Small Press Profile: Agate Publishing

This February, Publishers Weekly named Agate Publishing in Evanston, Illinois, one of the fastest-growing independent publishers of 2015.

Agate, founded in 2003 by Doug Seibold, got its start publishing African American literature under its Bolden imprint and has since expanded to several additional imprints, including B2, for business books; Surrey, for cookbooks; Midway, for books devoted to Midwestern topics and authors, with a particular focus on Chicago; and its stand-alone e-book imprint, Agate Digital.

“‘Agate’ is a newspaper industry term, derived from typesetting — it’s a name for the very, very small type used in things like stock reports, death notices, and box scores,” said Seibold. “I’ve used ‘fine print’ as a tag phrase for the company since I founded it — I thought it was meaningful for a very small company trying to publish good books.”

The company also publishes customized educational content for textbook publishers, schools, corporations, and nonprofits through Agate Development, its educational content development arm founded in 2006. Compared to other small publishers, Agate’s range of content is distinctively diverse, Seibold said.

“We’ve been a little unconventional that way. A lot of publishers of our scale tend to be focused on one particular kind of niche content — and we kind of are, too — but more as a collection of niche imprints,” he said. “Each imprint has a niche identity and we have a couple of them, whereas most companies our size will just have one.”  

Agate, which is distributed by Publishers Group West, will release 28 books this year, including a special 10th anniversary paperback reissue of Freshwater Road, by Denise Nicholas, which has been called one of the greatest novels ever written about the Civil Rights movement. Seibold said his interest in publishing African American literature comes from his experience as an editor at an African American-owned publisher, Noble Press, which has since closed down.

Since its founding, Agate has published some of the most noteworthy debuts by African American authors today, said Seibold, including Where the Line Bleeds, by Jesmyn Ward, who went on to win the 2012 National Book Award for Salvage the Bones (Bloomsbury). In 2013, Agate published Kiese Laymon’s critically acclaimed debut novel, Long Division, and the essay collection How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America. Laymon’s next two books will be published by Scribner.

Agate titles have been nominated for a diverse array of awards, including the NAACP Image Award, the Believer Book Award, the James Beard Award, and the International Association of Culinary Professionals Food Writing Award. In fact, the Surrey cookbook Dinner at Home by JeanMarie Brownson picked up an IACP award earlier this month, according to Seibold.

During his time at Noble, Seibold said, he learned a lot about how issues related to race and African Americans are often overlooked or misrepresented by the media.

“This is a segment of our society that I think is perennially underserved by major American media and perennially overlooked in the collective. And when they are represented, it is, too often, in oversimplified terms or, worse, distorted terms,” Seibold said.

“I feel that the work we publish under [the Bolden] imprint is some of the most important work that we do,” Seibold added. “I think if you create work for an African American readership and you do it well, it will find a readership that goes beyond just that community.”

Agate’s appearance at this May’s BookExpo America, in nearby Chicago, will feature a sneak peek at Denene Millner Books, the publisher’s new line of books for children by African American authors. Under Agate’s Bolden books imprint, Denene Millner Books will publish titles curated by Millner, a bestselling author and the parenting blogger behind MyBrownBaby.com. The imprint officially debuts in February 2017 with the release of Early Sunday Morning, written by Millner and illustrated by Vanessa Brantley Newton.

Also premiering at BEA in Chicago is Much Ado by Michael Lenehan, the longtime executive editor of the Chicago Reader. Published by Agate’s Midway imprint, Much Ado is Agate’s contribution to the Shakespeare 400 commemoration. It tells the story of the American Players Theatre in Spring Green, Wisconsin, which was called the best repertory theater in America by Wall Street Journal theater critic Terry Teachout.

Over the years, Agate’s most commercially successful book was the first in its In Their Own Words series under the publisher’s B2 imprint: I, Steve: Steve Jobs in His Own Words, which was published in 2011 around the time of Jobs’ death. The book sold 100,000 copies in seven weeks and became the publisher’s first New York Times bestseller. Since then, the series has included titles on Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett, and Bill Gates. B2 will release Own It: Oprah Winfrey in Her Own Words in December 2016.

Other notable Agate publications include five books by Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts Jr., including three novels. In October 2016, Agate will publish a paperback edition of Pitts’ Grant Park, which was published in hardcover last fall.

“Leonard Pitts Jr. has become our bestselling novelist and he’s chosen to stay in the fold here at Agate and continue to work with us on each of his new releases,” said Seibold.

“His books have outsold those of all the other novelists we have published, and he still feels that Agate is the best home for his work. There is always a special feeling here at Agate for the writers who have decided that they want to keep working with us book after book.”

Coming out this July under the company’s Surrey imprint is My Halal Kitchen by Yvonne Maffei, based on the author’s popular blog of the same name. The cookbook remakes familiar favorites such as classic American burgers and Mexican or Italian cuisine staples into tasty halal recipes for people who follow Islamic dietary guidelines. In an increasing atmosphere of Islamophobia, said Seibold, this important book demonstrates cultures coming together.

“For whatever reason, I think bigger publishers just didn’t see the appeal or the importance of a book like this. But it was something that a company like Agate won’t shy away from,” he said. “I always assume most of the projects that come to Agate from agents, they have been passed on by bigger publishers; but that’s just the nature of the marketplace.”

Seibold, who has more than 30 years of publishing and media experience, founded Agate with his own money after seven years of trying and failing to interest investors. Since its beginnings in 2003, the company has taken off, growing from two people working out of Seibold’s 400-square-foot basement to 17 employees.

Because he is the sole proprietor, Seibold said he has been able to focus on publishing books about topics that interest him: Agate’s B2 imprint stems from his personal interest in entrepreneurship and the workplace experience, while his acquisition of Surrey, which became Agate’s cookbook imprint, came about in part due to his interest in food.

“I think all of our different imprints reflect things that I not only have a personal interest in, but also personal experience and know-how with,” Seibold said. “It’s been great to get a chance to use all these different aspects of my own experience and my own knowledge base in building the company, and that is one reason that I have expanded and diversified in the way I have.”

Seibold is also very proud of the company’s intern program, which has hired and trained more than 60 interns. In fact, said Seibold, more than half of Agate’s current staff members are former interns.