Overland literary journal

Meanland: Doctorow on Copyright vs Creativity

Cory Doctorow spoke in Melbourne on Thursday night as part of the Meanland and Melbourne Writers Festival ‘Big Ideas’ lecture series. For those unable to attend, I have transcribed below as much as I could from my indecipherable notes on the lecture, ‘Copyright vs creativity’.

Rule number 1: If there’s a lock for something and you haven’t been given the key, it’s not for your benefit. ... read more

Written by Jacinda Woodhead on 6-09-2010, No comments

Meanland – ‘No thanks, I’ve seen an old issue at the library’: on the responsibility of the reader for the decline of publishing

So you, the reader, want to save independent publishing in Australia? Go forth and buy a book. Be daring: buy an armful. The truly intrepid might add a subscription, or several, to one of Australia’s exceptional literary journals – a commitment to the health of the Australian literary scene, if you will.

This isn’t to imply that readers have money to burn, or that they should spend all of their disposable income on books and journals. Yet, readers – above all, those of the aspiring writer variety – are often reluctant to part with their cash when it comes to investing in Australian publishing. And for aspiring writers and readers alike, this is precisely how we can define purchasing local printed commodities: an investment. ... read more

Written by Jacinda Woodhead on 18-08-2010, No comments

Almost (not) famous – or published

Here are ten reasons why you shouldn’t despair if you have an unpublished manuscript. These famous rejections are sure to cheer you up:

1. Can you imagine a world without Possum Magic? Apparently many publishers could. Mem Fox's classic was rejected nine times over five years. Little Hush would have remained invisible were it not for Omnibus Books in Adelaide. Originally called Hugh, the Invisible Mouse, Omnibus suggested changing the mice to possums, and the rest, as they say, is history. Since 1983 Possum Magic has sold 3.5 million copies, making it the bestselling Aussie kids’ book of all time. Speaking of magic leads me to … ... read more

Written by Irma Gold on 2-08-2010, 6 user comments

The democratisation of publishing (and a bit of Clay Shirky for good measure)

A brandspanking new Meanland post:

The idea that the printing press democratised reading, writing and ideas is widely embraced. This is not to suggest it was – or remains in its internet incarnation – politically progressive or, indeed, revolutionary. Matthew Battles reminds us:

The printing press never only produced the kind of deep reading we admire and privilege today. It also produced propaganda and misinformation, penny dreadfuls and comic books offensive to public morality, pornography, self-help books, and much that was generally despised and rejected by polite culture. Any account of the history of “The Gutenberg Era” that lacks these is incomplete — just as any picture of the Internet that privileges LOLcats and 4chan is insufficient. We must consider both — for pornography, misinformation, and sheer foolishness have thrived from the age of incunables to the advent of the Internet.

Written by Jacinda Woodhead on 29-07-2010, No comments

Meanland extract – Amazon and that old fudging figures manoeuvre

Unless you slept through yesterday (or for some incomprehensible reason went offline), you probably heard how Amazon won the book wars, summed up so succinctly in this New York Times headline: E-Books Top Hardcovers at Amazon:

Monday was a day for the history books — if those will even exist in the future.

Amazon.com, one of the nation’s largest booksellers, announced Monday that for the last three months, sales of books for its e-reader, the Kindle, outnumbered sales of hardcover books.

In that time, Amazon said, it sold 143 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books, including hardcovers for which there is no Kindle edition.

Written by Jacinda Woodhead on 22-07-2010, No comments

Meanland extract – On Wholphin, and other things McSweeney

I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but journals are no longer confined to the printed periodical. Shocking, yet true. Even in traditional publishing spheres, content production is being approached in pioneering ways.

The publishing house that immediately comes to mind – and I swear I’m not a McSweeney’s fanatic – is, well, McSweeney’s.

McSweeeny’s publish books, translated texts, the Voice of Witness series (a series of oral histories focusing on social justice), McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, The Believer and Wholphin. ... read more

Written by Jacinda Woodhead on 1-07-2010, No comments

On copyright and Australian cinema

The Meanland essay in Overland 199 is written by author, SPUNC President and Wet Ink fiction editor, Emmett Stinson. ‘The pirate code’ delves into the underbelly of copyright during the digital revolution – and comes to some surprising conclusions:

Right now publishers are abuzz with discussions of ‘book futures’ and the digital revolution, but there is still an almost complete uncertainty surrounding even the most basic issues. What, if any, devices will become standard for electronic reading? How will books be distributed? What formats will be used? A recent stand-off over pricing resulted in all of Pan Macmillan’s e-book titles being temporarily unavailable on Amazon’s website, demonstrating that the industry can’t even agree on what digital books should cost.

Written by Editorial team on 29-06-2010, 1 user comment

Giving writers a voice
– a Barry Scott investigation

In 2009, Barry Scott, Transit Lounge publisher, received a CAL grant to investigate the American independent publishing scene. In his Overland essay, Barry shares his research – from Chin Music Press to McSweeney’s – and reflects on what that independent spirit could mean for Australian publishing:

During 2009 I was the fortunate recipient of a Copyright Agency Limited grant to meet with small independent publishers in the US to discuss the state of the industry. As a small press publisher from Melbourne, I was looking for something to indicate that people were tired of the mall-like sameness of the publishing industry, the stranglehold of large retails chains and the domination of media conglomerates. What I saw didn’t dispel my fears regarding the economic viability of independent presses: consumers are ultimately going to want what they have heard about repeatedly, something that comes more easily with a large marketing budget. Yet I was reassured by the initiatives of small publishers to nurture a vibrant culture of writing and reading.

Written by admin on 11-06-2010, No comments

Meanland extract – The iPad: tool of revolution or contrivance of capitalism?

It’s already a revolution and it’s only just begun.

We’ve all heard the grandiose claims: iPad sales hit 2 million

Written by Jacinda Woodhead on 3-06-2010, No comments

The love that dare not speak its name: we need to talk about editing

I used to work for an order more clandestine than the Knights Templar, more invisible than the Invisible Woman, more prone to secrecy than Jason Bourne. We did our work in secret, erasing our identities before and after every job, writing confidential reports and often never meeting the human they concerned. I’m sure there are other professions that still operate with the secrecy and guardedness of a medieval guild. But I’m beginning to think the secrecy that surrounds my old profession is doing the sort of damage that’s done to anyone forced into secrecy. I’m thinking paranoia, depression. That profession is book editing.

Book editors regularly open themselves to an other, go deeply into that other’s innermost being (their text), and work to transform that text (and be themselves transformed) without touching it. And then they must let go of it all and be forever silent. I think all this secret intimacy is doing editors’ heads in. Writers are renowned for their paranoia, their swings between omnipotence and impotence, their depression and insecurity. But in my experience, editors suffer just as much if not more from these debilitating states – mostly without the upswing of omnipotence. Why? Possibly because they’re treated mostly like shit. Poorly paid and never acknowledged, always blamed when things go wrong. ... read more

Written by Jane Gleeson-White on 28-04-2010, 40 user comments

Off to see the wizard

It’s wonderful to see the diversity of good folk involved in the profession of writing, editing, publishing and scriptwriting. I am impressed by the dedication and passion of individuals who publish, teach, speak, blog, run workshops, assess, praise and damn – and their enthusiasm for writing and writers, both established and emerging.

What strikes me is the fine line between amateur and professional when it comes to the industry of writing and how much that razor’s edge is defined by the estimation and judgement of the mainstream publishing industry.

I was lucky enough to have a ticket to ‘In conversation with Nick Cave’ at the Arts Centre in April, 2008. Nick talked about the business of writing as his work – how these days he goes into his office and works at the creative art of writing. I thought I understood what he was getting at, attempting to demystify the process and illumine the hard-work aspect, but remember thinking – that’s all very well once your work has been published or received acknowledgement as valid and worthy. Until such time, going into your office and spending hours of unpublished, unacknowledged work is a very different proposition and, in my experience, seen in a very different light, that is: not as work at all. Nick also attempted to debunk the idea of the Muse and at the same time declared his own Muse to be a real bitch, so I guess it’s not all clear for him either. ... read more

Written by Clare Strahan on 14-04-2010, 14 user comments

The Monday review – write what you think when you think about Afghanistan

I've had this idea about writing lately that just won’t be stilled. Not wholly my idea (as if they exist) and it’s not limited to, though this review focuses on, writing.

The idea goes like this: perhaps there is something unhealthy about the state of writing today in Melbourne, in Australia, around the world.

Too often it seems our writers, our institutions, our courses and our practices are steeped in introspection, at times, to the neglect of the external world. We are transfixed by the personal, by our own experiences of what it's like to move through and inhabit this world. Write what you know, we are told. And the only things we know are our experiences and our inner world. Alternatively, we write what no-one knows, as in genre fiction, where the world is imagined. ... read more

Written by Jacinda Woodhead on 8-03-2010, 26 user comments

‘Who cares about gender at a time like this?’

According to a post on the SPUNC blog last week, independent Australian publishing does.

Laurie Steed wrote that there aren’t enough women submitting to journals and publishers in Australia:

Of the 200 submissions received by Affirm Press, around 80 percent have been from male writers.

This year also sees the release of the next Sleepers almanac, a collection which often features the best women writers in the country, and yet, according to Sleepers Editorial Director Louise Swinn, the majority of their submissions are also from male writers, be they brilliant, brooding, or mildly unhinged.

Which begs the question: where are all the broken-hearted women today? Where are the open-soul, pen scratching into the page of the first-draft, thesaurus-scouring, story-shaping women when we need them?

Written by Jacinda Woodhead on 20-01-2010, 14 user comments

a good news story about publishing

You become, in these times in particular, accustomed to tale after tale of collapse in literary publishing (or even journalism -- here's another piece about US newspapers crossing a final threshold). But the NYT has a story about a company called Europa Editions which, as it says, has succeeded by publishing 'roster of translated literary novels written mainly by Europeans, relying heavily on independent-bookstore sales, without an e-book or vampire in sight'. (Not that there's anything wrong with vampires -- or e-books, for that matter.) ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 1-03-2009, 5 user comments