Aut Aut
In 2007 the festival was held in Venice "Aut Aut -self authors and writers. " Five meetings, from January to February, to turn attention on the self-publishing and give voice to the experiences of self in the territory. Protagonists of those who dedicate themselves to writing fiction - novels, poems, short stories - a common feature, having sought an outlet for publishing alternative to traditional publishing. Recipient of the event was the great absentee from the literary scene: the unknown author.
Around publishing
A multitude of "aspiring writers, " ghost, revolves around the publishing houses, thousands of unknown authors who attempt the road to publication.
That will push the personal vanity or the persuasion of having compiled the best-selling book of the year, or who simply want to try, for all publishing soon reveals a closed door. Not a bridge to get to the public but an obstacle, one stop.
For the very few authors who are fortunate enough to interest a publishing house, there is a mass of outsiders. The vast majority of these outcasts there can be no peace in the face of a refusal but to try again with another publisher.
The tenacity with which you give aspiring writers looking for a publisher at all costs comes from a deep-rooted conviction: the publication amounts to a sort of investiture, for a license, without which the author can not really be considered a writer . Do not recognize it as such readers, the author is unable to think of a writer without a shred of publication.
This subjection to the publishers is not far-fetched, is based on an indisputable reality. The book industry, and specifically in that sector that produces contemporary literature, the crediting of a publisher is vital. The advantage of being published is not the multiplication of copies, as in the recognition of literary value that expresses the publication: the very fact of publishing an author, the publisher said that that author deserves to be read.
In the market for literary the publisher is the only person who has the power to confer this kind of statement, the shortage of places where unpublished writers can compete with the response from readers and draw conclusions. The literary magazines have died one after another in the last century, universities and libraries are involved in literary writing when it is celebrated by the editor, the reviewers have evaporated from the newspapers, the awards focus on published authors. Even the literary salons have imploded, as the elite upper-class that animated them, poised between the sophistication and critical wetland.
Usually, the first publication is crucial. It is the springboard to enter the next release, perhaps with a larger caliber editor can ensure a wider audience, which triggers the final sales location and the author of the writers in all respects. Without that first cry, the author remains an unusual life. It is a vicious circle: to be published should be published.
Accreditation
I said that publishers have the power to accredit the authors. And they hold exclusive control over the accreditation of fact, only through them is the recognition of the quality of a work of an author.
It should be emphasized the centrality of literary publishing accreditation. Unlike the authors of essays, the writers of novels or poems can not bear witness to its value if not through the books they publish. The essayists, usually have their credentials stored elsewhere, outside of publishing: they are professors or journalists, or members of prestigious institutions. For the literary production there is nothing like that.
For them there is the opinion of readers, the public. But the point of view of the public is mediated by the publishers. The editors interpret its tastes through the litmus test of sales. The good book is the book that sells. The value of an author is dependent on its commercial appeal.
The literary quality, therefore, coincides with the commercial success is not a quid held in the opera itself. Marketing and promotion are two areas that absorb more investment, one of the readers to guess the orientation, the other models according to the needs of publishing. To publish means precisely to implement those preliminary steps that go under the name of "marketing" and those that accompany the movement of the product, which fall into the "promotion".
For "aspiring writers," life is hard. They have no way of connecting to the public, because the channels of communication coincide with the promotion, wholly owned by the publishers. The publishers get reviews in newspapers, television appearances, participation in literary events, presentations in major libraries. Inaccessible to those not published.
Transforming an illustrious stranger in an author worth reading is a commercial enterprise that requires heavy investment, the game must be worth the candle. Only a major publishing house, which has the means to absorb any flop, can do so with any hope of success. It is certainly not within the reach of small publishing houses, for them the risk is too great. In fact, do not publish beginners. Either one of them are off-limits to the unknown authors precisely because they are unknown.
In this situation it is amazing the behavior of aspiring writers, they seem unable to decipher reality. Blinded by worst idealism, they are struggling to put the editors in the "wretched" frame of the economy, to conceive of the literary work as the result of a production system regulated by the market. They are convinced that the label of a publishing house is essential to their image, they can not help it. If they find no publisher willing to take risks and reach the ultimate gesture: they pay a publisher to publish them.
Why publish?
Yet the reaction of the excluded may be different, even to protect their mental health. Authors should put aside for some personal problem (am I or not a writer? Have I written something good?) and consider things from another point of view. If I were a publisher, you may ask, would I publish what I wrote? What do I do to publicize my book? Above all, why do I want to publish?
By placing themselves the questions that are normally left to the publishers, authors would realize that their interests do not coincide with those of the publishers. They could even imagine an editorial process tailored to their needs, not delegated to the publishers
Clarify its purpose and to choose the means that are congruent is the first step self-publishing, theme of the Venetian show I mentioned at the beginning. The self-publishing is nothing but the publishing where the author is personally responsible for the methods of production and circulation of their works. The author-editor writes, produces and distributes its books in a manner that he himself has established.
Between imagine to be publishers and being really is a short step, after all, and has roots in the ancient memory of do it yourself. It implies a willingness to take back the word, removing the filter of editors that role in the relationship between authors and readers, which gives them immense power over persons. It involves the assumption of decision-making duties by the author, beyond the simple writing of the text. As editor he decides whether to direct its production profit, or if preferred the exchange and free, to make use of advertising or point on the bare information, and so on. Through its choice of "editorial policy" the author expresses an opinion of value on the production of culture and choose their place. It self determinates relation to the context, rather than face the choice of a publisher.
The self-publishing assumes that the author does not think the publication as a projection of the ego in search of confirmation, but as the piece of a bigger picture where to publish in one way rather than another is a political act, that has consequences that go beyond a single author because they have a relapse group. The author-editor is working on a double face, of course, must objectify himself. Need a bit of mental agility to act pro themselves as both authors and publishers as matter itself. The alternative however is to remain silent.
Inside the self-publishing
The self-publishing does not guarantee anything about the quality of the books it produces, makes no secret treasures. It is a romantic myth to believe that among the unpublished masterpieces are hidden, while the big publishing triumph mediocre books because are calibrated to a mass market. It is equally true that among the unpublished abound bad books (of course, I add, can not eat the contribution of the players, the talent atrophies).
Similarly self-publishing is not necessarily a form of "anti-capitalism," may very well be chosen by the author with the bump of the business, who wants to start his own business to earn (but in this case would do better to rely on big publishers, which better than he knows how to turn books into cash).
Finally self-publishing does not like some content over others, nor do they prescribe.
Its virtue is another and is the principle that the anti-authoritarian spirit. The self-publishing removes the monopoly of accreditation for editors, publishers hits in their exclusive role as "guarantors of the quality of the authors," the intermediaries between authors and readers, choosing the role they carry out works according to the criteria of profit.
The foundation is the anti-authoritarian state to create more open spaces of freedom. Only in the literary self-publishing needs of the author (to communicate, to check the tightness of his writing, to interact with readers) may take precedence over commercial ones. No other editor except the author can make a similar choice.
The demands of the writing urge readers to look at situations other than those submitting to the demands of profit. The author-editor favors direct contact with readers, the meeting in person, the dialogue, the relationship with the associations, because readers are its partners. Asks readers to interact with him, he share with them of the self-publishing. He neglects, for non-essential commercial distribution.
The author-editor uses means to facilitate access to his texts, because for him it is important to be read. The sale is therefore subject to the movement: reading, literary taste, self-managed and self-financed initiatives are opportunities preferred by the author-editor.
Self-financed and self-reviewed was also the "Aut Aut" promoted and achieved by Unica Edizioni, my small publishing house founded in January 2006 for my stories, and by Scoletta die Misteri of Antonella Barina, author-editor in this review with "Author's Edition", a magazine of poetry and short stories registered in 2005, but already present in the form of episodic reading in a couple of years before.
Both authors publish only themselves, not other writers. Each practice self-publishing with its reasons, of course. For me the decision to create a publishing house with a lot of VAT, huge compared to actual needs, has a symbolic meaning. The paradox expresses the desire to regain possession of the management component of publishing a single figure in welding the leading role, typical of the editor, with the executive or, worse still, a supplier of raw material to publishers, usually assigned to the authors. A "full blown" publishing house makes clear what is the self-publishing: daughter of self, it reassembles a split in the deep division of labor, which often remains in shadow.
Even the emphasis on individuality seems important to me. Although self-publishing can be realized in form of association, it is only in the form of individual anti-authoritarian that the principle states so clear, so clear the way to possible misunderstandings, which are generated when the subject is a publishing group: the group is inevitably perceived as "one who credits" the individual authors, making back through the window that is out the door. Then if the group is on an ideological basis (the self as a form of capitalist production antagonistic to that), even more pre-established credit comes down from authority, indeed on the ideology, rather than based on the author itself. The name "Unica" is an adaptation prosaic, tame, of the Unico by Stirner. To the wise.
Prospects
The event of 2007 was designed to collect and bring together local experiences analog to those of the two promoters. Or at least similar. Often, associations of writers engaged in an activity which is actually a publishing job, because they propose cultural, invented forms of movement of their writing, promote meetings with the public at unusual places, yet when it comes to publish their texts, associations turn as well to a publisher and pay. It is therefore understood that where an activity is aimed at making public of the authors, we must talk about publishing. Without subjection to the publishers. Even the authors and writers who print their own, namely that waive, dignity, publishing label on the cover, are already with one foot in the self-publishing, provided that their choice is not lived as a servant of publishing, or premise for the "quantum leap".
To "Aut Aut" followed over the years other initiatives being promoted now by Edizioni Unica now from Edizioni dell'Autrice, in addition to activities carried out individually for their books. The goal is always to promote self-publishing, to network, compare and share experiences. Who are still sporadic, indeed, the resistance of the writers to "go it alone" is very strong, nothing comparable to what happens in one of the artists or music, where the self is widespread.
In such initiatives, the basic idea is that the self-publishing can and should become a social value. Right here in the link between those who practice self-publishing spread, it leaves the individual dimension, socialize, and therefore implies a political orientation. This approach can only be libertarian, because bearing the greatest possible freedom in harmony with the nucleus that is at the origin of the anti-authoritarian self-publishing.
It is therefore of great importance that self-publishing initiatives have been implemented by the Ateneo deli Imperfetti - Laboratory of libertarian culture of Marghera and Mestre's Fuori Posto. The first, held last June "Artist's Day" with Frederick Zenon, Milan, creator of the publishing house Libera e Senza Impegni "to the self-publishing of works of art and sound and occasional limited-edition, hand-crafted recycled materials."
In Mestre, in the theater of the association Fuori Posto, also home of the association for years autoproduces the magazine "ApArte - Materials irregular libertarian culture" was held in October, the self-publishing festival "After the last word", where protagonists were the different ways in which the authors make their work public (publish does not mean necessarily reproduce, print or web).
Authors and writers who AutoEdit are still few, as I said. Unaware of each other and difficult to find. Yet it is now important that the definition self-publishing's a libertarian one. Or rather, it is necessary that the self-publishing helps to keep the firm libertarian principles. The urgency is dictated by the facts. Publishing houses pay, rose dramatically in the nineties of the last century, today are endless and spread throughout the web. Sites auto-publishing of "self-publishing", are aimed at aspiring writers, who wave the flag of "freedom" they can enjoy themselves by publishing obviously "supported" the sites themselves. In a widespread manner, and with huge investments in advertising, autopubblication aims to reach one by one disappeared publishing, luring them under the banner of freedom. The crucial aspect of this phenomenon is not so much the fate of aspiring writers, this is not alarming, as the idea of freedom that is conveyed by these sites. It is a foolish freedom, distorted, taken to pieces: but on what is shaping to be a huge market.
We want to talk about it?
anno
41 n. 360
Claudia Vio