Help Kore Survive the Sudden SPD Closure

Kore Press Institute is among some 300 small presses directly impacted by the sudden closure last month of Small Press Distribution (SPD), the country’s only nonprofit distributor of small and alternative publishers. Along with so many of our colleagues, Kore was without notice suddenly left without distribution, information, access to inventory, and with that, sales income.

We’ve been sitting in on all the zooms and info sharing efforts, talking with prospective new distributors and other presses, and trying to wrap our minds around the calculus of the situation to figure out what the next right move for KPI is. Since those emergency meetings, I’ve recently learned which warehouses in the east and Midwest are holding Kore books. SPD had shipped over 300,000 titles in an effort this past fall to launch a new business model. A few months later they closed their doors. As many of you may have already heard, all presses were given short deadlines to provide the new address where their inventory is to go or face pulping of that stock, which for Kore amounts to 30 years of labor in material assets.

It’s been a lot for us former SPD presses, especially those like KPI who are still in recovery mode from the pandemic operating with little to no staff and reduced capacity.

Kore Press Institute for 30 years has been dedicated to cultivating more just and radically connected communities through publishing literature by women and trans writers, education, and innovative social practice arts. Kore is one of the longest running feminist, literary arts organizations of its kind in the U.S.

In this moment, Kore seeks emergency relief funds to support closing the financial gap this situation has created. As we pivot attention to figuring out new distribution, shipping of inventory across the country, and the additional time-sensitive labor required for good change management ( research, navigating contracts, procuring and establishing new distribution, uploading title data into new systems, managing new relationships, extra communications, website changes, etc, etc), books in the pipeline also require resources. This is what we see, so far, as the additional significant administrative burden (and stress) that Kore, along with so many others, are suddenly facing.

If you have something to spare for this Press that has been contributing to the diversity of America’s literary ecosystem for three decades, we would be ever so grateful. Any support to any group directly impacted is a gift.

Here is yesterday’s NY Times coverage of the debacle which has left so many in this community precarious:

SPD closure NYT article

More about Kore : Kore Press Institute

Thank you.