Milkweed Editions

Book production, distribution, and promotion:founded in minneapolis in 1980, Milkweed Editions is one of the nation's leading independent publishers of literature. We currently publish some thirty titles each year in the categories of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, and our list is acclaimed for its distinction and variety. We release every title simultaneously in print and ebook Editions, we enhance the publication of all titles with original digital content, we license publication of many titles we originate to foreign and audiobook publishers, and, since 2018, we publish some of our poetry titles as audiobooks. We currently have more than four hundred titles in print, nearly two hundred titles available as ebooks, and nearly five million copies of books we published originally in circulation around the world.

Editorial:we measure the success of our publishing program, how well we achieve our mission, in many ways, including book sales through our distributor, our website, and our bookstore. In 2023, revenue generated by sales of our books grossed more than $5 million. We also factor in awards, reviews, and other media attention garnered by our titles, authors, and organization. Our books saw reviews and media mentions in outlets ranging from the new york times, the wall street journal, the guardian, and the new yorker and recent titles were finalists for the pulitzer prize, the national book award, the national book critics circle award, pen/jean stein book award, the l.a. times book prize, and the Minnesota book award, among numerous other awards and prizes.

Outreach: - general -Milkweed is motivated by the fact that literature is fundamentally transformative. Every year we sell hundreds of thousands of books, many of our authors and titles receive awards, and most titles receive glowing reviews and recommendations in a wide range of media. These are some of the ways we measure success, but in addition to our publishing program, we actively seek to build community around literature and to serve an expanding, increasingly diverse constituency of writers and readers. We serve writers by providing financial and editorial support and by building a broad audience for their work. We serve readers by connecting them to the authors and books we publish. - reaching readers -our goal to build community is ultimately achieved by sharing our work with the widest range of participants and communicating why it is relevant and how it can be transformative in their lives. We work to make our books available in a variety of formats print, ebook, and increasingly audiobook; we have a variety of distribution partners to help books reach as many markets as possible; we also cultivate strong relationships with librarians, ensuring that many readers borrow our books; and each year we donate several thousand books. - open book - as one of three founding tenants of open book, the nation's largest literary center located in downtown minneapolis, we actively seek to build community around literature. In the years since its founding in 2000, open book is now a national success story. The center attracts more than 175,000 visitors annually, and we strengthened our commitment to this remarkable institution by opening a street-level bookstore in the building in late 2016. Milkweed books serves as a vibrant community space, a site where readers discover and interact with writers, many of whom are published by other organizations in our field. The building closed to the public in early 2020 due to the covid-19 pandemic but reopened in june of 2022. - fellowship program -the Milkweed fellowship program, launched in 2019, is grounded in the belief that books have the potential to change the way we see the world, and that equity is essential to a vibrant, diverse, and empowered literary ecosystem. This paid, one- to two-year immersion program is designed to offer the tools, experience, and exposure necessary to pursue a career in book publishing. Intended to provide an alternative route to success in an industry where the prerequisite to an entry level position is typically an unpaid internship, this learning-oriented position seeks to provide entry to those historically underrepresented among workers in book publishing - indigenous, people of color, lgbtqia+, and those with disabilities so they may advance, discover, and champion transformative literature for years to come.