You Can’t Judge a Show by Its Cover

Down in the basement, far from the smooth-sell of publishers he calls “the big guys,” Michael Jacob Rochlin is proudly pitching his own wares.

“L.A. history? Los Angeles history?” asks the Silver Lake-based chief of Unreinforced Masonry Studio, which is in every sense of the word a “small press.”

At this weekend’s BookExpo America, the largest publishing industry convention in North America, Rochlin and a couple of hundred other eensy, teensy presses that have taken space in the Los Angeles Convention Center’s basement are striving to stand tall.

Sometimes passersby ignore the display of Unreinforced Masonry’s entire list of two books, both written by the publisher himself. But at other times--after he engages people in chitchat and displays his expertise on the Southland’s architectural and geographical past--Rochlin manages to ring up a sale.

Many, though not all, of BookExpo’s smallest exhibitors are self-publishers like Rochlin, with books that no one else wanted to put into print. Nevermind that their generic blue-and-white display stands are a bit sparse and the browsing crowds a tad thin. From Friday through today, all of them have had the chance to mix, mingle and catch the attention of the book retailers, wholesalers, agents, scouts or larger publishers milling about the industry’s annual springtime gathering, sponsored by the American Booksellers Assn. and the Assn. of American Publishers.

According to a recent survey by the Book Industry Group and the Publishers Marketing Assn., small and independent presses make up a rapidly growing segment of the book business. In 1997, their titles constituted more than three-quarters of all the books in print, and the survey found that almost 40% of the respondents were tiny presses founded over the past five years.

“Technology has caused this to happen,” said Jan Nathan, executive director of the Publishers Marketing Assn. The low cost of desktop publishing, she added, “has allowed people to get books that were inside of them into print.”

Last year’s expo in Chicago drew about 1,300 exhibitors and 25,000 industry professionals, organizers said. Although organizers declined to estimate the size of this weekend’s crowd, they said that exhibitors number about 2,000.

Upstairs in two grand halls, women and men in sharp suits and perfectly clipped or sprayed hair milled about. Marketing staff sat or stood at displays like Victorian children, never speaking until approached or spoken to. In the main halls, where booth space starts at $2,500 and the fanciest displays can cost more than $100,000, big-time publishers tried to be impressive as well as expressive.

The entire area occupied by Harlequin, the mega-publisher of romance novels, stood on a rose-colored rug, adorned here and there with sprays of ferns and magenta chrysanthemums. The venerable publishing house of Farrar Straus & Giroux adopted a simple theme of white, gray and black. Encyclopedia publisher World Book chose a we-have-it-all department store-like look.

“It looks like Disneyland up there,” sniffed Bruce Isham, a Marysville, Calif., author whose two books are displayed at the small-press booth of Bandicoot Books, a children’s book publisher with six titles. Bandicoot is run by Isham’s cousin, Steve, who co-illustrated all of the books.

In the Convention Center basement, people’s hair and clothing were noticeably more relaxed. They also were more likely to make eye contact, smile and try to engage browsers in conversation.

“It’s more of a flea market feel,” said Eric Rowe, an Oakland-based wholesaler specializing in horror books, from his upstairs booth.

“I go down there for personal enjoyment. It’s more genuine,” Rowe said of the basement. “I do my real business up here.”

But the power of the start-up presses should not be underestimated, Nathan said. After all, this was where some of the biggest recent publishing successes got their start.

About a decade ago, John Kilcullen wanted to publish consumer guides to technology, but the major presses rejected him. So he started his own venture, which today is called IDG Books Worldwide. Among its titles is the blockbuster “DOS for Dummies” and other “Dummies”-titled books.

“We had a tiny little 10-by-10,” said Kilcullen, now IDG’s chief executive, recalling its first BookExpo booth in the early ‘90s. “We started very humbly, very modestly.”

Now, the company is publicly traded, and recorded more than $140 million in sales last year, Kilcullen said. This weekend, IDG is occupying about 2,200 square feet at the convention.

While some tiny publishers say they are thinking big, others say they would be happy just to recover their costs, with a little left over.

“You really have to love it to do it,” said James Clearwater, who heads the Miami Beach-based Grassfield Press, publisher of eight art books. He said he exhibits at BookExpo only every other year, because it’s so expensive. This year, the cheapest booth space costs about $700. Then there’s travel, hotel and meals.

But in the last two days, a few museum shop buyers have stopped to buy, Clearwater said. “This year, it’s paid for itself.”

Over at Dallas-based Darklove Publishing, first-time novelist and publisher Jewel Dearman said he had taken only about 10 orders of four books each. He blamed it on the small-press section’s out-of-the-way location.

“The layout is pitiful,” he said. “You really want exposure, and here you don’t have much. If [buyers] get tired, they might stop and rest their feet before they come down here.”

But a few aisles away, J. Neil Schulman, publisher of Culver City-based Pulpless.com, was grinning. He is displaying about 30 softcover books, with topics ranging from science fiction to O.J. Simpson. So far he had sold about 1,200 volumes and had just booked a “huge order” from an English buyer, he said. “We’re real happy here.”

Rochlin, in the meantime, cringed when reminded of the convention’s cost. He hopes to break even, he said. “It’s not over yet.”