Featured company

Ledgerline Press

Independent literary publishing out of Chicago

Overview

What Ledgerline Press does

Ledgerline Press is an independent Chicago publishing house releasing roughly 18 titles a year across literary fiction, essays and translation, with distribution into Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and the United Kingdom.

Founded in a spare room in Rogers Park with two manuscripts and a borrowed printer, the imprint now runs an editorial floor of 22 people and a backlist that funds the majority of new acquisitions — a rolling-cash model built deliberately in place of outside investment.

Founded: 2014
Team: 22 people
Headquarters: Chicago, Illinois
Industry: Publishing
Website: ledgerlinepress.com

Footprint

Locations

3 offices · 22 people mapped

Chicago
United States
Head office & editorial
16 peopleSince 2014
Accra
Ghana
Sales & distribution
4 peopleSince 2019
London
United Kingdom
Rights & export
2 peopleSince 2022

The people

Related entrepreneurs

Adaora Nwosu

Founder & Publisher

A two-person imprint became a nationwide catalogue of 140 titles. Adaora breaks down the unit economics of independent publishing, the year she almost closed, and why turning down venture money kept the books honest.

View profile

On demand

Past interviews

Next on air: Thu 3 Sep · 14:00 GMT

12 Jun · Adaora Nwosu

Why we turned down venture money twice

A frank account of two term sheets, the growth targets attached to them, and the arithmetic that made saying no rational.

46 min28.7k

4 Mar · Adaora Nwosu

The backlist is the business

How older titles came to fund 60% of revenue, and the metadata work that made them discoverable again.

38 min19.4k