairs/literary orgs will just let you table if you call yourself a press. So, we’re a press. LOL. At the end of the day, we’re just three gay indie authors in a trenchcoat.
2. i imagine everyone has certain skills they contribute to the collective, but i’m also so curious about the things you learned with the help of other members. what insights where there along the way? did you learn any new skills from your partners? tricks and trades of publishing? etc?
Alex is wayyyyy better at anything related to numbers. Creating budgets, calculating profit, setting deadlines/making pub schedules, all of that. I have crippling ADHD. But if somebody makes me a calendar or a to-do list, I can stick to it. Having a publishing partner who can teach me all of this (and sometimes just do it for me when I don’t have it in me, lol) has made the process so much less stressful. They have also taught me a lot about the ins and outs of how traditional publishing actually works, and now having done this process independently, I feel way more empowered — when I send later projects to slightly larger (but still indie) presses, I feel confident that I’ll be able to stand by and stick up for my work in a way I don’t think I could have done before without everything I learned from Alex.
3. what advice would you have for someone who wanted to start their own collective?
Be honest to yourself about your strengths and weaknesses. Admit where and when you may need to lean on others. Get comfortable with asking for help. Kill your pride. In the United States we are force-fed Rugged Individualism, which is meant to disempower you. You can’t do everything (or anything) alone, but you’re expected to aspire to it, burn yourself out, never build true power with a community. I am still working on this. But the more comfortable I’ve gotten with being vulnerable and asking Alex for help, or just letting them know what’s going on in my life so they have context for my mental state/email delays/whatever, the smoother we can run the press and the more grace we can give each other.
4. if you could build a collective of any authors (living or otherwise), who would be in it and why?
I’m going to be annoying and reject the premise of this question because any traditionally published or historically celebrated authors don’t need to be in a collective. I’m building something special, queer, and experimental right now with Quilted. I’m in it. Alex is in it. KG Strayer is in it. I think we have a pretty good thing going already. ;)
5. REAL. thank you for that. we also have to talk about your work in general! what are you working on next?
Right now, I am working on a novel about two opportunistic, wannabe-artist lesbians who fall in love, make work about each other, and tear each other apart. I’m also toying around with returning to a short story collection from 2021 that I abandoned. The former I think I’d like to go slightly more traditional, but I’d like to stay on an indie press. The latter will definitely come out with Quilted!
Mia Arias Tsang is a writer based in New York City. Her work explores how queer people try and fail to love each other. Her first collection, FRAGMENTS OF WASTED DEVOTION, is out now with Quilted Press. She lives in Queens with her cat, Peanut, and is working on a novel.