Main Street Rag Publishing Company has been publishing our print magazine: The Main Street Rag, uninterrupted since 1996. It was our entry point into the publishing world. Among its features are poetry, short fiction, photography, essays, interviews, reviews, and commentary. Subscription information is available on the Submissions page and can be placed online at: Subscriptions. Current and back issue information–including who appears in each issue–can now be found at The MSR Online Bookstore on the back and current issues pages. Our magazine is financed through subscriptions, direct sales and shelf sales. We receive no money in the form of grants or public funds. Reader support is important and necessary.

WHAT WE DO

Main Street Rag was a unique concept among the small press because we not only published a literary magazine and books, but we owned the equipment and did our work inhouse. Times have changed. It no longer made sense to own the equipment and spend our energy in production, so we sold the equipment to a partner company who now uses that equipment to produce books for us.

Main Street Rag publishing labels:

Main Street Rag (poetry)
Mint Hill Books (fiction/non-fiction/anthologies)
Pure Heart Press (self-publishing, but not something we do a lot of anymore)

All of our books are available through the Main Street Rag Online Bookstore where readers/buyers can search by genre, title, and author name. All sales from the Main Street Rag Online Bookstore are conveniently and securely processed by PayPal. (An important note about PayPal: You DO NOT need an account to use it. It is no different than the card-swiper in the check out line at any store.)

Those seeking book publication through Main Street Rag have several options in the Submissions Guidelines drop down above. The Book Publishing tab gives an overview, but also includes specifics for each genre.

Links to Submission Guidelines:

Anthologies
Books
The Cathy Smith Bowers Chapbook Contest
The Main Street Rag Poetry Award

The Main Street Rag Poetry Award is an annual full-length poetry book contest sponsored by Main Street Rag and one of the ways we select the poetry manuscripts we publish. Details are available on the Contest page. Starting in 2016 we will also offer the Cathy Smith Bowers Chapbook Contest.

PRINTING/BINDING SERVICES

Main Street Rag Publishing Company is a publisher of its own products first; however, we do offer our services to others when their needs and schedule work within our established framework. We are not a Print On Demand option if that is what you need and while we can issue ISBN numbers for self-publishers, we will not do so for print runs of less than 150. If you are looking for a print run of less than 150, we are not the right choice. For more details of what we do offer, click the Bindery option in the Services drop down.

WHAT WE DON’T DO

E-books
Repair Bibles

We hope you enjoy your visit to the Main Street Rag website. Even more, we hope you like what you see enough to subscribe to our literary magazine or sample a copy of one of our many books. There is nothing like the smell and feel of paper pulp.

Sincerely,

M. Scott Douglass
Publisher/Managing Editor
Main Street Rag