$20,333.08
$20,333.08. That’s how much money I’ve spent on Publishing Genius since January 17, 2008. This includes printing books, marketing, shipping, and numerous miscellaneous fees. (To give an idea of operating costs, deduct the cost of printing from that number. Printing spend is $12,916.51.)
$13,640.24. That’s how much I’ve taken in from direct sales, Amazon payments, bookstores, sale of rights and so on. Both of these numbers astound me.
$6692.84 is the difference.
For that much money, I could have made the movie “Clerks.” READ MORE >
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August 17th, 2010 / 3:15 pm
August 17th, 2010 / 3:15 pm
More Money = Better Than
the most beautiful poem
I once talked to a graffiti artist who claimed that graffiti was the purest of all the arts because it couldn’t be sold. I said, what about guerilla art galleries? What about Bansky? He said that those things weren’t true graffiti, because true graffiti changes the moment you have the power to sell it. Kid tags rail cars in Oklahoma.
Couture, on the other side of the question; art designed with great profit in mind. Chanel director/designer Karl Lagerfeld recently tweeted, “Like poetry, fashion does not state anything. It merely suggests.” This might be true enough for fashion but it’s a fairly bullshit thing to say about poetry.
This is not to disparage graffiti or high fashion. Anything that can change the way I look at a brick wall or a human foot earns my respect. (It takes a lot, as I have set ways about walls and feet.) My question: How does art change when you decide you would like to try and use it to pay your electric bill? (How would the arts change if materials costs were flipped? $350 to use the word “love” but calfskin and emeralds are free?)
$5 For You!
So, I’ve got here in my wallet a gift card to Powell’s Books, a gift card that I did not realize I had. It has $5 dollars on it. I would like to mail it to someone as a giveaway, but that someone has to earn it. Basically, what I’m interested in hearing is a story about someone’s experience at a bookstore, any bookstore, good or bad experience, and so on. I will judge what story I like the best and then get that person’s mailing address somehow. I will announce whose story I liked on Wednesday morning, and then whoever told that story will be the winner, if that makes sense.
Okay, my lame story is this: I first went to Powell’s a few years ago while I was at the Tin House conference. A bunch of us took the bus into town, missed our stop, and then had to walk a lot of blocks back over some bridge to the store. In Powell’s, I felt overwhelmed. The shelves were very very tall. I could not reach certain shelves. I walked back and forth through the shelves and gawked at the amount of books that were on the shelves. I am someone who is only familiar with Barnes & Nobles, so yeah. Then, maybe about ten minutes before we were to leave, I found the ‘independent’ shelves. These shelves were on a back wall and next to them I found the ‘literary journals.’ On the literary journal shelves I found the 2005 and 2006 issues of NOON and Pindeldyboz #3. I bought the two issues of NOON but left the Pboz. I regret that decision. I think about it all the time. I regret it. I should have bought all three. Somewhere out there is a Pboz #3 that I did not purchase. I suppose I could go to the website and order one of the five issues that are left, but I sometimes think I’d rather just whine about the whole thing instead.
Anyhow, post your bookstore stories in the comments section, if you’d like. Or, if you want, you may email them to our HTMLGIANT email address.