AK Press

AK Press is a worker-run book publisher and distributer that specializes in anarchist publications. It is organized as an anarchist collective, its members work together without relying on internal hierarchies, without corporate structure, without bosses and without managers. Its website states, "We’ve replaced hierarchy with cooperation, accountability, and responsibility of our individual members."

AK Press is one of world's largest distributors and publishers of anarchist and left-wing books. Established in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1990, it distributes more than 100,000 books per year. U.S. branch of the AK Press was opened in 1994. It has doubled the number of units it sells over the past decade and grossed $1.4 million in 2007. AK Press publishes an estimated fifteen new titles each year.

According to Craig O'Hara, who handles East Coast sales, one-third of AK Press' revenue comes from selling books direct to customers through mail order and the Internet. Today it reaches out to the book trade for its own list through Consortium. It also sells to other wholesalers and booksellers on behalf of the 100 exclusive distribution publishers (about 40 to 50 active clients) it represents. Don Allen, general manager of Busboys & Poets in Washington, D.C. said, "There's no better source for books on anarchy. When we opened our store in Virginia, we used AK Press for a high percentage of our inventory." He turns to AK Press for books which are not easily available from other presses. More than 50% of AK Press' distribution clients are one-book publishers or organizations.

Book distributors and wholesalers which sell books published by AK Press are Consortium, Last Gasp, No Idea, Tree of Knowledge, Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Disticore in Canada, Microcosm, Profane Existence, Jura Books in Australia and Virus in Spain.

Further readings

• Tobias Carroll, I've got a name: Music, Radical, Politics, and AK Press

External links

• Official Website