OK, I'm on the fence. Everyone has varying opinions, and that may remain the case after this call-for-feedback. This is a debut story collection and, as such, basically just needs a cover that says, Buy me, I'll blow your mind in a lovely kinda way. (We should be adding some more copy, I hope, a blurb from Colm Toibin, with is rather nice—the book's bloody excellent...)
Anyhow, let me know what you think (still not fixed the blog comments, so email)
A self-portrait of Paris Cafe co-author Rick Tulka, wishing us all a Happy New Year.
[I just noticed I never posted any images from the book on the book, for shame, for shame...A few after the jump...]
Soft Skull author. On Iranian TV. Interviewed by George Galloway (iconoclastic British ex-Member of Parliament). Nuff said. Well, I should mention it is about a book we're publishing in late March called I Wouldn't Start From Here: The 21st Century and Where It All Went Wrong. And that it will for sure be the only book we ever publish blurbed by both Bono and P.J. O'Rourke. So many firsts, with this, along with so many onlys.
So one of the many areas of anxiety surrounding the impending transition from the majority-print to the majority-digital reading culture is a concern that the glories of good book design will fade.
Horsefeathers.
That's about as eloquent and specific as I'm capable of being on the topic, but Jeff from SoroDesign spells it out for us, and in so doing endorses a belief I hold very strongly, and that is starting to feel like it might even become conventional wisdom within a year, that digital downloads will free the print book of its obligation to provide a publisher with volume, permitting it instead to become that beautiful limited edition which provides the readers with extra aesthetic joy, and the publisher with extra non-returnable margin.
As Jeff says rather succinctly: "Book design will diverge down several paths and has a surprisingly healthy future."
He then breaks out five key observations, which I wanted to summarize, but honestly, this guy has a nice economy of expression, so please also go to his site, and check out the good work they're doing (the do covers, interiors, and author websites) so I don't feel bad for cribbing his entire post, eh?:
1) E-books based on a reflow format (i.e., suitable for small devices) will be based on common style sheets and exhibit a fairly uniform appearance. There will be a set of small (in size) firms that customize and refine these style sheets. Publishers will mostly outsource the format conversion since the ever changing variety of devices requires continual reformating of material. There will be some firms that profit very well from providing this service.2) E-books based on PDFs also will be very popular due to the variety of light-weight computing devices with large screens. (The whole PDF vs reflow format for e-books is misleading unless one assumes that small, palm-sized devices will completely replace all other forms of desktop, notebook, and tablet-sized computers.)
3) Some material traditionally only published in book format will shift to Web delivery and “book” design for this genre actually is Web design. Many challenges for publishers in this segment who have not yet figured out how to monetize Web sites. (If publishers have not figured that out in the last 15 years, will the next 15 years be much different?) Many opportunities for new publishing firms to emerge to fill the gap for producing and monetizing engaging content using digital media. Many opportunities for designers since elegant Web design is neither simple nor cheap.
4) Print-on-demand establishes a significant market operating in bookstores, libraries, big-box retail outlets, and direct shipping to consumers. All those books still need designing and the PDF byproduct can feed directly into pathway #2 above as well as #1 with conversion services offered in pathway #1.
5) Print book designers will still flourish as some publishers will realize that a niche audience is willing to pay a premium for a wonderfully designed book, heralding a surprising renaissance in book design. Also, print book designers can design PDF-based e-books with no problem since PDF is usually a byproduct in the print book design process.
Two Soft Skull peops are Utne Reader's 50 Visionaries who are changing your world in its November-December issue—Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore and Favianna Rodriguez...
More than Marriage: Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
We’ve heard just two sides of the gay-marriage debate—conservative talk-radio homophobes versus attractive same-sex couples—because the voices of queer people who are against marriage are consistently drowned out. This perspective is most raucously and frequently espoused by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, an outspoken critic of what she calls “gay assimilationists” who cast marriage—with its “1950s model of white-picket-fence ‘we’re just like you’ normalcy”—as the GLBT issue. Sycamore, who writes for the San Francisco Bay Guardian and blogs at nobodypasses.blogspot.com, argues that the GLBT movement’s focus on gay marriage distracts from more pressing issues: Rather than fight for marriage, which helps secure access to benefits like housing and health care, queers should band together to fight for universal access to these basic needs—“I do” (or don’t) be damned. “What I think is so sad about the gay marriage assimilationist agenda is that our dreams have become so limited,” Sycamore says. “And gay marriage is not a dream—the end of marriage is a dream.” Sycamore is also a prolific anthologizer, bringing together radical views on queer identities in books like That’s Revolting! Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation (Soft Skull,2008). These perspectives are rarely if ever engaged by marriage advocates. “It’s really easy for gay marriage proponents to argue with foaming-at-the-mouth Christian fundamentalists,” she says, “but it’s very scary for them to argue with anti-marriage queers and actually have a conversation.”
The People’s Artist: Favianna Rodriguez
She’s going to make you shout. Favianna Rodriguez’s political poster art packs revolutionary punch, fused with crackling colors and don’t-mess-with-us mojo. “Gentrification = Predatory Development” thunders a billboard in her Oakland, California, hometown. “We Say Hell No!” In an image-saturated world, Rodriguez’s fearless, frank work is impossible to ignore. “I use art to transform global politics,” Rodriguez says. As the daughter of immigrants and a woman of color who grew up without many role models in the art world, Rodriguez gives voice to the global community, and, stepping in front of the artist’s traditional frame, she’s building infrastructure for next-generation women. Collaborating, educating, organizing, writing books, public speaking, everything—she says—becomes part of the artist’s work. Celebrating the work of other bold souls is also essential to Rodriguez’s vision. She recently coedited Reproduce & Revolt (Soft Skull, 2008), a collection of stunning revolutionary political graphics designed by global artists—all of which are licensed under Creative Commons, free to reproduce. “Favi is doing something that is extremely unusual right now—declarative political art,” says Soft Skull editorial director Richard Nash. “The dominant trend in political art has been ironic, subversive, which can be marvelous except for the slightly creepy feeling one can get that the only viewers who get it are the ones who are already possessed of the framing techniques needed to deconstruct it. The ones who get it, already got it. “Favi’s doing the is-what-it-is thing: gorgeous, direct political statements.”
Apologies for the slow pace of posting here—I've had a devil of a time having more than 30 seconds to think at any given moment, and so have been spitting out updates via Twitter. So perhaps you'd like to follow us on Twitter? Here's the URL and here's the RSS feed. Alternatively, the Twitter feed also posts as an update to our Facebook page...
More regular posting can be expected in the coming months...
In Search of Post-Racial America
By Tim Wise
I have to admit, I was disappointed. After all, to hear lots of folks tell it we are now living in "post-racial America," all because Barack Obama is to become the nation's 44th president in a couple of months. So, imagine my surprise when I contacted the labor department, in search of evidence to sustain the post-racial America thesis, only to discover that blacks, Latinos, and indigenous folks are still three times as likely as whites to be poor and twice as likely to be unemployed, and that black men with college degrees were still earning 30% less than their white counterparts--exactly the same as was the case on November 3rd! When they told me that black men with high school diplomas were still more likely to be out of work than white male dropouts, well, I damn near fell out of my seat.
And imagine my shock when, upon contacting the Border Patrol, in an attempt to determine when they would be re-deploying large segments of their force to the Canadian border (since, in a post-racial America, we wouldn't want to concentrate all our anti-immigrant efforts on brown-skinned folks), my query was met with a laugh, and an assurance that no such redeployment would be taking place.
And imagine how stunned I was upon getting off the phone with a staffer at the Commerce Department, who informed me that, just as was the case prior to November 4, businesses owned by white men were still receiving about 91% of all government contracts. I had argued with him, insisting that surely huge chunks of that money had been redistributed to black and brown-owned firms now that Obama was president-elect, but they stuck to their story. Nope, they promised. Nothing had changed,
Still convinced we were living in a post-racial America (after all, why would they say it on the TV if it weren't the case?), I hopped in my car and headed out to the suburbs, confident that I would find evidence of our post-raciality in such places as these.
First, I stopped off at the nearest Home Depot, figuring that I would encounter a veritable flood of dark-skinned citizenry, newly relocated to these previously white spaces, and intent on gathering the materials needed for their latest home improvement project. But nope, as far as the eye could see it was white folks with the lumber, and the paint swatches, and the energy-efficient halogen lighting, and the shiny gas grills.
Tim's travels in search of a post-racial American continue after the jump...
Continue reading "Tim Wise Explores Our Post-Racial America" »
Andrew Krucoff just did this blog post that makes the cockles of my heart sing. We're experiencing a deep rich warm juicy feeling of being understood. A sense of why:
Curt, He Who Cannot Be Linked, once famously tried to end an argument with “I have friends in Iraq” which is qualification enough to handle I Wouldn’t Start from Here: The 21st Century and Where It All Went Wrong by Andrew Mueller.Almost picked this for myself but Katie gets Lost in the Supermarket: An Indie Rock Cookbook with the hope she discovers a world beyond Van Morrison and the Dave Matthews Band. Might come in handy when you’re “seshing” at home too. (Bet you wanted Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me!)
Dorfman, I mean Foster, l’ve given this a lot of thought. I’m tempted to throw you Rebels Wit Attitude for it’s a path I see you on, but you can’t be a real man until you’ve reviewed poetry. You’re probably gonna say you already have but Subduing Demons in America: The Selected Poems of John Giorno should provide the tricks.
The Institute for the Future of the Book is soliciting for a brain trust.
We've got a small NEH grant to hold a couple of brainstorming sessions. the overarching goal of the sessions is to come up with a conceptual framework for learning spaces which combine the rich media attributes of the cd-rom era with the collaborative affordances of the net. Here's a short excerpt from the grant application:With the advent of the cd-rom in the late 80s, a few pioneering humanities scholars began to develop a new vocabulary for multi-layered, multi-modal digital publications. Since that time, the internet has emerged as a powerful engine for collaboration across peer networks, radically collapsing the distance between authors and readers and creating new communal spaces for work and review.
To date, these two evolutionary streams have been largely separate. Rich multimedia is still largely consigned to individual consumption on the desktop, while networked collaboration generally occurs around predominantly textual media such as the blogosphere, or bite-sized fragments on YouTube and elsewhere. We propose to carry out initial planning for two ambitious digital publishing projects that will merge these streams into powerfully integrated experiences.
Although the locus of scholarly discourse is slowly but clearly moving from bound/printed pages to networked screens, we’ve yet to reach the tipping point. The printed book is still the gold standard of the academy. The goal of these projects is to produce born-digital works that are as elegant as printed books and also draw on the power of audio and video illustrations and new models of community-based inquiry — and do all of these so well that they inspire a generation of young scholars with the promise of digital scholarship.
We're going to hold three meetings grouped by discipline — History, Music and Media Studies.
Consider this an invitation to apply to be part of one of these sessions. If you think you can make a significant contribution to the discussion, please send us a note. Or if you know someone else who would be perfect, please pass the word on to them.
As I posted on Twitter a few minutes ago: Soft Skull Spring 09 catalog now available, yo. Download http://is.gd/8zrR & email for review copies. (Here's Winter 09 http://is.gd/8zE1 )
[Links not in the original :-]