September 3, 2025 • 39 mins
In this episode, I chat with James Anderson, co-owner of Saturn Press with his with Diedre. The humble greeting card might seem like a relic in our digital age, but as James reveals, these tactile treasures carry meaning far beyond their paper boundaries.
James shares how Saturn Press creates distinctive cards using vintage presses from the 1940s-60s, explaining that the very constraints of letterpress technology drive a creativity that digital perfection cannot replicate. "I'm not a Luddite who hates technology," he clarifies. "I just love that technology from 60 or 80 years ago remains relevant today." These limitations in color palette and printing technique result in cards that feel comforting, unique, and beautiful – qualities increasingly sought after in our screen-dominated world.
Behind each Saturn Press card lies a thoughtful process of selecting art from their extensive ephemera collection, commissioning licensed artists, or revitalizing work from overlooked historical artists. The company prints on carefully selected natural white paper with deckle edges, creating a wholesome tactile experience that enhances the visual design. Sustainability guides their decisions too, as they work to eliminate plastic from packaging while maintaining the product's integrity.
Perhaps most compelling is James's insight into why greeting cards still matter: "A sympathy text just doesn't cut it. If you're participating in a social relationship, you want to show it's worth enough to buy a nice card, write something meaningful, and put it in the mail." This intentionality explains why independent bookshops increasingly embrace stationery as both a profit center and a natural extension of their literary community.
Discover the magic of letterpress and why these cards aren't just purchased but treasured, displayed, and even framed as keepsakes. Visit saturnpresscards.com to experience these distinctive designs for yourself.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hi, my name is Mandy Jackson-Beverly and I'm a
bibliophile.
Welcome to the Bookshop Podcast.
Each week I present interviewswith authors, independent
bookshop owners and booksellersfrom around the globe and
publishing professionals.
To help the show reach morepeople, please share episodes
with friends and family and onsocial media, and remember to
(00:33):
subscribe and leave a reviewwherever you listen to this
podcast.
You're listening to episode 305.
You may have noticed that therehas been a change in the days
our episodes are released.
We've changed from Mondays toWednesdays and sometimes they
may be bi-weekly.
(00:54):
I've had to do this for a fewreasons.
One is that I have a ton ofreading to do over the next few
months for the podcast and alsofor the in-person events I do in
Los Angeles, Santa Barbara andsoon to be, ojai, and I'm going
to be at the Boston BookFestival moderating a panel
there in October.
So I've had to switch thingsaround a little bit.
(01:17):
So, anyway, I look forward toseeing you on Wednesdays.
In this episode I'm switchingthings up a bit and exploring
another aspect of independentbookshops, and that is greeting
cards.
Saturn Press was firstestablished on the rocky soil of
Maine's remote Swans Island in1986.
Their distinctive designs andhigh-quality letterpress
(01:40):
printing have attracted a largefollowing.
Printing have attracted a largefollowing.
James and Deidre Anderson nowoperate Saturn Press from the
charming and historic town ofKent, connecticut, in the
Litchfield Hills, where they areproud to continue their
tradition of developingbeautiful and unique letterpress
greeting cards.
Saturn Press cards are loved bycustomers because of the
(02:02):
compelling and often quirkydesigns printed on high-quality
paper.
They can see and feel thedifference between a satin press
card and others.
A satin press card is theperfect way to celebrate a
milestone, brighten someone'sday and to share sentiments for
those you care about.
James and Deidre and the entireSaturn Presses team's guiding
(02:26):
philosophy is simple createbeautiful things for everyday
life.
You may have heard merecommending Saturn Press cards
on a few episodes because I fellin love with their designs when
I spotted them at Chaucer'sBooks in Santa Barbara.
James and Deirdre alsosponsored a couple of episodes
of the show and I'm proud torecommend their cards.
(02:46):
Hi, james, and welcome to theshow.
It's lovely to have you here.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Thanks, Mandy.
It's super to be here andlooking forward to our
conversation.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
I am too.
So let's begin with learningabout you and your wife, deidre
Anderson, your careers inproduct development and
education, and what led you toassume ownership of Saturn Press
in 2024.
But before that, I hear anEnglish accent, so where are you
from?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah, so I grew up in England and went to university
there, worked there for a coupleof years and then came to the
US for business school and so,yeah, I've been here in the US
35 years now, but some peoplestill say I have an English
accent.
I don't know.
My mother says I don't.
When I go back there, she saysI have an American accent.
So it all depends where you'restarting from.
(03:31):
But yeah, so grew up in the UKand spent essentially all my
adult life here.
My wife, deirdre, is Americanand so, yeah, let's talk about a
little bit about Saturn Pressand how we come to own it.
So so my background is reallyin business and I spent my
career doing large-scale productdevelopment projects, primarily
in the payments industry, andso I had a chance to build some
(03:55):
pretty big systems and have some, I think, some pretty
beneficial impacts on thatindustry.
If I might say so myself, mywife was a teacher.
She taught kids with specialneeds, special education, and
then really the impetus forSaturn Press was.
You know, there's always anelement of just kind of
randomness to life.
(04:16):
My daughter actually loved thecards, she loved the product.
She started sending it to awhole family and, through a
series reputation.
It had some great distribution,including a number of
(04:45):
independent bookstores, and theywere ready to retire.
So it was kind of anopportunity to switch gears.
You know, I like to say that Iwanted to downshift but I didn't
want to get into neutral, Iwanted to keep doing stuff.
I wanted to be active and sorunning my always always had an
aspiration and kind of a dreamof running my own business and
(05:06):
this was the opportunity to doit.
So it's a lovely businessbecause I would say a couple of
things.
One is we get to deal with kindof images and you know we don't
produce art, but I think weproduce things that are artistic
and we also we deal with theloveliest people in as our
customers, you know so,including bookstore owners, gift
(05:26):
store owners.
We do sell to museum stores, wesell directly to the public,
but everybody who buys cardsseems to be just the loveliest
people in the world.
So I've dealt with lots ofpeople in my business career,
but never with people who are asfriendly and as happy to do
business as bookstore owners andgift store owners.
They're just people who seem asfriendly and as happy to do
business as bookstore owners andgift store owners.
(05:46):
They're just people who seem tolike the product and just happy
doing what they're doing andseem pleased to just kind of
extend it and do more of it.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, when I look back at all of the people I have
interviewed, who are eitherbooksellers or independent
bookshop owners, they all have acouple of things in common.
One is they love to read.
The other is that they'recurious curious about the world,
curious about people and theyenjoy sharing their love of
story with others.
And there are many booksellerswho have gained a PhD or a
(06:22):
master's and they are at theirhappiest selling books.
Correct, yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah, but you're absolutely right, Mandy, you've
got to love the product.
I believe in.
If you're doing, if you're inbusiness, you really have to
appreciate the product.
Otherwise it's just too hardright If you don't love the
product.
And books and books areobviously a great product.
You know they're sort ofdistilled wisdom for humanity
but you've also got to likepeople as well.
If you're running a store,you've got to actually enjoy the
(06:47):
interaction with the public andhelping people find better
products, so better books.
And so we've been longtimesupporters of independent
bookstores.
Wherever we've lived, we'vealways frequented independent
bookstores.
I don't remember any time whenmy wife has not been reading a
book.
She's really the bibliophile.
I know you introduced yourselfas your podcast as a bibliophile
(07:08):
.
My wife is a fellow traveler inthat clan with you.
She has never not got a book,and if she ever finds herself on
a plane without a book, it's asource of huge anxiety for her.
So, yeah, so she's really thereader in the family for her.
So, yeah, so she's really thereader in the family.
I'm not such a deep reader asshe is, but so bookstores are,
(07:34):
you know, always been part of.
I.
Actually prefer shopping in abookstore to actually reading
the book.
Sometimes it's just such a andI've bought many books that I've
never read Because I love theidea.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Yeah, I must agree, I love having books around.
I'm surrounded by them rightnow.
Okay, from booksellers andbooks.
Back to Saturn Press.
So you are a letterpressgreeting card company.
Can you explain the process ofletterpress printing and what
makes this art form stand outfrom other greeting card
companies?
When I go into indie bookshopsand I look at their card
(08:06):
collections, your cards reallydo stand out because they are so
unique and they're kind of oldworldly.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yeah.
So what I like to tell peopleis that our presses were the
photocopiers before they werephotocopiers.
So if you were running arestaurant in the 1960s and you
needed a couple of hundredcopies of a menu, there was no
photocopiers, right?
You couldn't just go to thecopy shop and copy them out.
You didn't have a laser printer, and so you would take out your
(08:33):
handwritten, you know menu.
You would take down to a littleprint shop and they would print
it, and they would print it ona letterpress press, because
that was what presses were.
I letterpress is essentiallythere, that essentially the
derivation of what gutenberginvented all those years ago, uh
.
And so you know the character.
The defining characteristic isit's 100 analog, in the sense
(08:54):
there's no chips, there's nocomputers, there's no screens on
those presses.
Two of my presses are from1940s, one of them's from the
1960s, uh, and one of them'sfrom the 1950s.
So I'm not that young, butthey're all older than me and
they're still working, which isfantastic.
So I've always sort of had thislove of analog technology that
(09:14):
is still relevant, even in 2025.
So I own a 1964 Land Rover.
I have a 1959 Austin HealeyBug-Eye Sprite, which is this
tiny little British sports car,but I love the fact that it's
analog.
Now, I'm not one of theseLuddites who doesn't respect
technology and hates technology.
It's more that I just love theidea that there's technology
(09:34):
that's 60 or 80 years old thatis still relevant today.
And letterpress is very muchlike that, and I think the
reason it's relevant is partlybecause of its constraints.
Reason it's relevant is partlybecause of its constraints.
So printing today is alldigital and it's on these huge
presses and that's what we seeall around us and that's
fantastic.
But that also means it looks alot like what we see on our
(09:58):
screens every day.
It's kind of perfect colorrepresentation.
It's a trillion colors.
You can't do that withletterpress.
Letterpress, if you do a threeor four color card, that's
basically as much as you can do,which forces you, therefore, to
be very disciplined about thenumber of colors you choose and
therefore about how you preparethe art to be printed and turned
(10:20):
into a letterpress card.
And I believe that that's whatmakes it appealing to consumers,
because we're all surrounded byperfect digital trillion-color
representations.
And when you see somethingthat's not that, there's sort of
an element of charm to it andit seems to engage consumers in
a way that's different thandigitally printed products that
(10:43):
may sit next to it.
And so we only do letterpress.
That's our thing, that's ouraesthetic and we are very much
an image forward letterpresscompany, meaning that there's
some companies, card companies,very text forward, and that's
great.
We are very much around images,and so our images come from
lots of different sources.
(11:04):
Images, and so our images comefrom lots of different sources,
but in the end they all have akind of look and feel which
tends to be simpler than whatpeople see in their daily life
and therefore seems to appeal.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
I think of three words when I see your cards.
The first one is comforting,the second is unique and the
third is beauty.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Right, there's a sort of a familiarity, and some of
them are some of.
We have some certain lines thatkind of play into that.
So we have something calledupcountry sketches, which is a
line that is, you know, I thinkof it as kind of a Boy Scout
handbook, you know brought tolife.
So each individual card hassome kind of very simple
how-to-ness to it, but it's verymuch simple line drawings,
(11:44):
simple coloring, but it seems toappeal to something in people,
or people find something in it,which is that the simplicity is,
as you say, comforting andappealing.
That's what we find when wetalk to customers.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
They remind me of woodcuts.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Yes, woodcuts are a version of letterpress
essentially, but yes, there's a.
Woodcuts are a version ofletterpress essentially, but yes
, there's a.
There's a strong similarity andagain, it's really, I think,
because of intrinsic constraintsto the technology, that sort of
drive to a certain aestheticoutcome.
And so, you're right, there'syeah, so there's people who
print woodcuts and then maybegraduate to letterpress, because
(12:20):
there are more things you cando on letterpress.
It is more automated in thesense that our presses are.
You know, they have electricmotors and they can be used in a
commercial context, but stillthey have these kind of basic
aesthetic constraints that youhave to manage around.
And you know, I believecreativity comes around from
managing around constraints.
If there's no constraints, youdon't need to be creative, right
(12:42):
?
And that's the kind of themodern digital technology which
is amazing, right?
You just press a button and youget a perfect replica.
It doesn't seem to engage thehuman kind of psyche in the same
way as something that has.
People can sense that there wereconstraints and then we managed
around those and the result, Imean, all they see is the image
(13:03):
that comes out of it, but itseems to appeal to something
inside people and I actuallythink there's an element, you
know, I listened to a couple ofyour podcasts there's an element
which is, if you think aboutthe independent bookstore,
versus, you know, the kind ofAmazon as a, obviously they have
to do everything other thanbooks, now, it seems.
But there's also an elementwhere it's the same product but
(13:26):
it's in a totally differentcontext.
Right, you change the wholecontext and the bundle of
services and the bundle of valueis very different and people
find it appealing.
Right, it's, you know, it's apart of a community, it's a part
of what makes their towndifferent.
And so I think people can sortof distinguish between something
(13:46):
that's, you know, kind of superefficient and something that's
somewhat more kind ofaesthetically pleasing, or
pleasing to their soul, in asense.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
And I also think it has something to do with the
colors.
They are calming.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yeah, we tend to be a bit muted.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
And James, where do you find the artists for your
designs?
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Well, so we're pretty eclectic.
So one of the things that weinherited when we bought the
company was a very, very largeephemera collection.
So the previous owners werereal ephemera buffs.
So they had we've literally got, you know think, like four
dozen banker boxes downstairsfull of individual books and
images, all of which have somekind of theme, and so sometimes
(14:33):
we'll have an idea for a cardand then we'll go to those
banker boxes and find images,and then we'll just sort of
interpret them differently.
We do some work with licensedartists, so there are some.
And then the other one is thatthere's lots of fantastic
artists, many of whom havefallen out of the public eye.
(14:56):
Their art is in the publicdomain, and so sometimes we'll
take that art and we willinterpret it for letterpress.
So it's not, you know, wealways give credit.
We use the expression it'safter a certain artist, it's not
, you know it's not a photo ofit.
It's an interpretation of it,but obviously if we've been
inspired by a specific artist,we want to give them credit, and
(15:18):
so those are really the threesources A lot of it's from the
ephemera collection, some ofit's from licensed artists, and
then some of it's fromestablished artists, and again,
many of which have fallen out ofthe public eye.
Because if you see, if it's toofamiliar when somebody sees it
on the, on the, on the rack,that doesn't work it.
(15:38):
So, you know, an element offamiliarity is okay, but if it's
too familiar, you know, we wedon't want to do a knockoff of
Picasso.
Right, picasso's plentyavailable and you know he was
great, he's Picasso.
But there's lots of artists outthere who did great work that
have been forgotten, and my wifehas a particular desire to
(15:58):
focus on female artists who'vebeen, you know, essentially been
forgotten, because a lot ofthem were forgotten in their own
time, unfortunately, and soshe's done some work to try and
sort of find some artists thatshe likes.
But at the end of the day, it'sgot to be something that's
pleasing.
We're not making a politicalstatement.
(16:21):
It still has to be somethingthat somebody wants to buy and
pick off the shelf.
But honestly, there's a lot ofwork out there.
I like to say we're a bit of amagpie because we sort of pick
things from different sourcesand sometimes combine them, but
the end result we think isgenerally pleasing.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
And can you talk a little about the paper, because
the quality is beautiful, thepaper looks and feels wholesome,
and I know that's a strangeword to use for paper.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
No, I like it, mandy, I like it.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Yeah well, the paper feels like it has depth and it
enhances the artwork.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Yeah, so we spent a lot of time on choosing paper,
and paper is something that whenI bought the company I didn't
appreciate how.
You know, I'd seen lots ofreams of copy paper in my day
but that was about it andnewspaper and and magazines, but
I'd never really done anythingwith paper.
So it was, I had to come up thelearning curve and we had some
(17:19):
help from some, some people inthe industry, uh.
But yeah, so we, there's acouple of things we, we did with
the paper.
We chose to do with the paper,uh, and you picked up on them.
One is that we, we have a decaledge.
So if you go back in time, thedecal edge actually originally
was when you made paper back inwhatever 500 years ago.
(17:40):
You would have this big tray,you would put pulp into it, it
would settle out and at theedges it would be kind of
wrinkly and that was a decal.
Now, of course, over thesubsequent hundreds of years,
there's no need to have that.
We actually like our cards tohave that decolletage because we
think it signals to theconsumer that there's something
a little different.
(18:00):
So we have the decolletage.
It's very hard to getdecolletage paper nowadays, but
we have a source, uh.
And then the other point whichyou picked up on is the amount
of texture.
So we think that, uh, andthere's a fine line there, too
much texture makes it too hardto print, but we think that a
little texture also just kind ofpops the images and also tells
(18:21):
people it's something a littlebit different.
So, yeah, so we source ourpaper.
The paper is sourced, it's inthe US, it's from a US mill, and
so we're happy about that,especially in today's
environment.
Yeah, but papers are a very bigdecision for us, because
everything we do goes onto thepaper and the paper is a part of
(18:41):
the product.
So, yeah, we spend a lot oftime figuring it out.
But I'm glad you noticed it wealso don't do bright white, we
do a natural white, because wethink that also creates the
impression it makes the images.
The images don't pop out of thepaper.
They kind of they obviously areon top of it, but they're
resting in this kind of restfulcolor I call it.
(19:04):
So it's a slightly it's what'scalled a natural white.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
And what about sustainability?
Does Saturn Press have asustainability standard?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Well, so it's an interesting topic.
So we are constantly looking ateverything we do to make sure
that it's as sustainable aspossible.
I would say I'll give you acouple of examples of things
we've done.
One of the things that we're ona mission to do is eliminate
plastic from all our packagingmaterials because we don't think
we need it.
And so we just redesigned ourChristmas boxes and they don't
(19:37):
have any plastic in them.
They have an aperture on thefront, aperture on the back.
They're fully made out of paper, so they're 100% recyclable.
We eliminated the paper andplastic which was in the prior
design, so once the inventory ofthose goes through, we'll be at
100% paper.
We're also looking at some ofour products that are printed.
We have some products that areprinted on pressure-sensitive
(19:59):
labels that tend to be moreplasticky.
We're looking at how we can goback to paper on those.
So I wouldn't say we have aformal standard, mandy, but we
are constantly trying to makesure that what we do is
sustainable.
Our thinking is that we don'twant somebody in the store to
pick up a product that we'vemade and feel bad about the
(20:21):
purchase.
So we want them to feel good inall dimensions.
We want them to feel good aboutthe product itself.
We want them to feel good aboutthe value, but we also want
them to feel good about theimpact they're having on the
environment, and so that's kindof our approach.
We're not perfect.
We can't achieve perfection.
Some of our customers dorequire products to be put into
(20:42):
cello bags.
The reason is unfortunately andI'm sure a lot of your
listeners will appreciate thiswhich is that people walk into
stores holding a coffee, eatinga donut and picking up product
and you can't have that happenand without getting damaged, and
so people you know some of thepeople want plastic bags on
every product so we're pragmatic, but we are trying to do things
(21:04):
where we can at the margin, uh,to improve the environmental
sustainability, uh.
And so you know it's a it's along game, but we're committed
to trying to be a good stewardof the environment in our own
tiny little way.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Step by step, as they say.
Let's talk about box sets intwo forms.
You mentioned them earlier, butif I'm a customer and I go into
an independent book shop and Isee your cards, am I only going
to see them as separate cards,or can I buy them as gift sets
or box sets?
I'm sorry.
(21:41):
And then also, if I'm awholesaler, can I mix and match?
How does that work?
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Yeah, so the way we package is we have individual
cards that you'll typically seein a spinner, so we will sell
those to book cards withbookstores, gift stores, museum
stores, people like that.
So they'll buy them and putthem individually either into a
spinner or onto a wall orwhatever.
And so that's probably thebiggest single way our cards go,
which is we sell wholesale andthen they're bought individually
(22:10):
.
For the holiday season we alsodo boxes of eight cards, eight
envelopes, single design, andthey are sold through wholesale.
And then for those people whodon't have a retailer near them,
we do sell online on ourwebsite, which is
satinpresscardscom.
So we have those optionsavailable.
We really do like to support ourretail partners because they're
(22:32):
the people who've kind of youknow, they bought us here, they
got us here, so so we, we, weprefer that channel wherever
possible.
But it's a big world, it's abig country and not everybody's
going to have a retailer nearthem, and so we, uh, we do sell
direct on the web as well.
Uh, for those customers whodon't have a retailer near them
and obviously, you know, we, wehave a number of cards, as as
(22:55):
you've probably seen, and notevery store can stock every card
.
So sometimes people wantsomething very specific so they
can get it from us.
We sell mainly in the US.
We have a couple of greatcustomers in the UK, france, but
it's mainly US, but we're opento sales everywhere in the world
.
I think there's a greatgreeting card culture in the UK.
I know Not all of the world hasa greeting card culture, but
(23:18):
we're available everywhere.
The internet's everywhere andwe're on the internet.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
I find this interesting.
I have a lot of friends whosend me cards.
I have one in particular.
Her name is Karen, she's Irishand if I sneeze she will send me
a card and I love it.
I've kept them all.
They're on bookshelves behindme.
You can probably see some ofthem.
And my sister, susie, inAustralia, is the same.
She's a real card sender and Ijust love it.
(23:45):
It makes me feel good when Ireceive cards in the mail.
Or, you know, if I meet Karenfor a walk she'll give me a card
.
It's heartwarming and kind ofmagical.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Yeah, there really is .
I totally agree with you, mandy.
Another line I didn't mentionis we have a number of sympathy
cards, and so sympathy is one ofthose occasions where I mean a
sympathy text just doesn't cutit right.
You're going to send a text totell somebody you're sorry that
they had a loss.
You've got to show that youmade a bit more effort than that
.
That's my belief.
(24:17):
If you're going to participatein some kind of social contract
or social context with somebody,you want to show that the
relationship is worth enough togo buy a nice card and then put
the address on it, writesomething meaningful and then
put it in the mail.
And I think that's part of thereason why it's meaningful when
(24:39):
it's received, because it'sbecause you know that there was
some effort went into it.
It wasn't just a trivial likeoh, I'm sitting at a stoplight
and I'm going to send a text,kind of attitude, right, it's
something.
It was more intense and moreintentional than that and that's
meaningful for people.
And so, yeah, absolutely, wereading cards are very
meaningful and we've had, youknow, a number of occasions
(25:03):
where people have reached outand they've said they've
received a card, particularly inthe scenario of a sympathy card
and how meaningful it was andhow beautiful it was, and so it
really does mean something topeople when they get a card was
and how beautiful it was, and soit really does mean something
to people when they get a card.
Uh, and so, you know, andbecause because I also think
that there's an element of uh, Ithink people appreciate the
(25:23):
fact that somebody has hasthought about what would be a
right, a nice card for them, andit's sort of, I like to say
it's a gift for both people,right, because the thinking
about somebody is almost a giftto yourself and then the sending
it is is kind of a gift to theperson who receives it, and so,
yeah, so I think you knowthere's, you know when, when I
(25:43):
was talking to people aboutbuying, you know a gift, a
greeting card company, somepeople like, oh, I don't send
greeting cards anymore, blah,blah, blah, blah.
It's like that's fine, you knowyou be you, but there's a lot
of people who do, and I think itdoes.
It is meaningful to recipientson certain occasions and you
know it's a chance to bring alittle bit of beauty into
somebody's life on a daily basiscards that they had or that I
(26:03):
had sent to them.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
And then I have the matching ones that they had sent
me and, as I said earlier, justabout all of Karen's cards are
on bookcases behind me, butbeautiful cards, or cards that
make you think about life,they're pieces of art.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Exactly, exactly, I can see it.
You've got postcards behind you.
Exactly exactly, I can see it.
You've got postcards behind you.
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
And my take on art in all forms is that I'm
interested in how it affects meemotionally.
Cards for me are a memory, andso I'm surrounded by memories, I
guess.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
So we've had a number of people tell us they actually
frame our cards, put them up onthe wall, which is a great
tribute Because, like we say, wedon't think we're producing art
.
Art's something you see at theMet or the Mono or the Frick,
but we're producing somethingartistic and if it gives
somebody that much pleasure,we're just happy to be part of
it.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
And do you ever do special orders, for example, if
someone's having a wedding andthey love your cards and they
want you to create somethingspecific?
Speaker 2 (27:19):
So that's something we've thought about.
Right now we don't do that.
There's really two parts of thekind of letterpress world.
There's the custom work, whichis wedding invitations is
probably the iconic example, andthen there's what we make to
start, and so right now we don'thave that flexibility.
We are looking at that idea,mandy, which is how could we
(27:39):
serve that second use case, thatkind of custom use case.
But we have some work to do tobe able to do that.
So right now we do sell to somepeople in bulk, where we sell to
some charities who want to sendnice cards to their donors and
things like that, but we're notin yet in the business of being
(28:00):
able to do custom interiors andcustom messaging.
We're not that far away from it, but it's just.
It's a very, it's a kind of adifferent business because it's
heavily driven around thecustomer service experience and
the review processing, gettingthe edits and everything, and
there's people who are very goodat that.
So for now we're really in thekind of we make to stock and
(28:20):
then we sell out of ourinventory.
But it's something we'relooking at because I think
there's certainly an opportunityto pair the imagery with some
kind of text that's particularlymeaningful to a customer.
It's just, we're not quite setup yet to do that.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
And that brings up something else for me too.
Are all of your cards blankinside, or do you have a writer
writing text?
Speaker 2 (28:44):
So most of our cards are what we call everyday cards
and they are blank.
Then there's two lines thathave greetings inside or text
inside.
So all our holiday cards, allour, all our christmas cards,
essentially have christmas andnew years.
They all have a greeting inside.
And then our sympathy cardscome, either greeted or
(29:05):
ungreeted, depending.
Some people just want the image, some people want the text as
well, and so we sell those bothways, and all our holiday cards
have some kind of text.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
You know, we're not we're not.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
we're not writing long poems, we're not like
writing long.
We're not we're not that kindof a card company.
It's quite.
You know, it's just a couple oflines, but people seem to want
that for holiday Christmas cards, but most of the time for our
you know, for our everyday cards, we leave it up to the
individual consumer once they'vebought it, so they're going to
(29:38):
deliver the finalpersonalization.
So, yeah, that's our approachand different people take
different approaches on that,but we're not really set up to
write long, big poems.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Personally, I prefer cards that are blank inside.
I like to write my ownsentiment for the person I'm
sending a card to I agree.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
I agree, you know we've we've had some feedback
from.
So our cards are a slightlylarger format.
They're five inch by seven inch.
We've had some feedback fromsome people, some of our
retailers, saying our cards aretoo big for your cards, are too
big for our consumers.
They get intimidated by allthat white space.
I was like I don't know what tosay about that.
But we have smaller cards aswell.
(30:21):
That's what I said.
We have these little cute whichwe have these grace notes which
are just like little, you knowsmall formats Like well, buy the
grace notes then if it's toomuch white space.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
And perhaps people purchasing cards from
independent bookshops prefer towrite their own verse.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Correct.
You know, our cards aregenerally blank, they're
ungreeted, and I think it's thecase that there's really a tie
into the bookstore channel,because the people that are
shopping in independentbookstores, you know they're
more literary, they're morethoughtful and they're able to,
you know, fill in a card withoutgetting intimidated.
So, yeah, we think that theblank cards, for most occasions,
(31:05):
are the way to go.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
I love that you mentioned white space, because I
really love white space and Iappreciate it, even in books.
If I open a certain book andthe text is crammed, the
formatting is crammed, I can'tread it.
It's really hard on my brainand on my eyes.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Well, it's unpleasant , right, it's unpleasant, yeah,
no, there's a look, there's areal, there is a true skill to
laying out a book and to, I mean, it's not something I could do,
but I know.
One knows the difference whenone sees a book that's been well
produced and been well laid outand the content, the font has
been chosen carefully and thecontext of the content has been
(31:45):
interpreted in a way that's, youknow, appropriate.
You feel it, and maybe you feelit more in the negative, when
you find something that hasn'tbeen done so well and has been,
you know, the font is wrong and,as you say, it's all crammed in
there.
You feel, you know, you just itfeels like an unpleasant
experience, which is not whatyou want.
(32:05):
When you're going to bespending multiple hours with a
book, you want that feeling ofkind of, you know, feeling
comfortable and, you know, andenjoying the experience.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
I agree.
Before I ask you about whatyou're reading, I would like to
ask one question you about whatyou're reading.
I would like to ask onequestion how do you see the role
of stationery cards, etc.
Even pens, which I adoreevolving into the independent
bookshops around the world?
Speaker 2 (32:34):
The one thing, mandy, we've seen a lot of, or
beginning to see or maybe it'sjust we're just observing is
that a lot of books are gettinga lot, bookstores are getting a
lot more serious aboutstationery, including cards, as
a profit center.
But it's actually becomingquite meaningful to bookstores
because, uh, partly, I think,because, um, a lot of the
(32:56):
classic stationery stores havegot shut down, uh, and so, uh,
the sort of what I call thefunctional stationery stores
downtown don't really existanymore.
But what we're seeing is thatmore and more bookstores are
getting serious about stationery, so that includes pens,
notepads and cards, and some ofthem are actually spinning off
(33:17):
now, sort of what I callaesthetic stationery stores.
So, here in New York City or inNew York City I'm not in there
right today, but in New YorkCity or in New York City I'm not
in there right today, but inNew York City there's McNally
Jackson I'm sure you're veryfamiliar with, given your name.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Yes, Sarah was one of my earlier guests on the show.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Well, they started this thing called Goods for the
Study, which is totally it's gotno books in it, it's all
stationary.
So it's kind of interesting howimportant, how there's there's
sort of this interestingsymbiosis between these two
businesses of books andstationary, and more and more
bookstores are getting more andmore serious about stationary as
a, as a category.
And there's also somethinghappening and I believe it's
(33:56):
related similar to thediscussion we had about analog
and about how people are fed upwith kind of everything being
digital and everything on theircomputer.
Where there really is, uh, ashift to, you know, people
wanting stationary products,there's the whole journaling
movement.
That's a.
That's really a thing.
It's really a thing.
It's not, it's not a little fad, it's really a thing.
(34:19):
And so we're seeing a lot ofsmart bookstores basically
picking up on that, because it'sthe sort of same demographic
and the same sense of sort ofwhat's the right word?
Sort of same.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
I know exactly what you mean.
I have seen people spend afortune on a journal, and so it
makes perfect sense forindependent bookshops to be
carrying stationery.
And also my other lovebeautiful, beautiful ink pens.
Now, I know you said thatDeidre is more of the reader
than you, but I'm interested.
What are you currently reading?
Speaker 2 (34:49):
So, yeah, I had to go back and look at it.
So I'm reading a book calledit's called the Gold and it's a
British book and it's about avery famous break-in.
The largest theft at the timewas it's called the brink's mat
burglary uh, which was tookplace in the 1980s in the uk and
they just did a tv show basedon the book and it's called the
(35:12):
gold uh, which I've watched andI wanted to go back and see the
next level of detail on thestory and partly, I think it's
because I am British and thiswas a period of time when I was
in England and it was a big dealand it had this very long
afterlife as a story becausethey stole back in the 1980s.
(35:32):
It was, I think $26 millionworth of gold was stolen and it
was a very, very longinvestigation, but also there
was a lot of colourfulcharacters and it turned out
that a lot of the money ended upfunding the development of
docklands in london, where Iused to, where I used to have an
office.
briefly, and so there's sort ofthere's always kind of little
interpersonal interconnectionsuh where the criminals ended up
(35:57):
it was actually not that farfrom where my parents still live
, so there's always kind offunny personal connections.
It's called the Gold and it'sjust a you know.
For me it was a veryinteresting story because it was
just sort of happening when Iwas growing up and you sort of
see these things and they havevery, very long afterlife.
So that's what I'm readingright now and enjoying it a lot.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
And what year did you leave the UK?
Speaker 2 (36:21):
I left the UK in 1991 .
Speaker 1 (36:24):
And what year did you leave the UK?
I left the UK in 1991.
Okay, so I moved from Australiato London in 82, stayed there
through 83, moved out to LosAngeles and then I was actually
there again I think it was 85for about 10 months.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
And one of my sons and his wife lived in Kent in
Canterbury for a while and nowthey're both working in Cork in
Ireland.
They love it.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
We love Ireland.
My wife's family is IrishAmerican, so we spent time over
in Ireland and one of the thingsthat my wife and I do every
year we can is we do a longdistance hike in the UK.
So we've done Pennine Way,we've done all these long
distance hikes.
And so it's funny because Igrew up in England but I
actually only ever seen tinylittle corners of it because of
(37:13):
you know, sort of university andwork and everything, and I'd
never really seen most of thecountry.
So subsequently we went backand we do these long distance
hikes.
It's a beautiful country tohike, certainly to hike through.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Well, it sounds like you have a good bolt hole if
needed.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
If I need to, yeah, Hopefully I don't need to.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Well, James, it's been great chatting with you.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Likewise Mandy.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
And thank you for explaining how letterpress
printing works and for ourlisteners.
How can they get in touch?
Speaker 2 (37:47):
with you.
Yeah, so the website forbooksellers is wwwsatinpressus
and the website for consumers iswwwsatinpresscardscom.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
That's perfect.
Thank you, james, and thank youfor being a guest on the show.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Thank you, Mandy.
I've enjoyed it a lot Lovely tochat and look forward to our
collaboration.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
You've been listening to my conversation with James
Anderson from Saturn Press inKent, connecticut.
To help the show reach morepeople, please share episodes
with friends and family and onsocial media, and remember to
subscribe and leave a reviewwherever you listen to this
podcast.
To find out more about theBookshop Podcast, go to
(38:29):
thebookshoppodcastcom and makesure to subscribe and leave a
review wherever you listen tothe show.
You can also follow me at MandyJackson Beverly on Instagram
and Facebook and on YouTube atthe Bookshop Podcast.
If you have a favorite indiebookshop that you'd like to
suggest we have on the podcast,I'd love to hear from you via
(38:51):
the contact form atthebookshoppodcastcom.
The Bookshop Podcast is writtenand produced by me, mandy
Jackson-Beverly, theme musicprovided by Brian Beverly, and
my executive assistant andgraphic designer is Adrian
Otterhan.
Thanks for listening and I'llsee you next time.
Hi, my name is Mandy Jackson-Beverly and I'm a
bibliophile.
Welcome to the Bookshop Podcast.
Each week I present interviewswith authors, independent
bookshop owners and booksellersfrom around the globe and
publishing professionals.
To help the show reach morepeople, please share episodes
with friends and family and onsocial media, and remember to
(00:33):
subscribe and leave a reviewwherever you listen to this
podcast.
You're listening to episode 305.
You may have noticed that therehas been a change in the days
our episodes are released.
We've changed from Mondays toWednesdays and sometimes they
may be bi-weekly.
(00:54):
I've had to do this for a fewreasons.
One is that I have a ton ofreading to do over the next few
months for the podcast and alsofor the in-person events I do in
Los Angeles, Santa Barbara andsoon to be, ojai, and I'm going
to be at the Boston BookFestival moderating a panel
there in October.
So I've had to switch thingsaround a little bit.
(01:17):
So, anyway, I look forward toseeing you on Wednesdays.
In this episode I'm switchingthings up a bit and exploring
another aspect of independentbookshops, and that is greeting
cards.
Saturn Press was firstestablished on the rocky soil of
Maine's remote Swans Island in1986.
Their distinctive designs andhigh-quality letterpress
(01:40):
printing have attracted a largefollowing.
Printing have attracted a largefollowing.
James and Deidre Anderson nowoperate Saturn Press from the
charming and historic town ofKent, connecticut, in the
Litchfield Hills, where they areproud to continue their
tradition of developingbeautiful and unique letterpress
greeting cards.
Saturn Press cards are loved bycustomers because of the
(02:02):
compelling and often quirkydesigns printed on high-quality
paper.
They can see and feel thedifference between a satin press
card and others.
A satin press card is theperfect way to celebrate a
milestone, brighten someone'sday and to share sentiments for
those you care about.
James and Deidre and the entireSaturn Presses team's guiding
(02:26):
philosophy is simple createbeautiful things for everyday
life.
You may have heard merecommending Saturn Press cards
on a few episodes because I fellin love with their designs when
I spotted them at Chaucer'sBooks in Santa Barbara.
James and Deirdre alsosponsored a couple of episodes
of the show and I'm proud torecommend their cards.
(02:46):
Hi, james, and welcome to theshow.
It's lovely to have you here.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Thanks, Mandy.
It's super to be here andlooking forward to our
conversation.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
I am too.
So let's begin with learningabout you and your wife, deidre
Anderson, your careers inproduct development and
education, and what led you toassume ownership of Saturn Press
in 2024.
But before that, I hear anEnglish accent, so where are you
from?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah, so I grew up in England and went to university
there, worked there for a coupleof years and then came to the
US for business school and so,yeah, I've been here in the US
35 years now, but some peoplestill say I have an English
accent.
I don't know.
My mother says I don't.
When I go back there, she saysI have an American accent.
So it all depends where you'restarting from.
(03:31):
But yeah, so grew up in the UKand spent essentially all my
adult life here.
My wife, deirdre, is Americanand so, yeah, let's talk about a
little bit about Saturn Pressand how we come to own it.
So so my background is reallyin business and I spent my
career doing large-scale productdevelopment projects, primarily
in the payments industry, andso I had a chance to build some
(03:55):
pretty big systems and have some, I think, some pretty
beneficial impacts on thatindustry.
If I might say so myself, mywife was a teacher.
She taught kids with specialneeds, special education, and
then really the impetus forSaturn Press was.
You know, there's always anelement of just kind of
randomness to life.
(04:16):
My daughter actually loved thecards, she loved the product.
She started sending it to awhole family and, through a
series reputation.
It had some great distribution,including a number of
(04:45):
independent bookstores, and theywere ready to retire.
So it was kind of anopportunity to switch gears.
You know, I like to say that Iwanted to downshift but I didn't
want to get into neutral, Iwanted to keep doing stuff.
I wanted to be active and sorunning my always always had an
aspiration and kind of a dreamof running my own business and
(05:06):
this was the opportunity to doit.
So it's a lovely businessbecause I would say a couple of
things.
One is we get to deal with kindof images and you know we don't
produce art, but I think weproduce things that are artistic
and we also we deal with theloveliest people in as our
customers, you know so,including bookstore owners, gift
(05:26):
store owners.
We do sell to museum stores, wesell directly to the public,
but everybody who buys cardsseems to be just the loveliest
people in the world.
So I've dealt with lots ofpeople in my business career,
but never with people who are asfriendly and as happy to do
business as bookstore owners andgift store owners.
They're just people who seem asfriendly and as happy to do
business as bookstore owners andgift store owners.
(05:46):
They're just people who seem tolike the product and just happy
doing what they're doing andseem pleased to just kind of
extend it and do more of it.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, when I look back at all of the people I have
interviewed, who are eitherbooksellers or independent
bookshop owners, they all have acouple of things in common.
One is they love to read.
The other is that they'recurious curious about the world,
curious about people and theyenjoy sharing their love of
story with others.
And there are many booksellerswho have gained a PhD or a
(06:22):
master's and they are at theirhappiest selling books.
Correct, yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah, but you're absolutely right, Mandy, you've
got to love the product.
I believe in.
If you're doing, if you're inbusiness, you really have to
appreciate the product.
Otherwise it's just too hardright If you don't love the
product.
And books and books areobviously a great product.
You know they're sort ofdistilled wisdom for humanity
but you've also got to likepeople as well.
If you're running a store,you've got to actually enjoy the
(06:47):
interaction with the public andhelping people find better
products, so better books.
And so we've been longtimesupporters of independent
bookstores.
Wherever we've lived, we'vealways frequented independent
bookstores.
I don't remember any time whenmy wife has not been reading a
book.
She's really the bibliophile.
I know you introduced yourselfas your podcast as a bibliophile
(07:08):
.
My wife is a fellow traveler inthat clan with you.
She has never not got a book,and if she ever finds herself on
a plane without a book, it's asource of huge anxiety for her.
So, yeah, so she's really thereader in the family for her.
So, yeah, so she's really thereader in the family.
I'm not such a deep reader asshe is, but so bookstores are,
(07:34):
you know, always been part of.
I.
Actually prefer shopping in abookstore to actually reading
the book.
Sometimes it's just such a andI've bought many books that I've
never read Because I love theidea.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Yeah, I must agree, I love having books around.
I'm surrounded by them rightnow.
Okay, from booksellers andbooks.
Back to Saturn Press.
So you are a letterpressgreeting card company.
Can you explain the process ofletterpress printing and what
makes this art form stand outfrom other greeting card
companies?
When I go into indie bookshopsand I look at their card
(08:06):
collections, your cards reallydo stand out because they are so
unique and they're kind of oldworldly.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yeah.
So what I like to tell peopleis that our presses were the
photocopiers before they werephotocopiers.
So if you were running arestaurant in the 1960s and you
needed a couple of hundredcopies of a menu, there was no
photocopiers, right?
You couldn't just go to thecopy shop and copy them out.
You didn't have a laser printer, and so you would take out your
(08:33):
handwritten, you know menu.
You would take down to a littleprint shop and they would print
it, and they would print it ona letterpress press, because
that was what presses were.
I letterpress is essentiallythere, that essentially the
derivation of what gutenberginvented all those years ago, uh
.
And so you know the character.
The defining characteristic isit's 100 analog, in the sense
(08:54):
there's no chips, there's nocomputers, there's no screens on
those presses.
Two of my presses are from1940s, one of them's from the
1960s, uh, and one of them'sfrom the 1950s.
So I'm not that young, butthey're all older than me and
they're still working, which isfantastic.
So I've always sort of had thislove of analog technology that
(09:14):
is still relevant, even in 2025.
So I own a 1964 Land Rover.
I have a 1959 Austin HealeyBug-Eye Sprite, which is this
tiny little British sports car,but I love the fact that it's
analog.
Now, I'm not one of theseLuddites who doesn't respect
technology and hates technology.
It's more that I just love theidea that there's technology
(09:34):
that's 60 or 80 years old thatis still relevant today.
And letterpress is very muchlike that, and I think the
reason it's relevant is partlybecause of its constraints.
Reason it's relevant is partlybecause of its constraints.
So printing today is alldigital and it's on these huge
presses and that's what we seeall around us and that's
fantastic.
But that also means it looks alot like what we see on our
(09:58):
screens every day.
It's kind of perfect colorrepresentation.
It's a trillion colors.
You can't do that withletterpress.
Letterpress, if you do a threeor four color card, that's
basically as much as you can do,which forces you, therefore, to
be very disciplined about thenumber of colors you choose and
therefore about how you preparethe art to be printed and turned
(10:20):
into a letterpress card.
And I believe that that's whatmakes it appealing to consumers,
because we're all surrounded byperfect digital trillion-color
representations.
And when you see somethingthat's not that, there's sort of
an element of charm to it andit seems to engage consumers in
a way that's different thandigitally printed products that
(10:43):
may sit next to it.
And so we only do letterpress.
That's our thing, that's ouraesthetic and we are very much
an image forward letterpresscompany, meaning that there's
some companies, card companies,very text forward, and that's
great.
We are very much around images,and so our images come from
lots of different sources.
(11:04):
Images, and so our images comefrom lots of different sources,
but in the end they all have akind of look and feel which
tends to be simpler than whatpeople see in their daily life
and therefore seems to appeal.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
I think of three words when I see your cards.
The first one is comforting,the second is unique and the
third is beauty.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Right, there's a sort of a familiarity, and some of
them are some of.
We have some certain lines thatkind of play into that.
So we have something calledupcountry sketches, which is a
line that is, you know, I thinkof it as kind of a Boy Scout
handbook, you know brought tolife.
So each individual card hassome kind of very simple
how-to-ness to it, but it's verymuch simple line drawings,
(11:44):
simple coloring, but it seems toappeal to something in people,
or people find something in it,which is that the simplicity is,
as you say, comforting andappealing.
That's what we find when wetalk to customers.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
They remind me of woodcuts.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Yes, woodcuts are a version of letterpress
essentially, but yes, there's a.
Woodcuts are a version ofletterpress essentially, but yes
, there's a.
There's a strong similarity andagain, it's really, I think,
because of intrinsic constraintsto the technology, that sort of
drive to a certain aestheticoutcome.
And so, you're right, there'syeah, so there's people who
print woodcuts and then maybegraduate to letterpress, because
(12:20):
there are more things you cando on letterpress.
It is more automated in thesense that our presses are.
You know, they have electricmotors and they can be used in a
commercial context, but stillthey have these kind of basic
aesthetic constraints that youhave to manage around.
And you know, I believecreativity comes around from
managing around constraints.
If there's no constraints, youdon't need to be creative, right
(12:42):
?
And that's the kind of themodern digital technology which
is amazing, right?
You just press a button and youget a perfect replica.
It doesn't seem to engage thehuman kind of psyche in the same
way as something that has.
People can sense that there wereconstraints and then we managed
around those and the result, Imean, all they see is the image
(13:03):
that comes out of it, but itseems to appeal to something
inside people and I actuallythink there's an element, you
know, I listened to a couple ofyour podcasts there's an element
which is, if you think aboutthe independent bookstore,
versus, you know, the kind ofAmazon as a, obviously they have
to do everything other thanbooks, now, it seems.
But there's also an elementwhere it's the same product but
(13:26):
it's in a totally differentcontext.
Right, you change the wholecontext and the bundle of
services and the bundle of valueis very different and people
find it appealing.
Right, it's, you know, it's apart of a community, it's a part
of what makes their towndifferent.
And so I think people can sortof distinguish between something
(13:46):
that's, you know, kind of superefficient and something that's
somewhat more kind ofaesthetically pleasing, or
pleasing to their soul, in asense.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
And I also think it has something to do with the
colors.
They are calming.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yeah, we tend to be a bit muted.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
And James, where do you find the artists for your
designs?
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Well, so we're pretty eclectic.
So one of the things that weinherited when we bought the
company was a very, very largeephemera collection.
So the previous owners werereal ephemera buffs.
So they had we've literally got, you know think, like four
dozen banker boxes downstairsfull of individual books and
images, all of which have somekind of theme, and so sometimes
(14:33):
we'll have an idea for a cardand then we'll go to those
banker boxes and find images,and then we'll just sort of
interpret them differently.
We do some work with licensedartists, so there are some.
And then the other one is thatthere's lots of fantastic
artists, many of whom havefallen out of the public eye.
(14:56):
Their art is in the publicdomain, and so sometimes we'll
take that art and we willinterpret it for letterpress.
So it's not, you know, wealways give credit.
We use the expression it'safter a certain artist, it's not
, you know it's not a photo ofit.
It's an interpretation of it,but obviously if we've been
inspired by a specific artist,we want to give them credit, and
(15:18):
so those are really the threesources A lot of it's from the
ephemera collection, some ofit's from licensed artists, and
then some of it's fromestablished artists, and again,
many of which have fallen out ofthe public eye.
Because if you see, if it's toofamiliar when somebody sees it
on the, on the, on the rack,that doesn't work it.
(15:38):
So, you know, an element offamiliarity is okay, but if it's
too familiar, you know, we wedon't want to do a knockoff of
Picasso.
Right, picasso's plentyavailable and you know he was
great, he's Picasso.
But there's lots of artists outthere who did great work that
have been forgotten, and my wifehas a particular desire to
(15:58):
focus on female artists who'vebeen, you know, essentially been
forgotten, because a lot ofthem were forgotten in their own
time, unfortunately, and soshe's done some work to try and
sort of find some artists thatshe likes.
But at the end of the day, it'sgot to be something that's
pleasing.
We're not making a politicalstatement.
(16:21):
It still has to be somethingthat somebody wants to buy and
pick off the shelf.
But honestly, there's a lot ofwork out there.
I like to say we're a bit of amagpie because we sort of pick
things from different sourcesand sometimes combine them, but
the end result we think isgenerally pleasing.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
And can you talk a little about the paper, because
the quality is beautiful, thepaper looks and feels wholesome,
and I know that's a strangeword to use for paper.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
No, I like it, mandy, I like it.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Yeah well, the paper feels like it has depth and it
enhances the artwork.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Yeah, so we spent a lot of time on choosing paper,
and paper is something that whenI bought the company I didn't
appreciate how.
You know, I'd seen lots ofreams of copy paper in my day
but that was about it andnewspaper and and magazines, but
I'd never really done anythingwith paper.
So it was, I had to come up thelearning curve and we had some
(17:19):
help from some, some people inthe industry, uh.
But yeah, so we, there's acouple of things we, we did with
the paper.
We chose to do with the paper,uh, and you picked up on them.
One is that we, we have a decaledge.
So if you go back in time, thedecal edge actually originally
was when you made paper back inwhatever 500 years ago.
(17:40):
You would have this big tray,you would put pulp into it, it
would settle out and at theedges it would be kind of
wrinkly and that was a decal.
Now, of course, over thesubsequent hundreds of years,
there's no need to have that.
We actually like our cards tohave that decolletage because we
think it signals to theconsumer that there's something
a little different.
(18:00):
So we have the decolletage.
It's very hard to getdecolletage paper nowadays, but
we have a source, uh.
And then the other point whichyou picked up on is the amount
of texture.
So we think that, uh, andthere's a fine line there, too
much texture makes it too hardto print, but we think that a
little texture also just kind ofpops the images and also tells
(18:21):
people it's something a littlebit different.
So, yeah, so we source ourpaper.
The paper is sourced, it's inthe US, it's from a US mill, and
so we're happy about that,especially in today's
environment.
Yeah, but papers are a very bigdecision for us, because
everything we do goes onto thepaper and the paper is a part of
(18:41):
the product.
So, yeah, we spend a lot oftime figuring it out.
But I'm glad you noticed it wealso don't do bright white, we
do a natural white, because wethink that also creates the
impression it makes the images.
The images don't pop out of thepaper.
They kind of they obviously areon top of it, but they're
resting in this kind of restfulcolor I call it.
(19:04):
So it's a slightly it's what'scalled a natural white.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
And what about sustainability?
Does Saturn Press have asustainability standard?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Well, so it's an interesting topic.
So we are constantly looking ateverything we do to make sure
that it's as sustainable aspossible.
I would say I'll give you acouple of examples of things
we've done.
One of the things that we're ona mission to do is eliminate
plastic from all our packagingmaterials because we don't think
we need it.
And so we just redesigned ourChristmas boxes and they don't
(19:37):
have any plastic in them.
They have an aperture on thefront, aperture on the back.
They're fully made out of paper, so they're 100% recyclable.
We eliminated the paper andplastic which was in the prior
design, so once the inventory ofthose goes through, we'll be at
100% paper.
We're also looking at some ofour products that are printed.
We have some products that areprinted on pressure-sensitive
(19:59):
labels that tend to be moreplasticky.
We're looking at how we can goback to paper on those.
So I wouldn't say we have aformal standard, mandy, but we
are constantly trying to makesure that what we do is
sustainable.
Our thinking is that we don'twant somebody in the store to
pick up a product that we'vemade and feel bad about the
(20:21):
purchase.
So we want them to feel good inall dimensions.
We want them to feel good aboutthe product itself.
We want them to feel good aboutthe value, but we also want
them to feel good about theimpact they're having on the
environment, and so that's kindof our approach.
We're not perfect.
We can't achieve perfection.
Some of our customers dorequire products to be put into
(20:42):
cello bags.
The reason is unfortunately andI'm sure a lot of your
listeners will appreciate thiswhich is that people walk into
stores holding a coffee, eatinga donut and picking up product
and you can't have that happenand without getting damaged, and
so people you know some of thepeople want plastic bags on
every product so we're pragmatic, but we are trying to do things
(21:04):
where we can at the margin, uh,to improve the environmental
sustainability, uh.
And so you know it's a it's along game, but we're committed
to trying to be a good stewardof the environment in our own
tiny little way.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Step by step, as they say.
Let's talk about box sets intwo forms.
You mentioned them earlier, butif I'm a customer and I go into
an independent book shop and Isee your cards, am I only going
to see them as separate cards,or can I buy them as gift sets
or box sets?
I'm sorry.
(21:41):
And then also, if I'm awholesaler, can I mix and match?
How does that work?
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Yeah, so the way we package is we have individual
cards that you'll typically seein a spinner, so we will sell
those to book cards withbookstores, gift stores, museum
stores, people like that.
So they'll buy them and putthem individually either into a
spinner or onto a wall orwhatever.
And so that's probably thebiggest single way our cards go,
which is we sell wholesale andthen they're bought individually
(22:10):
.
For the holiday season we alsodo boxes of eight cards, eight
envelopes, single design, andthey are sold through wholesale.
And then for those people whodon't have a retailer near them,
we do sell online on ourwebsite, which is
satinpresscardscom.
So we have those optionsavailable.
We really do like to support ourretail partners because they're
(22:32):
the people who've kind of youknow, they bought us here, they
got us here, so so we, we, weprefer that channel wherever
possible.
But it's a big world, it's abig country and not everybody's
going to have a retailer nearthem, and so we, uh, we do sell
direct on the web as well.
Uh, for those customers whodon't have a retailer near them
and obviously, you know, we, wehave a number of cards, as as
(22:55):
you've probably seen, and notevery store can stock every card
.
So sometimes people wantsomething very specific so they
can get it from us.
We sell mainly in the US.
We have a couple of greatcustomers in the UK, france, but
it's mainly US, but we're opento sales everywhere in the world
.
I think there's a greatgreeting card culture in the UK.
I know Not all of the world hasa greeting card culture, but
(23:18):
we're available everywhere.
The internet's everywhere andwe're on the internet.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
I find this interesting.
I have a lot of friends whosend me cards.
I have one in particular.
Her name is Karen, she's Irishand if I sneeze she will send me
a card and I love it.
I've kept them all.
They're on bookshelves behindme.
You can probably see some ofthem.
And my sister, susie, inAustralia, is the same.
She's a real card sender and Ijust love it.
(23:45):
It makes me feel good when Ireceive cards in the mail.
Or, you know, if I meet Karenfor a walk she'll give me a card
.
It's heartwarming and kind ofmagical.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Yeah, there really is .
I totally agree with you, mandy.
Another line I didn't mentionis we have a number of sympathy
cards, and so sympathy is one ofthose occasions where I mean a
sympathy text just doesn't cutit right.
You're going to send a text totell somebody you're sorry that
they had a loss.
You've got to show that youmade a bit more effort than that
.
That's my belief.
(24:17):
If you're going to participatein some kind of social contract
or social context with somebody,you want to show that the
relationship is worth enough togo buy a nice card and then put
the address on it, writesomething meaningful and then
put it in the mail.
And I think that's part of thereason why it's meaningful when
(24:39):
it's received, because it'sbecause you know that there was
some effort went into it.
It wasn't just a trivial likeoh, I'm sitting at a stoplight
and I'm going to send a text,kind of attitude, right, it's
something.
It was more intense and moreintentional than that and that's
meaningful for people.
And so, yeah, absolutely, wereading cards are very
meaningful and we've had, youknow, a number of occasions
(25:03):
where people have reached outand they've said they've
received a card, particularly inthe scenario of a sympathy card
and how meaningful it was andhow beautiful it was, and so it
really does mean something topeople when they get a card was
and how beautiful it was, and soit really does mean something
to people when they get a card.
Uh, and so, you know, andbecause because I also think
that there's an element of uh, Ithink people appreciate the
(25:23):
fact that somebody has hasthought about what would be a
right, a nice card for them, andit's sort of, I like to say
it's a gift for both people,right, because the thinking
about somebody is almost a giftto yourself and then the sending
it is is kind of a gift to theperson who receives it, and so,
yeah, so I think you knowthere's, you know when, when I
(25:43):
was talking to people aboutbuying, you know a gift, a
greeting card company, somepeople like, oh, I don't send
greeting cards anymore, blah,blah, blah, blah.
It's like that's fine, you knowyou be you, but there's a lot
of people who do, and I think itdoes.
It is meaningful to recipientson certain occasions and you
know it's a chance to bring alittle bit of beauty into
somebody's life on a daily basiscards that they had or that I
(26:03):
had sent to them.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
And then I have the matching ones that they had sent
me and, as I said earlier, justabout all of Karen's cards are
on bookcases behind me, butbeautiful cards, or cards that
make you think about life,they're pieces of art.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Exactly, exactly, I can see it.
You've got postcards behind you.
Exactly exactly, I can see it.
You've got postcards behind you.
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
And my take on art in all forms is that I'm
interested in how it affects meemotionally.
Cards for me are a memory, andso I'm surrounded by memories, I
guess.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
So we've had a number of people tell us they actually
frame our cards, put them up onthe wall, which is a great
tribute Because, like we say, wedon't think we're producing art
.
Art's something you see at theMet or the Mono or the Frick,
but we're producing somethingartistic and if it gives
somebody that much pleasure,we're just happy to be part of
it.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
And do you ever do special orders, for example, if
someone's having a wedding andthey love your cards and they
want you to create somethingspecific?
Speaker 2 (27:19):
So that's something we've thought about.
Right now we don't do that.
There's really two parts of thekind of letterpress world.
There's the custom work, whichis wedding invitations is
probably the iconic example, andthen there's what we make to
start, and so right now we don'thave that flexibility.
We are looking at that idea,mandy, which is how could we
(27:39):
serve that second use case, thatkind of custom use case.
But we have some work to do tobe able to do that.
So right now we do sell to somepeople in bulk, where we sell to
some charities who want to sendnice cards to their donors and
things like that, but we're notin yet in the business of being
(28:00):
able to do custom interiors andcustom messaging.
We're not that far away from it, but it's just.
It's a very, it's a kind of adifferent business because it's
heavily driven around thecustomer service experience and
the review processing, gettingthe edits and everything, and
there's people who are very goodat that.
So for now we're really in thekind of we make to stock and
(28:20):
then we sell out of ourinventory.
But it's something we'relooking at because I think
there's certainly an opportunityto pair the imagery with some
kind of text that's particularlymeaningful to a customer.
It's just, we're not quite setup yet to do that.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
And that brings up something else for me too.
Are all of your cards blankinside, or do you have a writer
writing text?
Speaker 2 (28:44):
So most of our cards are what we call everyday cards
and they are blank.
Then there's two lines thathave greetings inside or text
inside.
So all our holiday cards, allour, all our christmas cards,
essentially have christmas andnew years.
They all have a greeting inside.
And then our sympathy cardscome, either greeted or
(29:05):
ungreeted, depending.
Some people just want the image, some people want the text as
well, and so we sell those bothways, and all our holiday cards
have some kind of text.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
You know, we're not we're not.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
we're not writing long poems, we're not like
writing long.
We're not we're not that kindof a card company.
It's quite.
You know, it's just a couple oflines, but people seem to want
that for holiday Christmas cards, but most of the time for our
you know, for our everyday cards, we leave it up to the
individual consumer once they'vebought it, so they're going to
(29:38):
deliver the finalpersonalization.
So, yeah, that's our approachand different people take
different approaches on that,but we're not really set up to
write long, big poems.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Personally, I prefer cards that are blank inside.
I like to write my ownsentiment for the person I'm
sending a card to I agree.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
I agree, you know we've we've had some feedback
from.
So our cards are a slightlylarger format.
They're five inch by seven inch.
We've had some feedback fromsome people, some of our
retailers, saying our cards aretoo big for your cards, are too
big for our consumers.
They get intimidated by allthat white space.
I was like I don't know what tosay about that.
But we have smaller cards aswell.
(30:21):
That's what I said.
We have these little cute whichwe have these grace notes which
are just like little, you knowsmall formats Like well, buy the
grace notes then if it's toomuch white space.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
And perhaps people purchasing cards from
independent bookshops prefer towrite their own verse.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Correct.
You know, our cards aregenerally blank, they're
ungreeted, and I think it's thecase that there's really a tie
into the bookstore channel,because the people that are
shopping in independentbookstores, you know they're
more literary, they're morethoughtful and they're able to,
you know, fill in a card withoutgetting intimidated.
So, yeah, we think that theblank cards, for most occasions,
(31:05):
are the way to go.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
I love that you mentioned white space, because I
really love white space and Iappreciate it, even in books.
If I open a certain book andthe text is crammed, the
formatting is crammed, I can'tread it.
It's really hard on my brainand on my eyes.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Well, it's unpleasant , right, it's unpleasant, yeah,
no, there's a look, there's areal, there is a true skill to
laying out a book and to, I mean, it's not something I could do,
but I know.
One knows the difference whenone sees a book that's been well
produced and been well laid outand the content, the font has
been chosen carefully and thecontext of the content has been
(31:45):
interpreted in a way that's, youknow, appropriate.
You feel it, and maybe you feelit more in the negative, when
you find something that hasn'tbeen done so well and has been,
you know, the font is wrong and,as you say, it's all crammed in
there.
You feel, you know, you just itfeels like an unpleasant
experience, which is not whatyou want.
(32:05):
When you're going to bespending multiple hours with a
book, you want that feeling ofkind of, you know, feeling
comfortable and, you know, andenjoying the experience.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
I agree.
Before I ask you about whatyou're reading, I would like to
ask one question you about whatyou're reading.
I would like to ask onequestion how do you see the role
of stationery cards, etc.
Even pens, which I adoreevolving into the independent
bookshops around the world?
Speaker 2 (32:34):
The one thing, mandy, we've seen a lot of, or
beginning to see or maybe it'sjust we're just observing is
that a lot of books are gettinga lot, bookstores are getting a
lot more serious aboutstationery, including cards, as
a profit center.
But it's actually becomingquite meaningful to bookstores
because, uh, partly, I think,because, um, a lot of the
(32:56):
classic stationery stores havegot shut down, uh, and so, uh,
the sort of what I call thefunctional stationery stores
downtown don't really existanymore.
But what we're seeing is thatmore and more bookstores are
getting serious about stationery, so that includes pens,
notepads and cards, and some ofthem are actually spinning off
(33:17):
now, sort of what I callaesthetic stationery stores.
So, here in New York City or inNew York City I'm not in there
right today, but in New YorkCity or in New York City I'm not
in there right today, but inNew York City there's McNally
Jackson I'm sure you're veryfamiliar with, given your name.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Yes, Sarah was one of my earlier guests on the show.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Well, they started this thing called Goods for the
Study, which is totally it's gotno books in it, it's all
stationary.
So it's kind of interesting howimportant, how there's there's
sort of this interestingsymbiosis between these two
businesses of books andstationary, and more and more
bookstores are getting more andmore serious about stationary as
a, as a category.
And there's also somethinghappening and I believe it's
(33:56):
related similar to thediscussion we had about analog
and about how people are fed upwith kind of everything being
digital and everything on theircomputer.
Where there really is, uh, ashift to, you know, people
wanting stationary products,there's the whole journaling
movement.
That's a.
That's really a thing.
It's really a thing.
It's not, it's not a little fad, it's really a thing.
(34:19):
And so we're seeing a lot ofsmart bookstores basically
picking up on that, because it'sthe sort of same demographic
and the same sense of sort ofwhat's the right word?
Sort of same.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
I know exactly what you mean.
I have seen people spend afortune on a journal, and so it
makes perfect sense forindependent bookshops to be
carrying stationery.
And also my other lovebeautiful, beautiful ink pens.
Now, I know you said thatDeidre is more of the reader
than you, but I'm interested.
What are you currently reading?
Speaker 2 (34:49):
So, yeah, I had to go back and look at it.
So I'm reading a book calledit's called the Gold and it's a
British book and it's about avery famous break-in.
The largest theft at the timewas it's called the brink's mat
burglary uh, which was tookplace in the 1980s in the uk and
they just did a tv show basedon the book and it's called the
(35:12):
gold uh, which I've watched andI wanted to go back and see the
next level of detail on thestory and partly, I think it's
because I am British and thiswas a period of time when I was
in England and it was a big dealand it had this very long
afterlife as a story becausethey stole back in the 1980s.
(35:32):
It was, I think $26 millionworth of gold was stolen and it
was a very, very longinvestigation, but also there
was a lot of colourfulcharacters and it turned out
that a lot of the money ended upfunding the development of
docklands in london, where Iused to, where I used to have an
office.
briefly, and so there's sort ofthere's always kind of little
interpersonal interconnectionsuh where the criminals ended up
(35:57):
it was actually not that farfrom where my parents still live
, so there's always kind offunny personal connections.
It's called the Gold and it'sjust a you know.
For me it was a veryinteresting story because it was
just sort of happening when Iwas growing up and you sort of
see these things and they havevery, very long afterlife.
So that's what I'm readingright now and enjoying it a lot.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
And what year did you leave the UK?
Speaker 2 (36:21):
I left the UK in 1991 .
Speaker 1 (36:24):
And what year did you leave the UK?
I left the UK in 1991.
Okay, so I moved from Australiato London in 82, stayed there
through 83, moved out to LosAngeles and then I was actually
there again I think it was 85for about 10 months.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
And one of my sons and his wife lived in Kent in
Canterbury for a while and nowthey're both working in Cork in
Ireland.
They love it.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
We love Ireland.
My wife's family is IrishAmerican, so we spent time over
in Ireland and one of the thingsthat my wife and I do every
year we can is we do a longdistance hike in the UK.
So we've done Pennine Way,we've done all these long
distance hikes.
And so it's funny because Igrew up in England but I
actually only ever seen tinylittle corners of it because of
(37:13):
you know, sort of university andwork and everything, and I'd
never really seen most of thecountry.
So subsequently we went backand we do these long distance
hikes.
It's a beautiful country tohike, certainly to hike through.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Well, it sounds like you have a good bolt hole if
needed.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
If I need to, yeah, Hopefully I don't need to.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Well, James, it's been great chatting with you.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Likewise Mandy.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
And thank you for explaining how letterpress
printing works and for ourlisteners.
How can they get in touch?
Speaker 2 (37:47):
with you.
Yeah, so the website forbooksellers is wwwsatinpressus
and the website for consumers iswwwsatinpresscardscom.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
That's perfect.
Thank you, james, and thank youfor being a guest on the show.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Thank you, Mandy.
I've enjoyed it a lot Lovely tochat and look forward to our
collaboration.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
You've been listening to my conversation with James
Anderson from Saturn Press inKent, connecticut.
To help the show reach morepeople, please share episodes
with friends and family and onsocial media, and remember to
subscribe and leave a reviewwherever you listen to this
podcast.
To find out more about theBookshop Podcast, go to
(38:29):
thebookshoppodcastcom and makesure to subscribe and leave a
review wherever you listen tothe show.
You can also follow me at MandyJackson Beverly on Instagram
and Facebook and on YouTube atthe Bookshop Podcast.
If you have a favorite indiebookshop that you'd like to
suggest we have on the podcast,I'd love to hear from you via
(38:51):
the contact form atthebookshoppodcastcom.
The Bookshop Podcast is writtenand produced by me, mandy
Jackson-Beverly, theme musicprovided by Brian Beverly, and
my executive assistant andgraphic designer is Adrian
Otterhan.
Thanks for listening and I'llsee you next time.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.