New Europe Books publishes quality trade fiction and nonfiction, mostly from Central and Eastern Europe or written through a lens reflecting that region’s historical/cultural experience. Distributed by Minneapolis-based Consortium Book Sales & Distribution—an Ingram-owned firm that distributes more than 100 leading independent literary presses—it is based in Williamstown, Massachusetts, but works with authors, designers, and others from across Europe, North America, and beyond.
New Europe Books aims ultimately--by late 2021 or early 2022--to register as a nonprofit and to apply for federal 501(c)(3) status. It might, alternatively, be absorbed by another nonprofit in the same timeframe, averting the need to register on its own. Either way, given that for years now it has had all the trappings of a nonprofit--it publishes quality books that have arguably served the public good and earned it a good reputation but, well, no or little profit--this transition makes sense. Granted, it should have made the move--from its enduring, ever-precarious sole proprietorship status--several years ago. It was poised to embark on a more sustainable path in late winter 2020, thanks to the prospect of reliable, regular funding--i.e. from a half-time magazine-editing job owner/publisher Paul Olchváry was on the cusp of securing from an existing, newly formed nonprofit. But the funding of that nonprofit fell through on account of the pandemic and associated uncertainties in the European state institution that was set to grant it. Paul Olchváry otherwise earns his living (and has funded New Europe Books) mostly through freelance literary translation projects and copywriting, and to a much smaller extent--though this is ever unpredictable--from sales of New Europe Books titles.
A transition period of months, and perhaps a year or more, during which New Europe Books can access funding via a fiscal agency agreement would be crucial to its short- to mid-term sustainability. And the fundraising contacts it builds during this time would be vital to its fundraising future.
New Europe Books has released both fiction of literary quality and engaging, objective nonfiction packed with vital information--books whose appeal to both general readers and academics, to a relatively broad demographic, counters the stereotype of Central and Eastern Europe as obscure, opaque, inaccessible.
Its core imprint, New Europe Books, has published sixteen titles to date since its founding in 2012, with six forthcoming (i.e. under contract and soon to be announced on its website). Its YA (young adult) imprint, Young Europe Books, includes three titles so far.
Enhanced access to funding, initially via the fiscal agency agreement, will open the door to new opportunities to New Europe Books for funding some current, as well as projected future titles, and more generally, will allow for an expanded, more sustainable publishing program and to reinforce staffing, initially on a mostly volunteer or modestly compensated basis (e.g. taking on an associate editor alongside Paul Olchvary, who has volunteered his own time, as well as an editorial assistant). An outside, once-a-month bookkeeper would also be a must--to be done the moment a fiscal agency agreement is in place.
New Europe Books has consistently drawn positive reviews from leading media outlets (e.g. Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal) for its titles, which have all, in some way and degree, served the public good. Its top-selling books include Tomek Jankowski’s 660-page popular history Eastern Europe: Everything You Need to Know About the History (and More) of a Region That Shaped the World and Still Does and two cultural reference guides, one to Poland and the other to Hungary. Other backlist titles have made cultural and/or political splashes and have served to build the press’s reputation; e.g. The Color of Smoke, a classic Hungarian novel set during World War II about the Roma (Gypsies) of Eastern Europe, written by Hungary’s leading Romany author; the 1941 utopian/dystopian classic Voyage to Kazohinia; M. Henderson Ellis’s expat satire Keeping Bedlam at Bay in the Prague Café; Mikhail Iossel’s Notes from Cyberground: Trumpland and My Old Soviet Feeling; and Gazmend Kapllani’s A Short Border Handbook: A Journey Through the Immigrant’s Labyrinth.
