Response to Week Two Readings

After reading Johnny Temple's "An Argument for Writers' Taking Charge," Todd Dill's Little Engines interview of Jim Munroe, and Hamish MacDonald's "Do-It-Yourself Book Press" from nomediakings.org, I’m feeling increasingly strongly about DIY/self-publishing. Perhaps it's easier for me to abandon the idea of a big name publisher accepting my work because I'm primarily a poet, and I rarely see them publish many of us, let alone young/new ones, let further alone ones that I find the least bit interesting. They're pretty conservative when it comes to the poetry that they publish, and I can't stand that. Jim Munroe mentions Verse Press (now Wave Books, f.y.i.) and Ugly Duckling Presse toward the end of his article, which, though small presses in actuality, are HUGE from my point of view in the "poetry world."

I feel the same way that Temple does about publishers not letting an author have a say in their own book design. Maybe this is because I feel strongly about how a book looks as a whole, the entire design aspect, and those that just want to have their manuscript printed and be done with it might feel differently, that the cover art is something extra to the book and that their work is already done without contributing to that process. But I can't accept the idea of having written a book myself, having it finally be published, and then having no say in what it will look like. I suppose it would be fine if they did a great job, but if it looks like a book I wouldn't want to read I certainly don't want to have written it. That would be extremely frustrating. I know that one “shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover,” but I feel that a book’s cover, like it or not, communicates something, so the wrong cover can obscure what your book is trying to do in the same way that reading one’s very interesting work in a very boring way obscures the fact that it isn’t just boring work.

I feel that it could definitely be difficult (awkward, scary, queasy..) to have to take on the seemingly impossible task of promoting your book in a serious/significant way, but I feel that if you are involved in every aspect of its production, then it's bound to be something you believe in strongly enough to stand up and promote. I think I'd feel uncomfortable trying to hawk this thing that I've handed off to some giant publisher at people, but, as Temple and Munroe bring up with their analogies to the indie music, I think people are much more willing to trust/believe in something that's been worked at hard from the ground up (I know I am!), and if there is perhaps a condescending attitude that the general public may have toward those who take this route, I feel that it will lessen over time, or that it can be assuaged by showing them books that are of high quality, both writing and design-wise, and seeing that it is not just the poorly slapped together ravings of an angry/melancholic artist who resorted to self-publishing as a last ditch effort after having failed to be published by anyone else for years.

I chose to read McDonald's article because I'm really interested in the idea of making one's own mini-press at home. Though the more expensive equipment described is certainly out of my reach for now, I think it's empowering to be able to produce a book/zine of one's own, even if you're not thinking of attempting to officially self-publish or distribute it, that it gives you a different perspective on the whole publishing process and you can learn a lot from doing it. Hand-binding hardcover books was definitely the most accessible of the four ways of doing this that McDonald discussed, in my mind. Certainly sewing isn't one of the skills most people pick up naturally while learning to be a writer, and there is a lot to learn when it comes to any kind of self-publishing (even in simply designing a page layout, printing and stapling together a small chapbook there was a lot to learn for me), but all the extra skills are definitely worth it, as you can easily extend them (well, maybe not easily...) to publishing others' works.

-Richard