Last week, McSweeney’s Publishing announced it was shifting to nonprofit status. Founded in 1998 by Dave Eggers, McSweeney’s, which is headquartered in San Francisco, has grown to a multi-tiered media company, with a book unit (releasing titles for adults and children), a magazine unit (overseeing titles like the Quarterly Concern and the Believer) and a Web division (see their humor website). Jordan Bass, an executive editor at McSweeney's, spoke to PW about how becoming a nonprofit will affect the company's brand moving forward.

What sorts of projects will McSweeney's explore, now that you have nonprofit status?

I’m excited to see what this will do for both the Believer and the Quarterly—the Believer’s about to undergo a sort of once-in-a-decade re-launch, into a bimonthly format built on bigger issues and a redoubled commitment to feature writing. This feels like a great way to help that happen. And on the quarterly side, we’ve always had a long list of dream projects that are going to require an angel of one kind or another in order to be done right. We want to send short story writers to strange places and see what they come back with. We want to continue to remake the magazine, to create new shapes and sizes for it. We want to be able to support big stories, and still have room for very small ones.

There are a million things to be done on the books side, too—I know Dave’s excited to see how our poetry imprint can grow, how we can expand our translations program, how we can do more with Voice of Witness. And through it all we will continue to attempt to keep our decorative-gourd mugs in stock.

Will becoming a nonprofit alter the classic McSweeney's sensibility in any way?

I think we’re always altering that sensibility, year to year—trying to find new things to do and new ways to do them. My hope is that this shift will give us the fuel to keep that process going.

Do you see your move at McSweeney's as indicative of a larger shift in independent publishing?

I’m not sure! We’ve been pretty absorbed in the logistics of our own transition, but now that the news is out I’m very much looking forward to comparing notes with other folks in the business, on both sides of the for-profit/non-profit line. We’re at a point where this feels like the right move for us, in order to support the breadth of what we want to take on in the near future, and in hopes of gaining the ability to try for even bigger things down the road. But we have plenty of comrades on the for-profit side, who will be doing good work for a long time to come.

What are you most excited about gaining by becoming a nonprofit?

I’m excited to see all our books be lifted up by it—we have great books by Cory Doctorow and Miriam Toews coming out in the next few weeks, and many more great titles lined up for the months ahead, and I think this change will make us an even better home for them, and able to do even more to get them out into the world. We’ve got a lot to learn, to make it all happen, but I’m excited for that, too. We have a great group of people here at the moment, who I think are primed to take this on, and I’m excited to see what sort of new people this change might create space for, within our little operation.