The sense of the outsider for books

What is the space ofrisk per un literary talent hunterToday? To what extent, instead of indulging in it, you can still try tostimulate the taste of readers? Questions that open scenarios and led us fromSimone Caltabellotathe man who has intercepted and detonated, over the last thirty years, the most diverse voices: from John Fante to Melissa Panarello, from JT LeRoy to Stephenie Meyer – Twilight’s mother -, from Tiffany McDaniel to Elizabeth Strout, from Filippo Tuena to Carmine Abate. After directing Fazi in his golden age, today he leadsAtlantis Editions, independent publishing housewhich has recently passed its decade of existence, without ceasing to try to build acatalog out of the ordinary.

In an increasingly prudent publishing industry linked to the logic of numbers, is there still room for creativity and risk?

“There has to be, because the only possibility ofsurvival di una publishing housetoday lies in not publishing what others publish, doing things that don’t yet exist – or no longer exist. Themarketotherwise, it will not be able to recover: we are now close toself-extinctionat the end of a cultural, editorial and market model. Whileliterary fiction e non-fictionthey lose weight, other genres grow, sometimes with interesting results:new fantasy, weird, new horrormay be more original than the works of so-called literary writers”.

Market and survival

Faced with the sales crisis of recent years, what is Atlantide’s strategy?

“From the beginning, we were looking for our own path. We were born with onelimited edition necklace diffusa solo in trusted bookstores: 200 points of sale throughout the country with which to establish a stable relationship. An early twentieth century model. But if in 2015 a circulation of 999 numbered copies could be considered reduced, today it represents a more than acceptable result for almost all titles published in Italy. Now we also have theBlue series of more contemporary fictionpromoted and distributed through ‘normal’ channels, but the idea of ​​doing remainsbooks that could have been written even twenty or eighty years ago“.

Is it the solution?

“There isn’t one, we try to publishtexts that we feel are importantfor what they tell and how they are written. With onelook at realitythat shows paths not yet taken. It is clear that centimeters are added to the bar, but doing so is in oursDNA“.

An elitist approach?

“I would just sayallegedly. For me, for the other partners – Francesco Pedicini, Flavia Piccinni, Gianni Miraglia and Gaetano Carboni – and for all those who work with us, including the interns, it is a central aspect. You need aclean environmentin cui fare books that reflect ethical and social valuesthat you believe in. You can also choose not to publish something that you think might sell, because giving a title to print is, every time, also a problempolitical act. Of my work, I would like to have always supported, through books, the expression of an idea ofintellectual freedom“.

Anticipate the reader’s tastes

In intercepting editorial phenomena in advance, how much does instinct matter and how much does cultural analysis?

“It is not consciously anticipated: never happened in 30 years of work. Simply, as a reader, I want to besurprised and questioned. And if I remain reassured, it doesn’t have to be in a consolatory way. Maybe it’s about sensing something in the air, and sometimes it happens too soon. I happened to publishbooks so ahead of their timenot to reach the readers. However, I think theliteraturehas the task of leading us towardsnew dimensionsnot already crystallized into prototypes”.

What about entertainment?

“L’entertainmentas such it is, unfortunately, the reference model. But it represents thedeath of literaturewhich can never be just that. Let’s take ‘Twilight’, how many vampire novels were there? Many, but when we proposed it with Fazi, the first title of the saga said something different. Then I moved my energies towards something else: I never liked itspeculate or repeat myself. It’s my limit likeeditor: Don’t capitalize on what I threw. I realize it, I’m not good at all in publishing as an industry.”

You wouldn’t think so, judging by the phenomena you proposed

“That’s another matter: sometimes you feel that abookcould opendifferent horizonschange the direction of your gaze a little, and that’s the best thingthrilling. I have to try something, if it didn’t happen again, I would stop again. Years ago I decided to change sector due to lack of emotions: open arecord companyit allowed me to find thesense of discovery. Successes like the two million copies sold worldwide of ‘100 Brushes Before Bedtime’ overwhelm you emotionally.”

Was it alienating?

“As beautiful as humanly.Melissa PanarelloAt 17, he already had the ability not to be carried away by the judgment of others. Now she is an intelligent woman who is not afraid to express her opinion, even if it is not the common one, and writes excellent things. Thesuccess of ‘100 brush strokes’it was exhilarating and scary. Sometimes, if we went out to eat something, perhaps with Thomas Fazi, the photographers followed us. Madness.”

Author and publisher: compared perspectives

You have written three novels: does being an author change your perspective when reading other people’s manuscripts?

“Today I identify myself asreader. I wrote when I worked in publishing only as a consultant: in fact my last book was from 2015, the year Atlantis was born. I can’t do both at the same level of depth, it takes oneexplorer’s gaze: the text must take me to ainternal placewhich I didn’t imagine visiting. And to go where you weren’t expecting, you need to be in the right opening mode. I haven’t heard of many books because my attitude wasn’t free.”

Music and interdisciplinarity

A few years ago you opened a record label: can knowing music and popular culture influence your profession as a publisher?

“It is essential not to be interested only in books, because the disciplines interact. Music, in particular, offers adifferent perspective: has a sort ofmystical poweror shamanic. There are, obviously, various levels, but therockit helps overcome limitations and saved my life when literature was making me become an intellectual. Or rather: forcing one into an intellectualistic role. As a record producer I was aoutsiderand I like to be one as an editor too. In fact, I like to be that way in any situation. It is no coincidence that Colin Wilson’s ‘The Outsider’ is one of the first Atlantis titles.”

Imprinting issue?

“Apart from the so-called compulsory ones, I think I have trained ondifferent readingsfrom those of my peers and today’s forty or forty-five year olds.Manlio Cancogni e Carlo Cassolano one read them when I was a boy. As an Infantryman – asideSandro Veronesiwith whom we have in fact become friends – oGiorgio Vigoloa great poet still unknown today. And I could go on with names likeErcole Patti o Enrico Pea. He always guided me therecuriositythe pleasure of not stopping atcanon. I went to the stalls, as I still do. I have since published many books that I loved when I was young, trying to bring godsgerms of counterculture“.

Controversy and provocations

Some of your authors have sparked great controversy: how do you decide which risks are worth taking in publishing a text?

“I have never asked myself the question, the point has always beenvalue of the book. Then, you can be wrong: it depends on how tuned your taste is to the truth in that situation. I am a privileged person who was able to work in oneMake it springin a particular historical moment in publishing, the mid-nineties, in which it was still felt possible to do something new. I learned the job in a flood regimefreedom of choiceseven when the ones I did didn’t bring money or success.”

And today?

“Even the friends with whom we startedAtlantisthey come frominnovative editorial realities. There is trust in my taste, but a lot of exchange. Talking to them helps me clarify my ideas, to understand if I am really convinced of a text. There always remains the danger that thepublishing housecan’t walk on his own two feet, but today it concerns everyone. It is a profession marked byrisk; You might as well take it on for what you like.”

Concrete choices and anticipations

Two titles that Atlantide is focusing on that can also tell us something about the future taste of Italian readers

“I have no divination skills, I just continue to believe that theliteraturecan have relevance in people’s lives and I would like it to happen throughbooks we publish. Naming a title seems unfair to me. We make less than twenty-five books a year: for us that’s allfundamentalsalbeit in a different way. I hope I have learned how to manage apublishing companywith texts that I consider beautiful: some will work and others won’t, just know that to support one with three hundred copies sold, another must make three thousand, but always within anecessary together. L’uncertaintyon the other hand, is an aspect, even an interesting one, of this work.”

So in the end you like risk?

“I accept it. Because what mattersI commit: each title must be treated with the sameAttentionand the samerespect. Publishit is a dimension of encounter betweenwriter and editorwhich must find the best possible form, never be a mass-produced job. This is theAtlantis publishing idea. Then there are publishers who do things with the same seriousness that are very different from what we like.”

Many unknowns, but being a publisher is also a privilege

“Sure, I crossed pathsextraordinary books and writersexperienced the thrill of revealing his qualities to an author, received, as a boy, the trust of people likeSandro Veronesi, Elida Fazi, Emanuele Trevi e Arnaldo Colasanti. At university,Mario Costanzo e Biancamaria Frabottathey sent me most of the coordinates that still guide me in thereading and writing. Manlio Cancognihe taught me that you don’t have to be a bad person to be successful. Today I would like to return the gifts received: I think of it every time I read amanuscript o mi confronto con i young editors of Atlantis“.