>what kind of shit kick human free work wouldn't cause me to kill you all with hate<

Writer!

>while giving me chunks of cash.<

Oh, right. Damn.

Personally i think both can be accurate. The "indy press" tag is more descriptive of places like Ministry Of Whimsy, Prime Books and Nightshade who publish stuff that wouldn't ordinarily been picked up by the mainstream publishers as it wouldnt' sell enough copies. The "small press" tag, when I use it deliberately, tends to refer more to POD publishers who just want to reap the success of the mainstream publishers for themselves so who just end up putting out more of the same crap that we'd be readin anyway - only it's often worse because it hasn't gone through the same editorial rigours.

I have far more respect for the Indy pressers because they are providing a genuine alternative for readers, often at the expense of their front-line costs whereas small publishers knock of similarly shitty books to the mainstream but don't even have the excuse of fiscal considerations to apologise for it.

I've been on both sides of the fence with the small press/independent press/self-publisher argument. And yeah, if self-publishing WASN'T so stigmatized in SF, I think a lot of people would do it.

It's a perception issue, for the most part, not a quality issue. At the moment, if China Mieville self-published his next book, would anyone say it's because it wasn't publishable?

I brought up the point that Dave Eggers' work is always in McSweeneys - and an editor/writer friend said that it works for a literary press, but wouldn't in SF. My response: so if Asimove ran a story of his in ASIMOV'S MAGAZINE, it would be vanity?

One bookstore owner told another publisher (who writes) and I that it would be more professional for us to publish each other's work, instead of doing it ourselves; that even setting up a 'straw man' publisher would be better than our own names on the masthead.

I think that if it's publishable, that should be the sole criterial. He disagreed. But then again, he is a year overdue on two Argosy invoices and won't even respond to requests for payment, so I suppose he has a different standard of what constitutes 'professionalism.'

James

Exactly why I don't agree with the SF community's assessment of self-publishing. I met with a respected comics agent way early on, and she told me all the things I needed to do to make my work suitable for the Big Companies.

I thanked her, and kept doing my own thing.

More than two dozen issues of STARCHILD, and collections in both hardcover and paperback, is what got me my first book contract - the editor was a STARCHILD fan. And the experience I got writing and illustrating that material is what pushed my work to a more professional and accessible level.

I don't know any other way I could have compelled that kind of training-under-fire.

Quality should be the only issue. And then the marketplace will determine whether it will succeed.

James

Also, I think there's a stigma involved with the term "small press," unfortunately. And that's the other reason I should have mentioned for "indie press" being a better term.

JeffV

Yup. "Small" carries a definite stigma, I think; you might as well call it "Amateur Press" and have done with. I can't help but imagine just what kind of shitty impact Jim Jarmusch, Richard Linklater, the Coen Brothers, and so on might have had if we saddled Indie films with the label "Little Cinema". And I think the same principle could be applied to the music industry; I just can't think of Rough Trade, for example as a "Minor Label". So from a purely commercial "branding" viewpoint, I would have thought any producer working in whatever media would be in a whole lot better position when it comes to dealing with distribution and retail people if they see you as Indie rather than Small. Small implies Amateur / Hobbyist / Vanity. Indie implies Cult / Young / Hip.

But basically, it seems to me that it's a sensible terminology (rather than just shrewd marketing) because I think there's a comparable aesthetic or approach at work in movies, music and fiction. Major studios / labels / imprints have identities and those identities have limits; you're not terribly likely to get a movie about a transvestite serial killer coming out under the Disney logo, for example. And even working within those limits there's bound to be pressure from the marketing men and executive philistines keen for category product formulised to sell, sell, sell... and pressure against anything not currently fashionable. Rom-Com's are in. Girl Bands are out. High Fantasy's hit its peak. And so on. I can't see Sony signing up a barbershop quartet anytime soon.

So you have smaller-scale, independent production companies set-up by entrepreneurs who want to focus on the niches these bigger players haven't cottoned on to -- c.f. Island Records -- or by auteurs who want to free themselves from pressures to commercialise their work -- c.f. Zoetrope. Either way, that DIY spirit of "Fuck that shit, I'm going this way" seems to me to be a core strength shared by all the independents, no matter what media they're working in. Why book publishers don't play this angle for all it's worth is a mystery to me. I'm not suggesting heavy-handed posturing ("Yeah! Nobody tells us what to do! We're rebels!"), but surely it's just savvy to say "We're the literary equivalent of Rough Trade or the Coen Brothers" rather than "We're the literary equivalent of some kid playing with a four-track or a Super 8".

I'm tempted to go even further, in fact. I've taken to referring (in a vague hand-waving sort of way) to Indie Fiction -- as an analogy to the music/movie situation, where the term "Indie" has gradually shifted from originally simply referring to the production company to now referring to the underlying aesthetic of the creators. Such that we now have Indie bands like Nirvana released on DGC, or Indie movies like Lost In Translation financed by NBC Universal. I think you can map that aesthetic to a literary "Indie fiction", a sort of cultish / arthouse fiction, which is identified less by category definitions and more by the individuality and eclecticism in terms of influences and styles. But that's probably a whole 'nother conversation.

>i know a fair few authors i've met see the small/independent things as just stepping stones. use it to climb here. to build and audience. to get into a big publisher, where you can be seen more.

Sure. The same can be said of Indie directors (like Roberto Rodriguez, for example) who make a feature or two off their own dime then jump at studio deals... or bands who build up followings while signed to a high-kudos, low-cash Indie label, then jump ship to Sony or EMI when offered the chance. But I guess I'd say Indie can be as much about self-starting entrepeneurs as uncompromising auteurs. And as you say, nothing wrong with that.