Print Industry Shakeup
A while ago, I read this post by Reb Livingston of No Tell Books and thought, ‘yeah, fuck Amazon’ and ‘man, Reb is awesome.’
Then I ordered a lot of things from Amazon the next day; I binged like crazy, sent things to a friend through Amazon, those things were lost in the mail, etc. Now I am outraged again. It is probably not the kind of anger that Reb had, but it is anger, and that’s what matters.
So I am happy to see that Adam Robinson, the man behind Publishing Genius, has posted this prospectus for an article he’d like to write. He wants reading suggestions. He wants to break scholarly ground. He wants to write an annotated bibliography for fuck’s sake. Help him out.
I will not say anything smarmy about the fact I like Sam Pink’s writing
I don’t think it’s unethical to say some words about Sam Pink’s forthcoming first book on here, even though Sam writes for the site. I have been salivating for someone to release a Sam Pink book for a while now, and finally the newly fashioned and surely balls out Paper Hero Press, run by Barry Graham and Peter Schwartz.
I mention it now because they just put up a preorder link for the book. It is $12 worth spending. I would say more about what I think of Sam’s writing but my blurb on the book I think says it all:
“Sam Pink exists in all things. Sam Pink’s tremor is threaded through the dark sections of scenes in the first Back to the Future, the sections we generally think of as ‘night.’ Sam Pink gored his way to the center of the child Russell Edson and ate all the beautiful / smart / wicked / fucked / riotous / smarmy / unconditional parts about him, then went to incubate and redouble. Sam Pink absorbed the passing souls of Andy Kaufman, Anton LaVey, Klaus Kinski and Shel Silverstein and fried them in his mother’s blood. When Sam Pink emerged he wasn’t crying, but everyone in the hospital was, tears of whiskey, liquid gold and smegma, and within seconds of his first breath, all our Bibles were ripped in half, prefiguring this book here, this tumor, this thing that should not have a name. It is no exaggeration to say now, with a mouth full of blood, that Sam Pink is dire, is hilarious, is chewing up our future.”
Do yourself a favor and go prebuy the book. You will enjoy. If you know Sam’s writing, you already know this. If you don’t know Sam’s writing, go to his blog and find out.
The cover itself is worth jacking off on. As is the title of the book: I AM GOING TO CLONE MYSELF THEN KILL THE CLONE AND EAT IT.
He is also a bastard, don’t you like bastards?
The Corduroy Mtn.
The Greying Ghost has been one of my favorite chapbook publishers for a while now. Their books are always well designed and hand made in small editions. La la la lovely, yes. They printed my favorite chapbook of 2008, Shane Jones’, I Will Unfold You With My Hairy Hands. I’m looking forward to their rad list of upcoming chapbooks by many super special writers such as Kathryn Regina, Zachary Schomburg, and Brandon Scott Gorrell.
So to get to the point- something exciting is happening over there. The same kids who make Greying Ghost are now accepting submissions for their new print magazine, The Corduroy Mtn. Yeah, ya’ll should submit to this shit because hell, you know it’s going to look good and be filled with cool shit. Hooray!
TALKING MAN by MIKE HEPPNER
Talking Man is now available–like as of yesterday, this is some serious brand-newness–from Small Anchor Press, a Brooklyn-based independent chapbook publisher of poetry and prose. Some of their other titles include Joshua Cohen’s “Two Tribal Stories,” Joshua Furst’s “Close to Home,” Mathias Svalina’s “The Viral Lease” and Betsy Wheeler’s “Start Here.”
Talking Man is the second in a series of four thematically linked novellas to be published in 2008 and 2009. The first part, Man Talking (that was released–it’s actually the fourth novella in the series; don’t ask) is available as a FREE DOWNLOAD from Heppner’s website. Talking Man is being released in a gorgeous handmade, highly limited edition of 60. I can’t wait to get my hands on one, and you shouldn’t either.
The other two novellas–Man and Talking–will be released in December ’08 and Sometime ’09, respectively. No word on what format(s?) those works will be available in, but why don’t you stop worrying about that right now? You’re already two novellas down–time to get cracking.
Said publisher Jen Hyde to me in a gchat yesterday: “Mike Heppner is two steps ahead of the publishing world [and] you can quote me as a publisher on that one[.]” Done and done, sister.
Oh, and for those of you in the NYC area, Small Anchor writes: “We hope you will join us Friday, October 3rd at Freebird Books & Goods at 7:30PM for a reading and release party.”Directions are available at www.freebirdbooks.com.
Author News & Author Spotlight & Presses / Comments Off on TALKING MAN by MIKE HEPPNER
October 1st, 2008 / 12:45 am
October 1st, 2008 / 12:45 am
EWN Indie Publisher E-Panel
Dan Wickett of Dzanc Books and the EWN once again rips shit up with a nice new epanel discussion on independent publishing, with a Q&A among publishers from several indies, including Underland Press, Ellipsis Press, Keyhole Books, Tyrant Press, Hobart Short Flight Long Drive, Rose Metal Press and Hotel St. George Press. They discuss all matters of what running a small press entails, from searching through submissions to marketing the books to sales and promo, just about everything you could want to know.
A great, great interview, and a fascinating read, esp. if you are in the market of trying to place your own book or start your own press.
As a particular favorite moment, here’s Eugene Lim of Ellipsis Press on the future of Indie publishing:
I’d like to think an indie movement is going on. Twelve years ago there was an issue of The Review of Contemporary Fiction, titled “The Future of Fiction,” and edited by none other than David Foster Wallace. In it, there’s a hilarious and dead-on piece by Dalkey head John O’Brien, which stated among other things that the “end of literary books in commercial publishing is a historical inevitability.” And so it has come to pass. The bigger houses will cease (have ceased!) to publish literary fiction. It is not profitable for them to market and produce a title that will sell to 5000 people (even if Rick Moody strong-arms a National Book Award for them). S’okay though. The old publishing joke goes, How do you make a small fortune in publishing? Answer: Start with a large one. And then you and your crony get to laugh bitterly together. But it’s the wrong question. A small and lively (and one hopes resurging) group of people care about the novel as art. And with the new methods of production and distribution, it’s getting easier for writers to connect with readers. The truth is there’s never been any money in publishing innovative writers (at least before canonization—for those lucky few). But now what’s being revealed is it doesn’t matter that there isn’t. This is parallel with the digital revolution in filmmaking, which Francis Ford Coppola famously predicted by saying, “One day, some little fat girl in Ohio is going to be the new Mozart and make a beautiful film with her father’s camcorder and the so-called professionalism about movies will be destroyed forever.” Similarly and importantly, the means of production and marketing for books have become much more affordable.
Yes. Yes. Yes.