Meet the publishing company CEO behind ‘The Cajun Night Before Christmas’

Pelican Publishing President and CEO Scott Campbell is the kind of character you might find in one of the quintessentially New Orleans books his company publishes. A lifelong New Orleanian, he served in the Marines, lived for several years in one of the quirky houses on the batture and is a serial entrepreneur. He once owned an events company and founded a boutique publishing house, River Road Press, in 2014, before selling it to South-Carolina-based Arcadia Publishing in 2020.

Arcadia had purchased Pelican Publishing the year before, and offered Campbell the top job there. It was a dream job for a bookworm and aspiring author with a wide variety of interests.

Pelican Publishing, which will mark its centennial in 2026, has published more than 3,000 titles over the past 98 years and counts William Faulkner, Hodding Carter and Lyle Saxon among its authors. It’s a niche publisher that specializes in Louisiana-themed books, including children’s titles like “The Cajun Night Before Christmas” and “Goodnight Pothole”; cookbooks like “The Dooky Chase Cookbook” and the “Buster Holmes Restaurant Cookbook”; and coffee table classics celebrating local art and culture like the multivolume “New Orleans Architecture” series. 

In this week’s Talking Business, Campbell discusses how a small local publisher, even one owned by a regional company like Arcadia, is able to compete in a digital world of ever-shorter attention spans, and what he sees on the horizon.   

How does Pelican compete against the large publishing companies, which are consolidating and struggling themselves?

We embrace local and regional books so we don’t really go up against national publishers. We’re in our own lane and look for whatever is local for you. And that is really our owner Arcadia’s model. You could be in Austin or Seattle or Washington so they specialize in publishing local titles in markets where they own small publishers. Pelican was already doing that when Arcadia bought them in 2019 so it was really a good fit and give us an advantage over the big publishing houses. Local people are interested in local topics.

How big is Arcadia?

They have over 20,000 backlist titles. When we were acquired, we probably had about 3,000. All the books you see at Walgreens or CVS in those spinner racks are Arcadia Books. What you see is always regionally specific, so if we put a book somewhere it is because that book is of interest to that specific region and area. 

Is Pelican’s niche New Orleans? South Louisiana? How do you define it?

We are based in New Orleans and have lots of Louisiana titles. We also do titles from authors in Florida and Texas as well. We get over 2,000 submissions a year from people all over the area, so we’re regional with a special focus on Louisiana.

You accept unsolicited manuscripts?

Yes, we are one of the few that does, which is huge. Anyone who writes a book can approach us. 

That must keep you pretty busy.

We have an editor and he reads them all and sends me the ones that have the most promise, and I look them through them and we go from there. 

What’s the secret to a successful book?

With local and regional books, it is imperative that authors are significantly committed to the success of the book and are willing to participate. They need to do book signings and get out there and talk to people and do interviews. We set up over 400 signings last year with local authors at independents but also at Barnes and Noble, which just opened a new store in Clearview and is opening another new one in Denham Springs. We also partner with local retailers like Fleurty Girl and do events at nontraditional venues like bars or parties at people’s homes. Any place people may want to gather, we try to go and the authors have to be a part of it.  

What is your strongest category?

More than half of what we do are children’s books. We do a lot of cookbooks, too, and cultural stuff — books on music, architecture, history and ghosts. 

Are people still buying bound, printed books? 

There was a big interest in e-books a decade ago, but a lot of books that people read on devices are text only. We do a lot of kid’s books and coffee table books or books about architecture and history, and full-color cookbooks and those kind of books do not translate well into the electronic realm. Who wants to read a book with their kid in bed on a computer? 

What’s on the horizon for Pelican?

“The Cajun Night Before Christmas” is super popular, more so than ever, and this year, we’re doing a 50th anniversary edition with a cloth-covered slipcase and additional content. We’re also going to be doing a board book edition for that book. And we’re working with the Governor’s Office, which has included a bunch of Pelican children’s title on their list of recommended summer reading. So we’re real excited about that. We’re also preparing to celebrate our centennial anniversary in 2026.