Interview with Co-Founder and Secretary
of the Interior, Ted Kluck:
How did Gut Check Press come to be?
When I was a child, I dreamed of three things: Being an author, an athlete[1] , and a publishing mogul. I currently spend a lot of time in co-founder Zach Bartels’ basement, smoking cigars and looking at bad evangelical ephemera. We figured why not create some of that ephemera ourselves?
What did you learn by publishing several books with traditional secular and Christian houses?
I've met and built relationships with a bunch of fun, smart, hardworking people in publishing. But I also think it's weird that making a book (from idea to bookshelf) is usually an eighteen-month process. These houses all employ an army of full-time employees with health benefits and cubicles, most of whom are away at a conference when you try to call them on the telephone. The publishing industry loves conferences. We figured we could handle this on our own—with some very niche books and on a very small scale—and potentially have a lot more fun doing it.
Are you bitter?
No...(bites fingernails, sighs)...maybe a little.
Will you guys still work with traditional houses, in addition to running the Gut Check empire?
Of course.
What are some phrases we’ll never hear at Gut Check Corporate Headquarters?
“Feasibility Study.” We don’t have these at Gut Check. Our feasibility studies consist of deciding whether we like a book enough to do it or not. We may do ten books a year....we may do one book every ten years. We realized that a lot of the reason why it takes years for a book to go from the idea phase to the bookshelf in traditional publishing is that nobody wants to be responsible for a flop.
But still, look at all of the books that fail?
Yep.
What else, phrase-wise?
“I’ll have to run that by the committee.” We don’t have committees at Gut Check Press
What are some phrases we WILL hear at Gut Check Corporate Headquarters?
“Keep the Talent Happy.” We really believe in this one.
What are your submissions guidelines?
We don’t accept unsolicited submissions from authors other than ourselves at this point. That may change, but I doubt it. We’d be willing to waive this policy for Jim Harrison, Kevin DeYoung, Tim Lahaye, Jerry Jenkins, or any of the Baldwin Brothers. For the aforementioned, our door is always open.
Footnotes:
[1] This is the only thing I actually dreamed about.
