The Biznix of Books

I had perused the site of the small press Two Dollar Radio and came across the mention of a book called The Business of Books by Andre Schiffrin. I'm glad I learned of it, and I'm glad I eventually read it. The book details the swallowing of publishing houses by a handful of corporations. Disney, Rupert Murdoch, Viacom, to name a few of the few that own all of the major presses, and books are chosen not by the excitement of an editor towards a new work, but by committees, and accountants. This probably isn't news. We've all felt it. Publishing is in a weird state, with such an oligarchy, and digitizing of books, that the best option for a younger writer certainly seems to be the path of pursuing a small independent press with a supportive community, or DIY self publishing. 


In the big houses risks are not being taken, if a book won't sell more than 20,000 copies in it's first month, then the idea of that book is not taken on, not given a chance. The accountants are creating the mass market reading lists. 


The following passage did strike me, as quoted from the German publisher Klaus Wagenbach:


Let's make this as explicit as possible: If books with small print runs disappear, the future will die. Kafka's first book was published with a printing of 800 copies. Brecht's first work merited 600. What would happen if someone decided that was not worth it? 


Whereas some bemoan the ease in which self publishing has made it to where anyone can put a book out there, and yes, there's some bad content that makes it out there, but I'm personally for a plethora of material, and sifting through some "garbage" to find quality, than having a trend towards lack of new material. And because self publishing caught a bad reputation for awhile because of this lack of editorial quality, I think we'll see that turned around, particularly by the DIY writers that want to be taken seriously. And those that pumped out a book as to have a commodity on the market place, because they were impatient, I think we'll see them drop off. We're keeping each other in check.


I'd recommend this book for anyone involved in creative production. Even though the book was written in 2000 and 12 years later the DIY and small independently owned companies have begun to create thriving communities, it's still an important reflection, because the big publishing industry hasn't changed, nor has the make up of industrial corporate structure changed. The Republicans all fight for hands off on business for the sake of "liberty" but the momentum of business growth and mergers, the swallowing and mushing of business into bigger, stickier balls of clay continues, so that we reach a point where censorship doesn't come from the government, but from accountant's suggestions to the big boss. But then again Republicans in some parts of the country are okay with censorship, so they should probably stop co-opting the term liberty. We're certainly not doomed, because arguments are happening. And I'm not by any means against profit. I'd just like to see less of the banks profiting from tricky financial risks, and actual risks being taken on creative stories getting some ounce of profit so they these ventures can sustain themselves.

Burning Ink

I tried an experiment while camping this past week. I wrote a page of prose, feverishly handwritten, then tossed it to the smoking flames, to see the ink sear, then crumple into the collapsing paper, bronze running to black, and withering away forever into an ash that will run with the mud of upcoming rains. This experiment came to mind as I walked past an image of Adolph Hitler not too long ago. In a long series of thought associations I stumbled onto the concept of book burning, and as I vested more of an interest and passion in writing literature over the several most recent years, the idea of book burning hollowed me with a more personal sting. My curiosity and tendency towards slight masochism itched me to explore the experience of seeing a written work singe and disappear. I could very well toss my book Whiskey Pike, which I recently self published, but that wouldn’t have the same flare (no pun intended) of indignation, as there is a pdf of the original typeset saved on several computers, jump drives, and CDs, not to mention with the publisher. We see here the glory of the digital age in backing up intellectual property so the artist can rise again like a phoenix amidst the destruction of one physical copy. I wanted to see something unique written, never again to be recreated, slip into the orange flicker of destruction. Of course this experiment is a bit watered down as I knew going into it that I was going to destroy whatever it was I was going to write, and perhaps subconsciously I did not release a depth of personal vestige in my work. However upon completion of the writing, I was filled with a touch of pride at the poetic flow of the piece I had written, and pleased with the aesthetic configuration of words communicating the idea of burning literature. I thought for a second how easily the words came to me in the instant I wrote them, but how ethereal they were without the preservation through ink to paper. Never again could I communicate with such precision the same thought, as I would be crippled by the urge to recreate the same poeticism and rhythm of the first attempt. Writing is very much a performance, a very personal performance, the writer performing at the paper, and beautifully the paper preserves it through the whip of ink or tap against type pad. The hollowness I felt post paper burn struck me with some similarity to the feeling I have had after the close of a play, pleased with the piece but realizing it would never again be seen. There is a bittersweet twist of pleasure with the creation itself and emptiness that it will slip away through the cracks of history, as with anything in life, we realize we are of mortal nature, ourselves as well as our work. Enjoyment of the work becomes necessary to continue on knowing all of nature’s destructive forces. The writer may also face the loss of work in the everyday dance with technology, a power outage before saving the document for instance. Art reaches to be shared, and obstacles to its ability to be seen or experienced can be of a devastating vibration. My experiment in a sense was meaningless as I wrote it without the intention of sharing with an audience and wrote the carefree flick of pen knowing I would never get to share it – the result however with the carefree flick was a piece I felt was actually, truly beautiful, and indeed despite an assumption of closed subconscious, a personal splatter of words that had a raw and fresh quality to it. I almost want to approach all of my writings with that same carefree attitude. It in fact may well be my most honest writing to date. I thought that I may perhaps rewrite it and see how close I could pull out the phraseology that may be lingering in my short term memory. But it would have lost that original flow, and would be a prefabricated attempt to duplicate, as if I were a photocopier – I in fact would not be engaged in the act of creating. I will let the aforementioned piece remain a mystery both for the reader and for myself. I can only image how one would feel seeing his body of work purged and what possible ways there are to cope with such a protest against ones art and ideas. I know how I coped on the level of my experience, which was in all essence self induced and petty. Immediately after staring into the destruction and page particles flittering away as smoke, I pierced two hot dogs with a whittled stick and balanced them above a hot coal. I buried the loss with sustenance by cheap beef frank and slid a momentary step back down the ladder of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs.