‘How to Get Linked on HTML Giant’: A 2 Step Primer
For future reference, and because it’s recently come up, if you are wanting in the worst way to get linked on HTML Giant (man, I don’t blame you, it’s a firestorm in here), it’s really pretty simple. In fact it’s so simple, there are just two steps. Here are those two steps:
PRIMER STEP ONE: (For primer step one, I am going to defer to the guidelines for submission at Muumuu House Press, which I think are absolutely brilliant, and probably the most honest thing I’ve seen a publisher write about the way they select texts:
To submit to Muumuu House find a person who has been published by or is associated with Muumuu House and read their blog. If you like their blog make a comment in their comments section in a sincere and natural manner, expressing your feelings. Eventually someone associated with Muumuu House will probably read your comment and click your name and find your blog. If that person likes your blog, to a certain degree, then they will probably tell other people in emails or in real life and then at some point you will probably be emailed, not necessarily about Muumuu House, but maybe about Muumuu House. I think this is more natural. It supports a ‘there is no good or bad in art’ mentality, is probably faster and more efficient than emailing submissions and having people read them and respond to them, and I think it decreases loneliness, boredom, and despair more effectively than with ‘normal’ submissions, based on my experiences with the internet, I believe. Muumuu House is edited by Tao Lin.
PRIMER STEP TWO: Do something good.
That’s it. Those can occur in any order. They can occur exclusively of one another. They are also dependent on me forgetting everything else already me like the fact that I really want to go run a few miles right now at 11:25 PM, which I will do right after I finish this, forgetting that and other bullshit, and thinking about these things that happen, which can happen at any instant, and then I will click the buttons and copy and past the address and you will appear like magic in the brown letters on the foam green backdrop (I am suddenly doubting my recall of our color scheme) and people maybe will see your name there and maybe sometime click on you even though if they are here and they are looking at the ‘other places’ section will likely have already heard of you because the people who tend to read shit here tend to give a crap about books and have probably already over the course of however long they’ve intermingled that caring about books with the internet somehow stumbled on those places, rendering our links section and any links section just another thing that is a thing is probably not worth mentioning most of the time, like old baby blankets and tennis socks. You might notice I haven’t added a link to the journal I’ve been editing for more than 5 years. That’s just how much it doesn’t matter. And anyhow, more often, things that get linked here that ‘we’ give ‘a shit’ (more Muumuu House props, I guess) about are linked in the blog body because this is a blog and that’s what the blog is for and that’s what happens. I am still typing.
The main way not to get linked is to blind query the HTML Giant email inbox because (a) I don’t know that anyone checks it regularly except for Secret Santa things recently, I know I have looked twice, again it is a ‘token’ (b) I like to find things and remember things rather than being told, I have a mother already and (c) refer to PRIMER STEPS 1 and 2.
The for certain for sure super way not to get linked, if you did go ahead and send one of those ‘link me dear god link me please!’ emails, is not to get your tits in an uproar when 6 days later you haven’t gotten an answer back (current flood of other inbox Santa happies notwithstanding), and then come publicly bitching about how you’ve published several of our writers so why not why not why? I’ll admit I’ve added two links to the links as a result of the editor emailing, but only because I did like those places, and they did not call out about who/what/when/where was published, and let me pick up the email on my own and think, oh, yeah, that’s cool, I can do that, I want to do that. Done.
I like a lot of things. I also like to be a stick in the mud and look at my own ass. It gets me off.
A Further Explanation
I think changing publishers before a book comes out is kind of interesting. Well, it adds drama. For the writer, it poses an interesting dilemma. You have to kind of feel that one press is better than the other, but you already accepted with the one press so why did you send it anyway? Brandon Scott Gorrell faced a situation where he had accepted with Greying Ghost Press but when Tao Lin decided to start his own press, Brandon backed out and went with Tao. Not a surprise. I think most of us would have done the same thing, or maybe not.
I decided to ask Brandon for a bit of an explanation, or what he was thinking. The response is lengthy, but good. I think what’s interesting is the idea that Greying Ghost and MuuMuu House could have published the same book — Tao said he would publish the book even if Greying Ghost put it out and Brandon offered the editor at Greying Ghost to put the same book out as a dual-release, which Carl declined.
Here’s Brandon’s full response/explanation on the situation:
Yes, I will explain that. Tao emailed me, saying that, since he just finished his novel, he was going forward with Muumuu House. He asked if he could publish my book. He said he would publish it as a perfect-bound paperback and that I could control all aspects of the book’s design if I wanted. He said things like “I feel sure I will promote the book for the rest of my life” and other thematically similar life-affirming statements. He also said that he would still want to publish it in the case that Greying Ghost published it.I emailed Carl from Greying Ghost, telling him that Tao offered to publish my poetry book as a “real” style book (as opposed to a “chapbook” style book), and that I would like to take the opportunity. I said that I would also like Greying Ghost to publish it at the same time. I suggested a dual-release thing. Carl from Greying Ghost emailed me back and said that he would not want to publish my poetry book if Tao also published it. He also said something similar to the sentiments “I would understand if you wanted to go with Tao” and “There would be no hard feelings if you choose Muumuu.”When I had this information I quickly made the decision to withdraw my manuscript from Greying Ghost. I made this decision because I perceived Muumuu House as having a greater likelihood of providing more press, financial gain, power, success, etc; because Muumuu will publish it as a perfect-bound paperback (I prefer that to a chapbook-style book); because I trust Tao to promote my book really hard; because I know that I will be able to communicate with Tao, probably on a daily basis, about my book, if I need to; and because I have control over all aspects of the book’s design.
Muumuu House
Tao Lin had been talking about making a press for a long time, he had a post once discussing the name, what should he name it, one of the names then was Muumuu House, and now MUUMUU HOUSE has sneakily snuck a website onto the web.
The site, sneakily snuck onto the web, is pretty chock full of stuff already, featuring new fiction, poetry, and Tao’s favorite-artform Gchats, featuring many of the likely suspects from a Tao-run press.
Most awesomely, the press has also announced their first two titles to be published in perfect bound print next year, Ellen Kennedy’s SOMETIMES MY HEART PUSHES MY RIBS in March 09 and Brandon Scott Gorrell’s DURING MY NERVOUS BREAKDOWN I WANT TO HAVE A BIOGRAPHER PRESENT in June 09.
This was all discovered in a post on Brandon’s blog, in which Brandon announced his retraction of the book from its previous acceptance at Greying Ghost press, which may or may not result in a promotional snafu for the book, if people decide to fuss about the switch or not.
Here is the very Tao-like ‘submission policy’:
To submit to Muumuu House find a person who has been published by or is associated with Muumuu House and read their blog. If you like their blog make a comment in their comments section in a sincere and natural manner, expressing your feelings. Eventually someone associated with Muumuu House will probably read your comment and click your name and find your blog. If that person likes your blog, to a certain degree, then they will probably tell other people in emails or in real life and then at some point you will probably be emailed, not necessarily about Muumuu House, but maybe about Muumuu House. I think this is more natural. It supports a ‘there is no good or bad in art’ mentality, is probably much faster and more efficient than emailing submissions and having people read them and respond to them, and I think it decreases loneliness, boredom, and despair more effectively than with ‘normal’ submissions, based on my experiences with the internet, I believe.
The MUUMUU HOUSE site is nice and calming to look at, the blue/black/white no photos feel is pleasant, it seems a very good thing.