Worte + orte

On books, indie publishing, berlin+other places. @Joyfullylost

[joyinberlin]

On self-publishing, community and convergence: An article round-up

I've been thinking a lot about self-publishing lately, in part because of the discussions going on at book conferences. Partly it’s from seeing the slow acceptance of self-publishing in Germany, where authors have been fighting an uphill battle to be taken seriously in the industry. Also, in doing my own research on small presses, I found that independent authors’ strategies are often similar if not even more committed when it comes to directly marketing to readers. Here's a snapshot of the current discussion taking place about independent publishing and the importance of community in promoting books.

[amandapalmer]

press conference at the United Nations to discuss International day to end violence against women.

left to right: lakshmi puri (deputy executive director - UN women), sebastiano cardi (Italian ambassador to @UN), and serena dandini, an Italian playwright who wrote “wounded to death”, a play/series of monologues exposing violence against women all over the world. i will be in the staged reading later today at the UN around 4-5:30 EST along with some well-know. US and italian actresses. (i’m currently sitting next to maureen van zandt, from@the sopranos).

the LIVE stream starts at 4pm, tune in, share the link. it’s the main webcasting station for the United Nations but you’ll see our stream, click on it:

http://webtv.un.org/

follow twitter for changes/updates, I’ll be tweeting all day.

this is an important event for feminism.

[joyinberlin]

Connection: In the body, in the world and in Berlin with Eve Ensler

Some people impact your perspective of the world more than you realize. For me, one of the voices that shaped my understanding of female identity in college was Eve Ensler. I had the privilege to hear her speak in Berlin this past week on art, activism and our interdependence on each other...

[theverge]

Once born, they’re alone and must find their own way to the world, like a just-hatched sea turtle crawling to the surf. Luckily they have all of the information they need in order to make it: A tweet knows the identity of its creator, whether bot or human, as well as the location from which it originated, the date and time it went out, and dozens of other little things—so that wherever it finds itself, the tweet can be reconstituted. Millennia from now an intelligence coming across a single tweet could, like an archaeologist pondering a chunk of ancient skull, deduce an entire culture.

Paul Ford on The Hidden Technology That Makes Twitter Huge - Businessweek (via thisistheverge)

[joyinberlin]

DZANC - a small press ebook sale!

The lovely Michigan-based press, Dzanc, is having an ebook sale. I used it as an excuse to highlight a few of my favorites from their brilliantly strange catalog. So glad these guys exist and continue to rock the small press world.

Happy browsing till Saturday, when the 3 for 1 sale slips back into the ether...

[penamerican]

PEN Banned Books Week Hangout on Air with Sherman Alexie on Google+ | PEN American Center

[joyinberlin]

PEN American Center presents a Banned Books Week Google+ Hangout On Air with Sherman Alexie, author of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which won the 2007 National Book Award and was one of the top ten banned books of the American Library Association in 2011.

  The live broadcast will be moderated by PEN Freedom to Write Fellow Deji Olukotun and ALA Director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom, Barbara Jones. 

  Join the conversation on Monday, September 23rd at 4pm EST.

[mttbll]

The object we call a book is not the real book, but its seed or potential, like a music score. It exists fully only in the act of being read; and its real home is inside the head of the reader, where the seed germinates and the symphony resounds. A book is a heart that only beats in the chest of another.

Rebecca Solnit (via mttbll)

[joyinberlin]

"[The benefits of reading in translation] are the same as the benefits to traveling: it broadens the mind. It’s obviously possible to encounter adventure within one’s own neighborhood, but when you find yourself in another country, everything automatically becomes adventure..." - Marc Lowenthal of Wakefield Press

From an interview with Wakefield, an amazing press for neglected works in translation. Marc's red thread as a publisher: find the eccentric neglected classics!

http://publishingtheworld.com/2013/01/24/5-questions-with-marc-lowenthal/

[joyinberlin]

This essay hasn't aged at all since it was written last year, considering all the creative indie press projects which continue to pop up outside of the US and UK publishing epicenters. Eric makes an excellent argument for removing yourself from the fray of a big city to hone in on your creative ambitions. At the same time, entrepreneurs like him give their towns something to be proud of - I love the anecdote about selling books out of the back of his car, since it shows how invested local residents can be in art that's made locally.

And after my own recent glimpse into the "culture scene" along the German-Polish border, I couldn't agree more - there's exciting stuff going on at the edges!

[joyinberlin]

How do you like your (indie) press?

This just in: this is what 100 people said when asked what they like about their favorite publishers' books:

Here are the top 30 adjectives:

Are any qualities missing that your favorite curators provide?

Thanks again to the survey respondents!

[joyinberlin]

For the love of books: Last chance to add your two cents on book discovery

Do you love books? What about off-the-beaten-path, in translation, experimental, hybrid genre or just plain unclassifiably good books? If so, I'd love to have your perspective represented in my survey on how readers discover books. So far, lots of love for libraries and indie bookstores and presses has been expressed. Can't wait to see the results! Each press I interviewed for my thesis is getting a copy of this research, which will hopefully inspire them with more ideas about how to reach more readers. So while I can’t offer any tangible thanks, participating will guarantee you lots of good book karma. Thanks!

Here’s the link: http://de.surveymonkey.com/s/TCFCMPW

[joyinberlin]

Pink Narcissus: another awesome press for women & queer writers

Recently I started digging into the story collection "People with Holes", by Heather Fowler, and I've been enjoying the slightly surreal excursions into people's daily dysfunctions so much that I decided to find out more about this press, which describes itself as publishing speculative fiction with a queer-feminist twist. Fortunately, the American Book Review just interviewed Rose Mambert. (I didn't interview her, just sharing the love)Here's an excerpt:

"What is your role in the publishing scene?

RM: Our role in the publishing scene, as editor Stacy Giufre put it, is mostly about finding new, talented authors and dancing along the edge of marginal and mainstream. …Although we don’t specifically categorize ourselves as being a feminist, LGBTQ, or minority publisher, we would like to be a safe haven for those writers who may have felt marginalized by the publishing industry or just by real life. This is an essential part of the PNP philosophy – the authors and their stories comes first.

How would you characterize the work you publish?

RM: In a word: eclectic. In more words: speculative fiction, with an emphasis on feminist or queer fiction, and fairy tales. Which is not surprising as most of the editors are feminists and/or queer. So our choices are very personal – which is the case with all editors who aren’t thinking foremost in terms of commercial profit. …

Who is your audience, and in what ways are you trying to reach them?

RM: We have a very mixed audience because we produce a variety of books that appeal to different readers on different levels. On the lighter side, we have novels like Stuart Sharp’s Court of Dreams, which is a Terry Pratchett-style comic fantasy, and Ash Krafton’s Demimonde series, which offers a fresh take on some of the old tropes of urban fantasy. Pushing the boundaries, we have authors such as Lyle Blake Smythers and Duncan Eagleson, whose novels defy easy classification, blending together elements from various genres and sources including adventure, fantasy, dystopian science fiction, mystery, Shakespeare, and more. For the more literary minded, we have story collections such as Heather Fowler’s People with Holes, feminist magic realism that is very frank in its explorations of relationships and sex. On a similar note, Amy E. Yergen’s At Times I Almost Dream touches upon similar themes, but through the use of modernized fairy tales. In both collections, the protagonists are real women laid bare upon the pages in all their glory, strengths, and weaknesses."

ALSO: I just read that 60% of the money made from People with Holes is being donated to Planned Parenthood - I'm liking Pink Narc more and more!

More about Pink Narc's books can be found here: http://pinknarc.wordpress.com/

and a longer interview excerpt can be read here: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_book_review/v034/34.3.mambert.html

[joyinberlin]

On small press branding, geek love and not trying too hard

"It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly."

-Aldous Huxley

Yesterday morning, I stumbled upon an interesting discussion on Twitter about publisher branding. It was triggered by ‏@missdaisyfrost’s question: “Does WHO a book is published by have ANY influence whatsoever on whether you buy it?"

The responses covered the whole spectrum, but general consensus was that while people recognize genre or niche publishers (ie romance, comics, scifi, even poetry), they are pretty clueless when it comes to trade fiction or nonfiction. Some people from the book trade insisted “normal” people don’t pay attention to publisher names, while others said publishers need to work harder to create consumer brands. All the while, people were dropping names of their favorite presses, which showed that yes, even without a slimy corporate “brand strategy”, presses CAN leave a lasting impression. When the conversation split off into side discussions, people started thinking about other media: relationships between gamers and game studios, film nerds and directors and of course music fans and band labels.

@pressfuturist: it was always a niche part of the audience who appreciated labels, I think: indie rather than mainstream

@Louiestowell: My rule of thumb = the geekier/more obsessive the consumer, the more the brands matter. …Sort of like food nerds and local butchers :)

These two comments get to the heart of indie press for me, about who pays attention and why it’s worth paying attention to publisher insignias. Much like in the music scene, with books it’s also the nerds and geeks among us who pay attention to publishers, since we want to keep up with what is being released in our niches of interest. And although the biggest book nerds are often writers, there are plenty other book lovers who can geek out about different book covers or new releases from their favorite presses. These are the people who pay attention when genre or indie presses which blog about interesting, niche-related stuff. Think Melville House or Open Letter’s Three Percent blogs, great for keeping abreast of news in independent culture and literary translation, respectively.

I also think there’s a lot to be said for implicit branding, which literary magazines pretty good at. By “implicit” I mean it’s not all about the logo or getting in people’s faces, it’s more about a certain aesthetic or taste that gives a litmag a certain personality, along with regular columnists that set the tone. It’s all about editorial decisions, the details. Like [PANK], which features gutsy, pretty hard-hitting prose and poetry. I like that there’s no bells and whistles, the editors don’t feel the need to dress up this writing. Or, Largehearted Boy, which is a great example of a “niche” magazine – it explores the junction where books, music and comics meet. In Book Notes, my favorite section, authors are interviewed about how music has influenced their writing. You end up getting to know a lot about the writers’ books and their writing process, but all through the lens of music. In LB’s case it’s more the original concept which carries the “brand” – I’m definitely more likely to remember this blog than the umpteenth book review site I read. 

The takeaway: an implicit brand is like coolness: either you have it or you don't. Trying too hard just makes things awkward. Lightly, children, lightly.

Postscript: If you made it this far and I haven’t lost you in my ramblings about indie pubs, you might be interested in a poll I’m conducting. It’s about reading habits and which litmags, authors and publishers you pay attention to. The survey’s short, and I will definitely sum up the results here, so please take a few minutes to add your “two cents”. Thanks! http://de.surveymonkey.com/s/TCFCMPW

[emilybooks]

After posting my last article, Emily Gould (from Emily Books) wrote a piece in which she talks about the much broader spectrum of lit she’s discovered since starting the project. Sounds like she read my mind! "There have been a lot of conversations lately online about the obvious and pervasive sexism in all our culture industries, including book publishing. We tally up numbers of women’s books reviewed and decry the lack of female reviewers; we point out the sexist ways women’s books are marketed and sold — all those headless women, all those “[man]‘s mother, sister, daughter” titles. It’s important and good to name the problem, but it’s more important not to stop there. The root of the issue is as simple as this fact: women, research shows, buy and read books by both women and men, while men predominantly read books by men. The solution? We think it’s to read books by women, especially women outside the literary establishment. Talk about them. Share them with your friends. Representation is important. It’s not a solution on its own, but together with more direct action to end inequality, representation can and will change our world." -Emily Gould

There’s an Emily Books book club on The Toast now! Check it out and get the discount code here.  (via emilybooks)

[joyinberlin]

Part 2: On women writers, book marketing, VIDA & some paradigm-shiftingly-good lit blogs

   Images from: http://zubaanbooks.com, http://twoseriousladies.com, http://emilybooks.com/, http://cherrybombbooks.com/

  I promised this list some time ago. Since then, Wendy Davis successfully filibustered an anti-abortion bill in Texas, DOMA was overturned, Turkish protestors stopped the memorial construction in Gezi Park and Egypt had a second revolution. Oh yeah, and it turned out the US really is spying on the world, surprise surprise.

What actually sparked my interest in finding more platforms for women's writing, however, were the recently released VIDA statistics (about how few women are represented in the books sections of the largest newspapers and magazines). Then there was this powerful response by Dr. Kathryn Heyman, and the comments section got me even more riled up that so many writers had been ignored by these publications - seems like the "complicated" problem would be quite easy to fix (she has posted a great update with a list of suggestions, too). And then I finally stumbled upon an article by Deborah Kopaken Coplan in the Nation, which confirmed a lot of my suspicions about the differences in marketing books by women – the pink covers, the changing titles to be more “feminine” (Newswhore becomes Shutterbabe, Suicide Wood becomes From Here to April) – and also exposed further demeaning treatment of authors in the media.

So I started reflecting about where I discover new writers, and which of these forums work towards tipping this gender bias in the other direction. There are tons. In fact, what would happen if VIDA were to compare their dismal results with the numbers of women contributors in online magazines and blogs, such as The Rumpus, the Hairpin, Barrelhouse, the Awl, the Nervous Breakdown, PANK, Hobart Pulp, ROAR (online content coming soon)and many others? We would probably see that women writers fare much better in online publications.

Come to think of it, considering the wealth of online magazines and websites dedicated to every possible identity or perspective, these online platforms are the new trailblazers when it comes to diverse voices in literature. It only makes sense - the internet vastly extends the reach of independent culture, and makes radical thinking accessible for free. So why wouldn't the internet be the new hub of indie lit publishing?

In the spirit of celebrating progress in these historic times, here is a list of forums for diverse perspectives. These blogs, magazine and book publishers stand out for curating women writers or LGBTQ writers whose writing is amazing, highly literary and takes lots of risks. May they go forth and multiply!

Emily books (Emily runs an ebook store+book club+associated blog on experimental, queer, feminist lit. I should devote more words to them soon, since thanks to their blog I've been thinking a lot more about such topics)

Two Serious Ladies (collective blog/ lit mag)

Dorothy, a publishing project (see previous posts)

Zubaan Books (an English language feminist press in India - here's a profile on them by Chad Post)

Cherry Bomb Books (feminist book imprint published Get Out of My Crotch, on America’s war on women’s rights

here’s great interview with Kim Wyatt, the publisher

Beacon Press (liberal-leaning activist press, blog=great resource)

Lambda Literary http://www.lambdaliterary.org/

Tiny Hardcore Press

Roxane Gay's blog (writer, publisher of Tiny Hardcore Press)

Francis Farmer is My Sister: Kate Zambreno’s Blog (who also wrote Heroines, which is high on my to-read list)

And, of course, the Feminist Press: http://www.feministpress.org/

Any other suggestions of paradigm-shifting blogs and online magazines which focus on women, queer or feminist writers? Check out my blogroll at my Wordpress site for more unmissable blogs.

[joyinberlin]

Book cover trouble: On gendering book covers and reading between the lines (pt 1)

In the process of researching the publishing world, from sifting through the profiles of midsized to micropresses, to wandering through bookshops and talking with book people, I stumbled upon a variety of opinions and resources that have gotten me thinking about gender equality lately.

It started with book covers. A few months ago, after a few hours of browsing in Rand McNally bookstore I realized how seldom I pick up a book by a female author I’m not already familiar with. But why? Do books written by women have such blatantly 'girly' covers, or does the back cover text reduce the books to stereotypical female themes so much that I quickly put down the books in favor of books which seem edgier and ultimately less female?

In May, an author who was tired of the gender stereotypes appearing on her young adult book covers did an interesting experiment. Maureen Johnson called upon her followers to "flip" the covers of favorite authors and reimagine how they would have been designed if the author had been of the opposite sex (or a different sexual orientation, etc). Huffington Post picked up the "Coverflip Challenge" story and it went viral, with thousands adding their own coverflips to Tumblr and Twitter.

Many bloggers used this opportunity to discuss the problem of gender stereotyping on book covers, in particular when it narrows the potential audience of the book. A lot of women writers and bloggers said they were also turned off by overly feminine covers and would prefer more gender-neutral covers with graphic design elements (opposed to photos). While this experiment only scratches the surface of how a book might be marketed based on gender stereotypes, it still provides lots of food for thought about why gendering books (as well as their potential readers) could be problematic.

Rachel Stark, from Simon & Schuster, wrote an incredibly incisive piece on the Coverflip Project, which addressed both how the "flipped" covers largely stayed within the gender binary. She also pointed out the insidious misogyny at the heart of people's discomfort with covers they associated as being "feminine" (for example, one Tumblr user kept pairing the terms "girly and vapid" in her description of the feminine covers). In Stark's words, "devaluing the feminine and those who embrace it is not the answer to sexism; it is a part of it". Here's the whole article.

Which brings me back to my bookstore browsing and my own aversion to book covers or blurbs that charactize a book as being too feminine for my tastes. Is it an aversion to the gender stereotypes, or the female perspective in general? As Rachel Stark says, it's just as problematic to discount the so-called "feminine" as inherently inferior to the gender-neutral or masculine. Then again, this language is still firmly rooted in a gender spectrum, if not binary. But why can't we acknowledge this spectrum of preferences and values without assigning them to certain genders? Or if one insists on gender categories, still acknowledging we all have elementsfrom both sides? Each person is a unique expression of these various possibilities. There is no black and white, just endless kaleidoscopic permutations.

In terms of book marketing, what could the answer look like? In a day and age where we have realized that identity is fluid, and gender identity is likewise a variagated spectrum, it seems terribly reductive to create marketing strategies aimed at men or women readers - not only because this excludes potential readers, but because it doesn't acknowledge the real diversity of these audiences. At the moment, every publishing house is eager to get more nuanced information about readers - HarperCollins even has a new department dedicated to consumer research. I think categories such as gender have functioned as poor stand-ins for real data on readers, who can be grouped in a myriad of specific ways, such as fields of interest, profession, hobbies, media consumption, etc, all of which tell much more about readers' tastes than their gender does.

I'm not saying one could or should remove all gender associations from a book's cover or marketing texts, after all, the narrator's perspective is ususlly a gendered one, and that can play a significant role in stories. But the idea that a certain aesthetic will especially appeal to women or men seems antiquated in an age where the the idea of "gender" is increasingly associated with "trouble".

HAPPY PRIDE WEEK, to people everywhere on the spectrum!

PS: This will have to suffice as part 1 of a series on gender, women writers and the book world; I actually meant to write about the VIDA statistics, but a lot more has been on my mind. But soon I'll be adding a link list of exciting projects focusing on women's, feminist and queer perspectives.

[joyinberlin]

On book subscriptions and that magic something, pt 1

              I've been thinking a lot about book and magazine subscriptions lately, particularly book subs, and exploring what it means to trust a press so much that you subscribe to all of their books. For me it’s an expression of finding an aesthetic that speaks to you so much that you don’t want to miss a single book. Of course, each text is its own world which sets out its own terms; since no two things are truly alike, what is it that connects the books put out by an independent publisher? It simply comes down to the taste of the publisher, editors and other collaborators, but once they get a magical mix of titles in their list, book lovers do take notice. And a reliable selection of great books can eventually turn a small press into a brand name.

At the Independents Day event last week in London, someone in the audience from Faber & Faber said that, while big corporations “assume consumers want what they’ve wanted before”, indies assume people want something different. So if independent presses span such a wide spectrum, what’s the red thread going through a publisher’s title list that creates this special aura around each book? For me it’s the fact that they’ve been handpicked by people whose tastes I like. How do I know I like their tastes? One way is if I’ve read other books I’ve liked by them. Or if I read a few excerpts from a publisher and have to stop myself from buying all their books. Another way I gauge the taste of a publisher is by their blogs or online magazines. What kind of stuff are they reading and engaging with, and what stories and poems make the cut for their online publications?

Actually, this is what writers normally look at when considering where to publish their books. But the way I see it, I trust my favorite writers to have picked excellent independent presses as homes for their books, and chances are I’ll find something else I like there.

Here are a few presses which have accomplished just that - creating a list of titles so good, their gravitational pull keeps me coming back for more: (PS – and most of them offer subscriptions!)

    Dzanc Books: this many-armed press is like the fairy godmother of the small press world: they adopt other presses whose work they respect and help them with sales and distribution. They also support the online magazines The Collagist and Monkeybicycle, the writer’s conference Disquiet, and the Writer-in-Residence program, which brings creative writers into schools. And they have a great selection of ebooks in their monthly ebook club!

  Two Dollar Radio: At some point I decided that $2 Radio are the rock stars among the indies. Maybe it’s the free books they offer to their most hardcore fans, the ones who get a tattoo of their squiggly radio logo. Or it’s the daring, wide-ranging stuff they put out there – from Barbara Browning’s I’m Trying to Reach You (which reminds me a bit of Miranda July, but takes more risks) to The Orange Eats Creeps, which is as bizarre and wonderful as it sounds.

An interview with the founder of Dorothy, a Publishing Project actually got me thinking about this post in the first place. Danielle Dutton talks about how she wanted to expose fiction and poetry readers to genres they don't normally read by offering the two titles as a discounted bündle - since her books are somewhere between poetry and fiction, and could appeal to readers of both. Among others, Dorothy publishes Renee Gladman’s books, whose writing has a pinch of Calvino, but with an emotional, intuitive approach that reminds me of Jeanette Winterson. 

 Sarabande Books is dedicated to the short form. Their poetry and essays are so good that I really, really wish they had an ebook subscription. Or a way to beam their print books to Berlin each month :) An extra bonus: they have readers’ guides for nearly all of their books online – including questions and comments by the authors, which is handy not only for teaching the books but also for book groups.

Open Letter: Open Letter stands out as a press for offbeat fiction in translation. True to their name, Open Letter has an open door policy – they welcome book reviews from anyone passionate about literature in translation, and from my internship I know that they take the time to talk to readers, record podcasts, post playlists, blog about international publishing (including spreading love around to other presses) and just generally go above and beyond to contribute to the bigger conversation.