A Publishing Utopia

I wrote this piece about a month ago as a first step to a pitch for a columnist position at Bookslut. They liked the piece, but whatever i subsequently said didn't stab their fancy, and i didn't hear back from them. Aside from never having pitched an idea before, i didn't hype myself up in any way; i just told them who i am, what i do, and what i'd like to write for them. I've seen people not as good or experienced as me get ahead with the art of bullshit, but it's just not for me. Their loss, anyway.

As i've said before, i tire greatly of waiting one month to a year for my poetry to be accepted and published, and would rather not do the same with my articles/reviews (i should warn you that the opening is a bit flat because i've also tired of word-gymnastics in the opening paragraphs of pieces, so much so that when i read magazines and such, i often skip the first paragraph entirely):

There’s no doubt that the Internet was a revolution in publishing, primarily experienced through litzines, blogs, and to a lesser extent blogzines. A further offshoot of that revolution has become print on demand publishing. If you don’t know of POD and how it works, it’s basically a printing technology borne out of the advance of digital printing, whereby a unit isn’t created until an order is placed. While it’s used by traditional publishers alike, it’s become a cost-effective way for smaller presses to better break-even – presuming they ever did – and ignored writers to give their brainchild or babies a happy home. Hordes of writers and presses have put away their clunky printers and offset publishing machines to avail of POD. The service bypasses the dependency on a traditional publishing press, and thus a publishing agent, and distribution agencies. The middle men have been shunned as writers become their own agent, publisher, and promoter. The opportunities are especially lucrative for niche markets such as specialist academics, and poetry.

Uniquely, POD publishers offer profit rebates in the form of royalties, varying wildly from one service to the next. It’s far from an ethic of exploitation, appropriating a greater socialist ideal. It’s also compatible with the eco-friendly frenzy the world is currently under, as it never prints any more copies than are needed; especially useful for short-lived offerings such as stocking fillers.

One of the most popular publishing providers is Lulu, which prints the small press poetry zine Otoliths. The Otoliths journal is a print supplement to the issues that appear in the blogzine, and is an ancillary publication of Otoliths Books, also publishing single-author books and chapbooks of poetry.

I recently received issue four, part one, of Otoliths in the mail. I had anticipated the journal to be an ambitious, well-spirited, though ultimately DIY production. I couldn’t have been more wrong. When I picked up the parcel, I thought (read: hoped) someone had sent me a first printing of Action Comics #1, as it was, surprisingly, encased in thick cardboard packaging and not the standard bubble wrap. I unraveled the layers of folded-over cardboard, pulling out what looked more like a book than small press journal. My initial thoughts were that editor Mark Young was running one serious operation: the production was impressive and far from being or looking even remotely DIY. When asked about the benefits of POD, Young told me: ‘POD is amazingly easy to use & the end result is a product of high quality. It's cheap, almost as cheap as doing it yourself, but without the hassle.’

The issue – with a thick, hard spine at 164 pages – has more gloss than any book or magazine you could find at a bookshop. The collection of work, being in such fine book form, actually hints more at anthology (which Young has experience in editing), along with the nice touches of page numbers and a contents page, not always found in small press zines. The paper is thick, too, and the front page design credited to contributor harry k stammer looks even better against the luscious red of the cover than the white background of the website. In this way the journal is so well produced that the website, while nicely designed and pieced together, doesn't do it justice.

I had never thought zines were difficult to read on-screen. However, having read the online issue, and then doing so with the print, I noticed how easier it was to get through, how the text became more concrete on the page and thus how greater an effect – in terms of clarity and conveyance – the words had. The visual poetry and digital art also translated well to the page.

The only hiccup I found was one not a fault of Young's: the text fades at times; though when it hits, it really hits. I can forgive that, however, for what appears to be Young's further consideration of text font and size, it varying in several pieces (most apparent in John Mercuri Dooley's schizoid-looking piece 'June 17'). I haven't come across many zines whose editors are mindful of this level of detail and specificity.

Asked about the drawbacks of POD, Young said: ‘There don't seem to be any drawbacks. The books are of a quality that has done away with much of the opprobrium of diy publishing. & these days, when major publishers are unwilling to take a risk on anything, POD will be increasingly seen as the way to go.’ Sentiments of opprobrium are held by those who view POD as a facilitator in narcissistic self-publishing, works of which such cynics deem as lowering the bar of literature. Though if Otoliths is a sufficiently representative example of what print on demand is putting out there, I’d say things certainly look promising. I struggle to think of what the next step in this seemingly publishing utopia will be.