Responses, week two.

from the Johnny Temple article:
"A common complaint from writers working with big houses is that they have no say in their book-cover designs."
As if I needed any more reason to only submit to small presses. Call it anal retentive, call it petty, but I care about how my novel looks, inside and out. Or will look, when I care about writing it. But the idea of having a first novel put together by a freshman graphic designer just learning Photoshop nauseates me. Most people won't care about the sort of tiny details I do--font types, chapter headings, header and footer on each page. Not having control over these details has always been a worry of mine if I ever considered getting a novel published. I'd be much happier putting out a beautiful book that breaks even than a poorly designed collection of words that makes maybe somewhat of a profit. It's comforting to know that my obsessive stance on this sort of thing would be somewhat honored with a small press. I also suspect that I have a crazy gene that just makes me want to design books for the rest of my life, since the ones in print I usually see coming out hardly look worth investigating, something which Temple also mentions briefly.
No Media Kings is super-impressive. The DIY articles cover all kinds of sweet stuff, from comic books to radio dramas, which I refuse to believe are really dead. I adore Jim Monroe's attitude--clearly he detested the idea of what was "out there" and just started his own publishing company to publish what he wanted. This is the same impression I got from one of the earliest small press owners I met, before I really knew what small press even meant. This bubbly, published woman came to my high school, read some happy poems, and talked about how she and her husband, or something, just didn't care for anything being published, so they set out to do their own stuff. I remember thinking, "You can do that?" Then, a few years later, my instructors smacked me over the head about small presses and literary magazines, and it still didn't click. I read blogs like this and think I could have been headlong into so many projects by now. But really, it's college, so it's a better time than never.