{"id":224,"date":"2014-07-15T22:19:16","date_gmt":"2014-07-16T05:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bicycle-comics.com\/blog\/?p=224"},"modified":"2015-03-19T22:50:18","modified_gmt":"2015-03-20T05:50:18","slug":"what-is-an-indie-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bicycle-comics.com\/blog\/what-is-an-indie-press","title":{"rendered":"What is an &#8220;Indie&#8221; Press?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>When anyone can upload a Word .doc and call it an E-book, what are we &#8220;independent&#8221; from?<\/h3>\n<p>Yesterday on Twitter, <a title=\"eBook Noir's WordPress site\" href=\"http:\/\/ebooknoir.wordpress.com\/\">eBookNoir<\/a> asked a question:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/eBookNoir\">@eBookNoir<\/a> &#8220;Indie&#8221; is more of an umbrella term, comprising self-pub and small press.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u201d Bicycle Comics (@BicycleComics) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BicycleComics\/statuses\/489150330915913728\">July 15, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>We had a lengthy back-and-forth on Twitter, but to summarize my thoughts, I certainly hope we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let \u00e2\u20ac\u0153indie publishing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d become a byword for &#8220;self-publishing,&#8221; because the term occupies a useful space in our industry. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll all be worse off if our language loses the distinction.<\/p>\n<p>Bicycle Comics is a <em>small press<\/em>. To me, that means fewer than half of our books were written by me, Artie Moffa. Sam Teitel wrote two of our books, Carrie Rudzinski wrote one, and dozens of poets contributed to our three Lit Slam anthologies. I write the blog posts and the copyright pages, but those are packaging, not product. A <em>self-publisher<\/em> is someone who prints mostly or entirely her own writing. When I started Bicycle Comics in 2009, I contributed about 25% of the material for our first book, a four-author collection of poetry and comic strips. Maybe that means we started as a self-publisher. Since then, though, I haven&#8217;t written any of our books, and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been <a title=\"Bicycle Comics Books\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bicycle-comics.com\/pages\/books.html\">solidly in the small press category<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A <em>vanity press<\/em> is a company that makes books out of an author&#8217;s manuscript and sells the complete print run of books back to that author at retail price. The arrangement is not unlike ordering a set of business cards from a local print shop, although the cost of a vanity press is often much higher. eBookNoir says that the term &#8220;vanity publisher&#8221; is on the way out, and in any event I wouldn&#8217;t countenance vanity presses in the indie tent <a href=\"#note1\">(1)<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>All self-published authors are &#8220;indie&#8221; authors, but not all &#8220;indie&#8221; authors are self-published. <a title=\"Eliot Peper on Small Presses via Jane Friedman\" href=\"http:\/\/janefriedman.com\/2015\/03\/16\/small-press\/\">Small presses<\/a> and self-publishers have equal claim to the <em>indie publishing<\/em> category. They should share it. They share many of the same characteristics and challenges, after all. Most small presses and self-publishers use small teams of freelancers or part-time workers. They often patronize the same print shops and binderies. They often have to negotiate store-by-store for space on retail shelves. And while a few self-published authors and small presses get rich, for most indies, <a title=\"Ella Riley Adams on Giant Lit Mag festival\" href=\"http:\/\/contently.net\/2014\/07\/10\/stories\/big-voices-little-funding-search-digital-footing-giant-lit-mag-fair\/\">publishing is a labor of love<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The distinction between small press and self-publisher need not be one of quality. A writer with a flair for project management and favor-trading can certainly negotiate the production of good-quality paperbacks. But small presses have a role to play in the indie space, because many talented writers simply don&#8217;t have the time, money, or design sensibilities to oversee all parts of a publishing project. Sam Teitel is an insightful and (intentionally) hilarious poet. He is an unusual and (unintentionally) hilarious grammarian. Sam Teitel wouldn&#8217;t do well as a self-publisher, but the world is richer because <a title=\"Sam Teitel's Survive, Survive, Survive\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bicycle-comics.com\/pages\/books.html#anchor_survive\">his books<\/a> are in it.<\/p>\n<p>If eBookNoir is right and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153indie\u00e2\u20ac\u009d blurs with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153self-publishing,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I worry that <a title=\"Laura Hazard Owen in Gigaom about Class Warfare in Amazon vs. Hachette\" href=\"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/2014\/07\/14\/elites-or-freedom-fighters-how-the-amazon-hachette-battle-took-on-the-rhetoric-of-class-warfare\/#\">the kind of schism<\/a> that has Kindle Direct Publishing authors <a title=\"Laura Miller in Salon.com about KDP authors vs. Hachette\" href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/2014\/06\/17\/amazon_is_not_your_best_friend_why_self_published_authors_should_side_with_hachette\/\">gleefully decrying<\/a> Big Publishers as ossified dinosaurs will one day divide two groups whose interests largely align <a href=\"#note2\">(2)<\/a>. However things shake out for the giants of the publishing world, indies rely on many of the markets they create (Kindle) and technologies they underwrite (Adobe Creative Suite). Meanwhile, it&#8217;s the combined purchasing power of small presses and self-publishers <a href=\"#note3\">(3)<\/a> that keeps the ecosystem of print shops, niche software companies, and &#8216;zine festivals going. Bicycle Comics prints our mass-market paperbacks through <a title=\"48 Hour Books\" href=\"http:\/\/www.48hrbooks.com\/\">48hrbooks<\/a> and our boutique books through <a title=\"Deschamps Printing\" href=\"http:\/\/www.deschampsprinting.com\/\">Deschamps Printing<\/a>. Those facilities would not exist if either of the indie publishers went away. Neither indie would be well-served by an &#8220;us vs. them&#8221; mentality. If \u00e2\u20ac\u0153indie\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is short for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153independent,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d then what are we independent from? We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re independent, to varying degrees, from shareholders or boards of trustees. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re independent in that we can change our prices, genres, mission, or supply chains without too much hassle. It&#8217;s that panoply of technologies and vendors that allows us these options <a href=\"#note4\">(4)<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Big Five publishers<\/em> lack this independence, and they are pretty easy to spot. Hachette is in a knock-down, drag-out battle with Amazon right now, because Hachette is too big to be independent or nimble <a href=\"#note5\">(5)<\/a>. If they were to issue a press release stating \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Screw it; all our books will be $7 PDF downloads starting tomorrow,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d its authors, supply chains, and shareholders would howl.<\/p>\n<p>Likewise, <em>academic publishers<\/em>, big or small, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fit under the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153indie\u00e2\u20ac\u009d umbrella. They, too, are often labors of love, with a few <a title=\"Thomas Picketty's Capital\" href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/blogs\/economist-explains\/2014\/05\/economist-explains\">profitable exceptions<\/a>, but they answer to scholarly standards and operate at the pleasure of the college\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s board of trustees. Academic publishers are the last major market segment still likely to own their own printing presses; indies can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t afford them and the Big Five outsourced such labor-intensive cost centers a decade ago. Small press publishers, while perhaps harder to root for than solo self-publishers, have similar needs and goals. We face the same changing media landscape, scarred though it may be by the ongoing clash of larger players. The &#8220;indie&#8221; label, I hope, is something we can both rally under. \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><em>Updated March 2015 with new paragraph break and a link to a useful blog post over on Jane Friedman&#8217;s site.<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>Notes<\/h3>\n<p><a name=\"note1\"><\/a>(1) Outfits such as Author Solutions (no link, no way) are industry pariahs, but there is nothing inherently awful about a vanity press; Apple&#8217;s <a title=\"Apple Print Products\" href=\"https:\/\/www.apple.com\/mac\/print-products\/\">iPhoto Books<\/a> are a reasonable example of a cash-up-front vanity publisher. As I tweeted to eBookNoir: \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/eBookNoir\">@eBookNoir<\/a> Because that stigma was never on the \/label\/. It was on the \/practice\/ of trying to pass as something other than what one was. \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Bicycle Comics (@BicycleComics) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BicycleComics\/statuses\/489155354362511360\">July 15, 2014<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s no stigma to paying extra money to get customized goods and services. Bespoke suits, upgrade packages on cars, or fancy business cards aren&#8217;t disparaged. The problem with vanity press is the number of <em>customers<\/em> who pass themselves off as <em>authors<\/em>. The pomp of &#8220;I&#8217;ve just been published&#8221; instead of &#8220;I&#8217;ve just ordered a set of custom books.&#8221; The stigma was never intrinsic to the &#8220;Vanity&#8221; business model. The stigma comes from dishonesty, which has always been stigmatized, and rightfully so.<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"note2\"><\/a>(2) the <em>Gigaom<\/em> article discusses &#8220;self-publishers&#8221; vs. &#8220;traditional publishers,&#8221; but I think small presses belong more with self-publishers than with the Big Five. I worked for six years at a Big Five (back then it was Big Six) publisher before I started Bicycle Comics. The Bicycle Comics <del datetime=\"2014-07-16T18:16:29+00:00\">dining room<\/del> office bears scant resemblance to Pearson&#8217;s six floors in Boston&#8217;s tony Back Bay.<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"note3\"><\/a>(3)I don&#8217;t often see the term <em>mid-market publisher<\/em> or <em>medium-sized press<\/em>, but for a start I&#8217;d say that such publishers have multiple editorial and production teams, and they (usually) have a specific contact person at major distributors. If everyone on staff works at least a little bit on every title, then that&#8217;s probably still a small press, not a mid-market press.<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"note4\"><\/a>(4) Some of us may not be independent of Amazon. If you&#8217;re enrolled in KDP select, for example, then I&#8217;d argue you&#8217;re not really an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153indie.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d You&#8217;re in some new space for which the proper nomenclature hasn&#8217;t yet emerged.<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"note5\"><\/a>(5) Many of the KDP authors watching from the sideliness aren&#8217;t as nimble or independent as they flatter themselves; if the Big Five were to fall, do they really think Amazon&#8217;s terms would continue to be so generous?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When anyone can upload a Word .doc and call it an E-book, what are we &#8220;independent&#8221; from? Yesterday on Twitter, eBookNoir asked a question: @eBookNoir &#8220;Indie&#8221; is more of an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":""},"categories":[33,11],"tags":[73,7,83,82],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bicycle-comics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bicycle-comics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bicycle-comics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bicycle-comics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bicycle-comics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.bicycle-comics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bicycle-comics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bicycle-comics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bicycle-comics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}