Proof

-{[//\ .LIGHT BOXES IS A DONE THING. /\\]}-















I'm shipping out all the preorders and review copies now.

If you would like a review copy, email me: adam at publishinggenius dot com.

MDBell's Charitable Mistake Light Boxes Giveaway

In his awesomeness, Matt Bell accidently pre-ordered two copies of Light Boxes. So he's having a giveaway contest -- the first person to email him some sort of receipt for a purchase from a small press will get his extra copy, which I will mail directly to the winner.

The NDA is an addendum to the RFP.

Funny

Sad

Corduroy Mtn published a thing of mine

from my forthcoming Narrow House book of poems.
It's called "Zach Mayhem Chronicles (Ch. 2)".
Thank you.

Forthcoming, This PDF Chapbook boys club

Jasper, Matt. The Tip of the Iceberg (long poem).

NeSmith, David. El Greed Picture Book (haiku and pictures).

Druecke, Paul. from The John Budgen Stories (fiction).
Higgs, Chris. Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously (something with words).
Raven, Francis. (poetry).
Downs, Buck. Another Helping (poetry).
Madore, PH. Your (fiction).
Salesses, Matthew. We Will Take What We Can Get (essay).
Trice, Adam. (poetry).

Hey ladies! C'mon.

M Magnus took the words to your biography and rearranged them and read them back to you and you did not recognize yourself at all

M Magnus, my Narrow House "label mate," so to speak, wrote Verb Sap and does this online radio show called MMm…Utterance. Today's show features an aural chapbook, a collection of work that starts out when he was 22 and includes the title poem from Verb Sap.

The poems are long but the lines are short and include nuggets like these:

"Generous? I'll give her the bird."

"The soul bleats
Please be a happy little girl
Don't grow old and die"

"I've got my ass on the moon
I'm shaking my butt on the moon
Said Neil Armstrong after a step"

(NB: Since these poems were poems I heard, I don't know about the line breaks. I think line breaks in an M Magnus poem are essential to what he's doing. I actually feel like excerpting lines misses the game in his work, because he's not, like, hittin' you with the wit or something. I mean, the work is clearly witty, but I think there is something more fundamental going on, I just don't know what it is.)

Anyway, I like it. I like listening to his poems at work. I think using the Internet as a tool to broadcast readings is smart.

IsReads update

I'm working now with Peter Cole of Keyhole to update the Baltimore/Nashville Is Reads business model. We're re-branding, so to speak. For the last time, the journal is now officially live at www.baltimoreisreads.com. Starting with Issue 5, which is being posted around town this week, the website will be, simply, IsReads.com. From that portal you will be able to read the poems and see them as they hang in their natural habitats in different cities.

There are more exciting announcements to come, including ways to get involved (aside from submitting 3-5 poems).

Review of Rupert's book

The February issue of Baltimore Magazine has a positive review of The Origin of Paranoia as a Heated Mole Suit. It's not online yet, but here's an excerpt:

Some passages from this slim volume might lead folks to believe that Rupert Wondolowski is the Charles Bukowski of Baltimore. Old hobos, eggplant-hurling arabbers, and aerosol-huffing-two-by-four-waving locals tend to populate his poems, which can be a mass of muss and ruin. But Wondolowski, longtime editor of The Shattered Wig Review, avoids getting bogged down in the muck of misfortune by casting sidelong glances at the culture around him and stepping spiritedly through its wreckage. . . .

Thanks to reviewer John Lewis for the attention and writing about not just the book but the ideas in its pages.

I hope the books arrive from the printer in time to fulfill all the orders that are surely soon to come in. Crap, I'm probably going to have to use Amazon.

Rupert Reading

I just realized that The Signal has archived Rupert Wondolowski reading the title piece from The Origin of Paranoia as a Heated Mole Suit. It's great. I often have a hard time attending to stuff that's read on the Internet, but The Signal always does a great job of blending the words and background music.

Listen to it here. (Listen for when the host, Aaron Henkin, calls out "Filmmaker Michael Kimball" at the end. It's a happy thing to hear, and I'm looking forward to seeing the premier of his movie, I Will Smash You in February.)

The Origin of Paranoia as a Heated Mole Suit will be available for sale again in February.

In Defense of Issuu

I'm not convinced of the utility of Issuu as a solution for online literary journals and I think it might have a couple problems, but I use it for three reasons. First, it makes content uniform -- it automatically adjusts itself to every user's screen and does not rely on up-to-date versions of Adobe Reader to ensure an eBook is formatted properly. Second, I am still fond of turning pages as an enhanced reading experience; pages present text in viewable sections and allow readers to focus their attention.

While I appreciate the sublime layout of online journals like elimae and Alice Blue, that format doesn't work with long texts or a poem series. Lily Hoang's Lamination Colony eBook and Zachary German's at Bear Parade are superbly formatted, but I think there is a difference in the way designers layout these journals for the web compared to the way book makers approach making things for the web.

Finally, when used properly, Issuu is the most attractive and easily manipulated reading surface available online. And I'm not just referring to the way they bend the pages and animate the flip; when read at full-screen Issuu's background highlights the page for total maximum eye sweetness.

People complain about the zoom/scrolling feature that Issuu defaults to at mouse-click because it is difficult to control. I completely agree with this complaint, and I am surprised that Issuu prioritizes this function. The full screen view is much more reader-friendly. It's hands-down the best way to approach an Issuu document, so I think it should be the function that results when clicking the page, rather than the zoom feature. (Jimmy Chen characterizes zooming well when he says, "Imagine having your nose to a page then getting hit in the head with a force going 20 miles per hour." -- It's that counter-intuitive.)

(I admit, however, that full-sized [at least 8.5 x 11"] glossy magazines don't interface well with 17" monitors or 15.4" laptops, even when read at full-screen. The page size prohibits Issuu from magnifying the content to a point at which the text is easily readable. For online journal design, it's best to keep the page size at the same dimension as a trade paperback and to set the text in large type. Online journals that design specifically for Issuu have the advantage here, and glossy mags probably mostly use Issuu to showcase their design.)

I don't understand the complaint that Issuu is trying to hybridize the page and the screen, or to use the screen to mimic the page. That perspective is just wrong. Pertaining to online literature, I see Issuu's primary role as host for a book's layout in an easily read format. People who design books and not websites now have a service that allows them to produce work for the web, and that is a clear benefit.

Readers should complain to journals when the text is too small to read, and they should learn to use the tools that Issuu provides. (Ultimately, the only tool anyone should need is the full-screen button; reading this way rivals reading on the john.) My defense here has focussed on readability, but there are a number of other worthwile services that Issuu provides -- for instance, their "library" or "bookshelf" or whatever should prove to be a valuable sort of social networking device, or at least a way for readers to share what they like. Readers who like Keyhole might find their way to Ocho by looking at their friend's bookmarks. It's a tool for success.

The online literary community should support Issuu so that they can continue to improve and grow until Google buys them and perfects their concept.

Geez.

This, by Zach Plague, is enviable:



Ahhhhhhhhh.

Open Letter to Keyhole Press

Dear Keyhole:

Who designed the cover of William Walsh's book Questionstruck (link to new mini website)? It's great:



Also, when can I buy it?

Thanks,
Adam

Update: Sarah Stanley did the design.

Translation help

I need someone to translate a poem from Spanish (to English).

I think it should be pretty easy. After four years of high school Spanish I can almost do it.

It's a poem by Buck Downs.

Please email me if you're interested.

I Was Watching Legends of the Fall and Thought I Should Write a Sad Poem After Reading a Nothing Poem by Charles Simic (whom I like)

IT’S DOWN TO MOM OR CLAUDIIIIIINE
for Cindy Sheehan

How do you feel

What do you die thinking of

What is the last thing you say

If you’re belly shot in the army do you say mom or Eleanor or whoever

Bill, I believe in Jesus, Peg, I feel so cold, I’m sorry

Dulce decorum est do you say that

Mother what do you think your son will say

I figure for me it’s down to MOM or CLAUDIIIIINE

Maybe Objects in mirror are WHOA

What direction will your son’s head be facing

Deathbed is one word made special for the place you die

But there is no one special place for your deathbed

On her deathbed what do you want your daughter to say

You will be so fucking sad

Then you will be okay

Then you will be sad that you are okay

Then mostly okay again and well this will continue

Even now I often feel sad that I’m not sadder

And my worst thing that died was a dog

Otis's OTIS Collection

OTIS did an update of their database of artist's books. I don't know when though -- I haven't checked in with them in a while. It looks like there is new stuff (I think, could have been books I missed before because there are SO MANY), but it also seems harder to navigate. I can't find the menus, which is too bad because they were awesome menus with filters like you'd imagine for artist books.

Wild AND Crazy Announcements

I'm getting so many wild and crazy submissions for This PDF Chapbook that I think I'm going to make the series bi-weekly. So if you have a really great collection of poems or a short story or whatever genre thing that you've been thinking about sending . . . now is the time. I mean, like, NOW, baby, because in two weeks it's back to school for me and I'll be reading slower.

And if anyone wants to get into the bookselling business, he or she can sell LIGHT BOXES to their friends or door to door. I think this is a great way to break into the business. See if you got the chops for it by just focusing on the sale of one book.

Contact me at adam at publishinggenius and I will sell you books at 60% of the Pre-Order price (this is a really good deal). Then you can turn around and sell them for a profit of $7.75 per book. I'm extending this offer to anyone who buys 6 books or more. And the price per book will drop based on how many you buy.

I don't know how long this offer will last. What I'm saying is for <$45 you can get 6 copies of Shane Jones's book LIGHT BOXES and sell them. Say you sell three of them you pretty much make your money back. If you sell five of them and keep one you make $15.50 and have a copy you can keep on your mantle as the book that started you on your bookselling career.

If you want you can schedule readings for yourself and read from LIGHT BOXES (please credit Shane Jones when you do) and sell the books at the readings. If you do this, please let me know ahead of time and I will help publicize your reading.

If you are one of the many gorgeous people who already pre-ordered one copy, I will allow you to buy five more copies at the same total price, so you'd only have to pay ~$33 for five more books. Or email me (at adam at publishinggenius) and we can work out something even better.

Why am I doing this? First of all, because your current job is really lousy and I want you to find more satisfaction in your life. Don't just exist, you know? Work for yourself! Get a boat! Also, I'm doing this because our economy has gotten outta hand with all the corporate globalization and Sam Zell and Barnes & Noble knocking out the little guys. I mean, let's take back the streets! This is our economy! Human decency!

Huh? Huh?

In Michael Kimball's story about the life of Tao Lin, we are given this line: "Everything is just some thing that Tao does."

PSA

Mary Miller's book, Less Shiny, is as great as everyone says it is.

**UPDATE**
Meanwhile, Kate Wyer has written a really enviable piece of fiction at her blog.

Another Sky Press

I also really like the model at Another Sky Press. They sell their books at cost. Not a bad idea, considering ain't nobody gettin' wealthy offa no small press.

I just bought Aase Berg's book With Deer, translated by Johannes Göransson. It looks really great, and it was a great buying experience from Black Ocean press. After you complete the Paypal transaction you go to a page that says

While most of our titles are available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble, neither corporation has very friendly small press practices in place, and we would much prefer that you order from us, Small Press Distribution, or better yet: your local independant bookstore . . .

Good job Black Ocean. Speaking for PGP, the deal Amazon offers to small presses makes it very easy to get books listed through their store, but they are miserable to work with. Amazon orders one or two books at a time at 45% of the cover price, and they don't pay for shipping. They also insist that the book isn't sold more cheaply anywhere else. So since I like to keep PGP prices as low as possible, I take a loss on every book sold through Amazon. If they would order in higher quantity, pay for shipping, or pay more like almost every bookstore I've dealt with (only one bookseller, someone named Dick Haley, has stiffed me for books), working with Amazon would be okay. It would be great. But as it is, it sucks and the only way to make it work is to charge readers more for books.

I think people sometimes check Amazon for a listing before deciding if a book or a press is "legitimate" or not. I guess the thinking is that if something can get sold at Amazon, it is serious stuff and deserves attention. But working with Amazon is BAD BUSINESS. It's BAD BUSINESS to use their consignment program.

This post went the wrong way. I'm excited about this new book from Aase Berg, Johannes Göransson and Black Ocean.

Interview with Shane Jones

I think lots of people have already read this hilarious interview at Sam Pink's blog, but even still I'm pleased as a punch in the forehead to release it now as This PDF Chapbook #14. I present it now in all its glory, read as much as you can, dear reader, and if somehow you forgot, Pre-Order Light Boxes before you have to pay $3 more.

Light Boxes now dwells with the printer. But this sublime interview lives with us now.

And keep your eyes peeled for a new crop of work from that freak, Dave NeSmith, the man who saved haiku for 2009.

Get your own - Open publication

Sorry I Made a Painting You Can Buy it for Charity

My friend Aparna had a birthday party that I went to. We made paintings. The paintings were passed around in a circle and everyone added to them. My painting at the end was not like what I had in mind.

Now the paintings are for sale at eBay. All the money goes to a free clinic where Aparna works. Want one? Go here: http://ajdn.org/auction.html

Lookit what justin did

justin sirois




Best cover of 2009.
For Chris Nealon, published by Edge Books.
I hope it is printed on glossy paper.

Light Boxes is so, omg, so close

Here is the cover:

It's hard to see on the screen. When you buy it and receive it, it will be hard to see in your hands. The image is by Nicholas Hughes, it's something I found at Chris Higgs's blog. Some people helped me with the design (Stephanie Barber and Leah Ammerman). This book cover is really light on light.

Let me know if you want to review this book.

*Other News*
1. At JMWW I reviewed Chris O. Cook's book of poems To Lose & To Pretend from Brooklyn Arts Press. It's a great book. Everything in JMWW is fantastic. I like this story, by David Brasfield. Here's a sample:

October 9, 1981
All attempts to manufacture sulfuric acid have failed. After discarding the useless chemistry set I received for my birthday, I have rummaged many times through our kitchen cabinet, and I have made many combinations, but have not achieved anything close to science. I tried mixing milk with orange juice, but these proved not to be the acid and base I thought they were. Later, I mixed all the spices and juices and ketchup together, and then added a dash of Tabasco sauce, but this did not produce so much as a puff of smoke. Not even a bubble. Afterwards, I tried to clean up the mess, but our cat, April, would not go near the stuff.

That's a great joke and it gets better from there.

2. Today I remade the Publishing Genius website a little. It's simple and I don't know CSS but I like it.

3. Something about a massive reading at AWP.

4.

I've pretty much only been to three countries

Get a box of tissues and watch this all the way through:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080722.html

Then go check out Mud Luscious and the "full press review" of Publishing Genius.