Why I Started Galley Brag

As of late, everyone I’ve talked to in publishing has been saying the same thing: it feels like we are at a particular inflection point, but no one knows quite what it is or where we’re going.

There are so many contributing factors, of course: the pandemic, subsequent supply chain issues and general price jumps, waves of xenophobic hate, TikTok and book influencers, continued police violence targeting Black and brown folks and ICE raids and the very brief publishing response to these global outrages, a publishing strike (!), the war on Gaza and the mind-boggling censorship + incredible political action and collective organizing that has come of it (Writers Against The War on Gaza), climate change and literal cities on fire, the new “administration,” AI, book bans (shout out Authors Against Book Bans), the general demise of “the free world,” etc.

And here we are, wondering why books aren’t selling.

But, is that really the truth? All across the industry—in all our various silos—people seem to be scratching their heads. Authors are querying agents for years and can’t seem to catch a break, agents are trying their damndest to fight for and do right by their clients in an ever-shifting landscape, and editors are trying to buy books they believe in and publish them to success. It’s worth adding, of course, an asterisk to all of this: that everyone is trying to pay their bills, and that there is insidious racism, classism, ableism, xenophobia, transphobia, etc. at the root of this and any capitalist “cultural” system. And then, of course, there are all the various folks that bring these books into the hands of readers in-house, each of them trying their best to separate work and life and love of books: marketers, publicists, production (the unsung heroes!), design, contracts, sales, and the list goes on.

And then there are the Book Content Creators—Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Substack, etc.—each at their own inflection point, all grappling with their own love of reading, which has been compromised by an increasingly un-free internet. And of course, the angels of the publishing industry: the librarians! the educators! the ones truly at the heart of our democracy and the ones taking the most heat. 

Then, there are our other darling saints: the booksellers. Indie booksellers are trying to sell books and keep doors open against Am*zon’s unbeatable price gouging, but even Barnes & Noble and other corporations are changing the way they buy books and sell to consumers, trying to adjust to a more authentic, indie book-selling model to get folks to come to a physical storefront.

And then there is self-publishing—which, good for them!—and self-publishing pick-ups and the circle goes around and around and round again. 

And all of these hundreds (? thousands?) of book workers are trying to find the answers. So, why aren’t we talking to each other in any meaningful way? The chances I’ve had to talk with booksellers and influencers have felt like illicit peeks behind the curtain, but is it not our jobs to know what people want?

And all of this comes, again, at a vulnerable time and place in our own democracy. When I first came up with the idea for Galley Brag, it was November 20th, 2024 (not very long ago, but feels that long ago). I was in the spirals of the election, and working on something that felt like my own brought me so much joy. But, of course, in coming up for air and looking around at the world in disarray, I felt my own inner tugs of embarrassment. 

Yes, a hobby is great, and I was finding myself falling in love with publishing all over again—even my partner said that this was the most excited he had seen me about the publishing industry in the entire time he’s known me—but did any of this really fucking matter in the grand scheme of things? Here I was, too, trying to make sure I had testosterone stocked up, my passport changed in time, that I had a new IUD in place and that all my friends were up on their birth control as well, doing my best to answer folks’ name change queries while lovingly texting my friends imploring them to please please do theirs before it was too late. So many waves of grief and despair—I got a domestic partnership, but should we have just gotten married? Will our marriage even be recognized if same-sex marriage is repealed (especially because we are both trans)?—and immigrants fearing for their lives and teachers, healthcare providers, neighbors, community members, and everyone else who loves and supports people most at risk now on the front lines as well. 

Why spend time worrying about book jobs in a country that is becoming increasingly unsafe, and what’s the point of collecting books if we have to leave everything behind in order to live? What is the point of talking about galleys when our identities as trans people are being literally scrubbed from government sites, alongside resources about other life-saving healthcare like gender-affirming care, birth control and abortion, and resources for HIV+ folks and those most at risk. And, all the while, I’m posting this on a platform that has been funded, in part, by a known Zionist and transphobe, and will continue to promote it on social media apps built by billionaires whose only objective is to exploit and destroy us.

But all of this is connected, is it not? At my lowest points—sobbing in front of my desktop computer to my partner while reviewing a copyedit, concerned that whatever queer, trans, or status quo-questioning work I’m publishing will never see the light of day with the way things are headed—I have been reminded of the transgressive, immutable nature of the printed word. My partner has talked me down, reminded me that there is power in physically printing trans voices in paper, as we’ve seen again and again how quickly and easily we can be deleted from the public record. And though at times I have eyerolled (I’m sorry, Ryan!) in embarrassment at what feels like an overstatement of what I do (mostly send emails, tbh), I know at my core that it is true. 

After all, they wouldn’t be trying to ban our books so hard, restrict our educational systems, limit our ability to speak, fight, govern, and live, if we didn’t in some way pose an innumerable threat to imposing fascism. I say “we” as in trans people but also “we” as in book people—who can so easily see ourselves just as cogs in the machine and not as active participants in the fight against censorship and promoters of free speech in all facets. Because, I promise you, these attacks will not stop with queer and trans literature, or literature about abortion, or books about Blackness and race and the truth of America’s violent history. They will never be satisfied; there will always be more to moralize and hand-wring about until there is nothing left to publish that isn’t already pre-vetted by whatever government standards boards are yet to be installed.

Sorry to be so Ray Bradbury about it, or Orwellian, or Octavian Butlerian, but all that to say that the idea that we are useless and replaceable does more service to the empire than it does to ourselves. I was reminded of that last week, in a town hall organized by Authors Against Book Bans, directed at publishing workers. We were being warned against the censorship to come—both from the outside and from within—the “compliance in advance” that we are seeing so many medical centers already doing in canceling gender-affirming care appointments for minors, in major companies like Target and Lowe’s removing DEI from their mission statements and organizations, and churches and employers granting access to ICE to conduct unwarranted searches. But there are also acts of resistance, or rather acts of non-compliance, that remind us that we do matter, that we do have a say in what happens to us, our, friends, our loved ones, and even—dare I say it!—to those we don’t have the pleasure of knowing, or not yet.

All this to say, I sat there in the Zoom room listening to banned authors give testimony of how they’ve been stalked and harassed and had campaigns—both legal and moral, political and scatterplot—run against them. And I realized there in my bed that I was not, in this case, just another concerned citizen. I did—in some minor, microscopic way—have the power to fight, as we all do.

So! If you’re new here, I’m going to keep posting interviews weekly or biweekly (depending on my workload / the state of the world, etc., as again I do very much have a full-time job and feel it is antithetical to my *mission* to paywall this…that said if you wanted to become a paid subscriber for no reason other than because you support this “work” I’m doing, I literally cannot stop you). I’m going to keep talking to authors, agents, editors, booksellers, content creators, and folks all across the industry in some quest to make publishing not fall apart. 

And yes, I will mostly be nerding out about things no one cares much about with people so in the weeds of the book world that we could all very well be speaking in code. But if this, in some random, roundabout way, gives us (all of us) the knowledge to be able to publish books better, to be able to publish books by and for those most vulnerable—in whatever way you wish to define that—and show the powers-that-be that there is monetary value in representation (as we are—for the foreseeable future—still unfortunately trapped within a capitalist system), then I will be thrilled. And if all this does is busy my brain for a few hours a week so I stop doomscrolling and googling “X country trans rights?”, then that’s a win, too.

So, more interviews to come, but I’m not putting down the Brag for now, or for the foreseeable future. I hope you’ll join me—or, at the very least, allow me this one small thing.

xE