Support Books?

Today I received an email from a publisher that once rejected a query of mine many years ago. Here's part of the email:

They want me to give them money so they can "seek out new voices" and "publish groundbreaking work"—"transformative literature," whatever that is. According to their website, they're a non-profit publisher. (A bit of Googling told me that there are several other non-profit publishers. I was surprised. I thought publishers wanted to make money.)

I dislike getting spam requests for money in my email. I can see contributing to public radio or public TV because they don't have advertisers to fund them—and I can listen or watch them whenever I want without paying another fee. (Plus NPR and PBS don't send me email spam.) But it's not likely this publisher, which has been around for thirty years, will give me X number of books if I contribute.

 I can maybe see contributing to a start-up publisher (through Kickstarter, for instance) if I knew the people involved and believed in their project. I could even understand buying stock in a publishing company that's determined to make a profit. But I can't understand why this company—which does have books to sell—hasn't figured out a way to sell its goods to make a profit. 

I generally support publishers—and authors—by buying books. I took a look at a few of this company's recent paperbacks, which were priced in the $15 to $18 range, but I didn't see anything that I loved. 

I loved the book that I once queried them with and they rejected, though. Thus, I'm rejecting this email spam.

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