ABOUT US
The Ann Arbor District Library founded Fifth Avenue Press in 2017 to support the local writing community and promote the creation of original content. Our community is rich with long-term residents who have stories to tell and is enriched by those whose stays may be shorter but whose writing should be captured and recorded for the community's use and enjoyment.
Rather than provide an advance, the press invests in the production of the finished work in exchange for permanent digital distribution of the completed work to AADL cardholders via the library's website.
We publish works by local writers
What we publish is limited to what is submitted to us. We hope to elevate voices that might not otherwise get heard in the for-profit world of publishing. More details on what we publish can be found here.
We publish manuscripts by authors who live in Washtenaw County or books about anything within Washtenaw County. If you are a resident of the county your work does not have to be about the community, nor does it have to be set here.
If a non-resident author has a manuscript about Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, or Washtenaw County history and culture, we are open to these submissions. Send us a message at fifthavenuepress@aadl.org and tell us more!
We are not for profit. Our authors retain 100% of their profits and their copyright
The only thing that Fifth Avenue Press asks our published authors to provide is a digital (PDF) copy of their book that will be available for download to AADL library card holders (currently around 60,000 active users) on our website. Authors may also sell ebooks on the platform(so) of their choice.
Our authors retain their right to license their manuscripts to another publisher if they want to pursue this option after working with Fifth Avenue Press.
The library will always retain hard copies of the books for checkout in our collection as long as the author keeps them in print.
We are a selective, hybrid publisher with an unusual model
The press’s editorial team reviews all submissions and determines which projects move forward to publication. Like a traditional publisher, the team exerts editorial control over all aspects of the creation of the completed book. However, our authors pay to print their books, which is where the hybrid model comes in. The press team is comprised of library staff who also work as librarians, writers, managers, and graphic designers. More details are here.