Dagoberto Gilb: What does online publishing mean to you?
14 Dec
Today American Short Fiction draws to a close our more than a week-long conversation about online publication by offering a final illuminating voice. Just the thing, we think, to add that extra special sparkle to the holidays.
The topic of conversation remains: What does online publishing mean to you?
Get up to speed on the conversation:
Monday, Rick Rofihe and Rick Moody began the discussion.
Tuesday, Matt Stewart shined some light on his own guiding principles.
Wednesday, Deltina Hay lit up a publisher’s perspective.
Thursday, Matt Bell exposed the deep darkness before the light in his own reading-writing universe.
Friday, Owen Egerton explored the strangely sexy nuances of the topic.
Today, the conversation continues. . .
Dagobert Gilb, what does online publishing mean to you?
Dagoberto Gilb (photo nytimes.com)
Dagoberto Gilb answers:
Not liking online publishing is. . . being like some rouged old lady, who dyed her hair red, and, transported to now, griping about the ass in badass. I remember that lady well from 9th grade. There was a lot she didn’t like. For example, me. I didn’t read then. At all. Especially I wouldn’t read Silas Marner, a novel we not only were expected to read but to write some paper about. What the f did it have to do with where and how I lived? And so no paper from me. I did type the cover page, my name and the class, and stapled that to an older girl’s older paper, already typed. I was not a good student. I did not get good grades. Teacher gave me a D. Which, I felt, wasn’t an F. Onward!
Now I wonder about Silas Marner and think I should go back and read it. What we are given everywhere in these times for reading enjoyment never has zip to do with ordinary people who have ordinary jobs—or who don’t and are worried. And though I don’t mind words that are rude or crude or mad fly getting in the language, at her age now, I completely understand that teacher’s worry. It’s not so much a word itself, any of them, it’s the lack of respect for all the work and care that went into those others and their use. It’s the way those words, those pages, get treated like they are only fashion on a sunny, sandy beach of syllables to play on.
I’ve never published anything online. That is to say, online only. I had a similar no experience with email, which I was late to as well. My son, then a student at UT-Austin, linked me up. He sent me my first email. My second was from him too, but it was a forwarded one. From Russia, from Moscow—sent to him, looking for me. Swear to God. It was this scholar doing a paper…on me, and she had a question. Strange, but very cool and not bad, right? Now I love email.
I don’t know much about online publishing. It does seem too easy to me. Too easy to get accepted there since the risk is so low. And too easy to forget. I love buildings too. And libraries. I love books. I mean the ones with pages. But people have to buy them. And they buy them like they should drive up…but then I like food that’s cheap and fast too. I go to this place around the corner from me all the time, Super Burrito. Good food (pollo asado), real cheap. And it’s true, there are just as many very pretentious readers, like there are pretentious eaters. You know how they are. I’m glad they don’t control everything. Even if they have 99% of the money and prestige, all that, not everything has to be about pedigree and coin, does it?
I like coffee. Some might say pretentious coffee. I especially go to those cafes when I’m out of town, even out of the country. There are all these people, mostly young but not all, sitting cheap for hours with one cup, and they are staring at laptop computer screens. They are not stupid people.
So, I’m watching. What can I do anyway? I’m not rich, the forces are the forces. Change is always scary. And we often think change is a bigger deal than it really is. Smart people tend to do smart things, dumbasses do the dumbass and think it’s like whack.
Dagoberto Gilb is the author of celebrated story and essay collections, and novels–including his most recent, The Flowers. He’s the editor of the lauded Hecho en Tejas: An Anthology of Texas Mexican Literature.
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And you, dear reader, won’t you continue the conversation?
Perhaps you agree with writer and editor Rick Rofihe, that “the print book is not long for this world.” Or maybe Rick Moody speaks your mind when he calls for “Parchment, goatskin, vellum, [...] acid-free paper, which is still a better and longer lasting storage medium than anything digital.” Or does Matt Stewart, Twitter novelist, got your back when he says, “Online publishing is a terrific venue to capture my attention—but a terrible venue to hold it for long”? Maybe it’s publisher Deltina Hay‘s thoughts that mirror your own—that “online media” is best for “news and research, and for occasional amusement” and perhaps to “serve as an effective staging area” for book-selling? Then again, Matt Bell wouldn’t even be the writer, reviewer and editor he is if online literature hadn’t made it to his computer screen beginning about one decade ago. Or, does the entire discussion and its reality leave you feeling as Owen Egerton, does: schizophrenically lost, torn, grieving in the gap between the “adventure” and “possibility” wrought by online publishing—and the loss of the sensual, the artifact, the actual book. Dagoberto Gilb has his own grip pretty tight on the the sitch, too: “I’m watching,” he says. “Change is always scary. And we often think change is a bigger deal than it really is. Smart people tend to do smart things, dumbasses do the dumbass and think it’s like whack.”
We’d love to hear from you! Add your own comments about the smart and the dumbass below. . .
I’m a writer. I publish online. I have readers. More and more readers. I intend to keep publishing online. It’s the easiest way to publish, and nobody tells you what you may or may not do.
Quality is the writer’s responsibility – not an agent’s, not an editor’s, not anyone else’s..
I’ve been fiction editor at Identity Theory for several years now, and as an online-only journal, Identity Theory’s online publishing mean, well, everything. And we keep finding and featuring great new writers precisely because they get to publish their work freely online, making it easy for readers and other editors to enjoy and evaluate their work.
It’s something I wrote about recently for our editor’s blog, but the point is access. Unless you can be published in a major, stable print journal, why would you ever want your work in a publication that doesn’t have a good web presence? Every up-and-coming writer wants to tell their MFA buddies that the editors of a journal just accepted their piece and those buddies can find that piece at the following web address. Who today wants to say, “I just got published! And you can see it by sending a check to this P.O. Box and waiting five weeks to get a hard copy”?
L. Lee and Andrew, without a doubt accessibility and quality are concerns no matter where writers publish. An issue that strikes me: When a print journal goes out of business there’s often a paper trail, an artifact that still may be found. Not always the case when an online journal–even one of great quality and easy access–goes under…or even changes its content management system. In that case, years of a writer’s work may disappear forever and without a shadow, without a trace. And when the product, the evidence, the *thing* or artifact of a writer’s work is gone, the padding in the CV, the reputation, goes with it.
This speaks to the responsibility issue. While a writer can cross-save each piece s/he produces (print a copy of every online piece published and save an online version of every print piece published), a writer can’t make a publisher–print or online–stay in business forever. Risk, then, is the very loud and present word behind the discussion.
Stacy, yes, you highlight an issue which is of real concern. There are online archives where writers can store backups of their work, but of course there’s no guarantee that they will continue to be maintained, or even that the technology will not change drastically, thereby rendering all but the most renowned works inaccessible – think wire recorders! In my case, I’ve printed archival copies of my novels for my family, since I have no illusions about membership in any future canon (and as hackneyed as it sounds, I really do write mostly for myself). But I have a certain amount of confidence that technical solutions ought to be feasible. –Lee
I haven’t heard any environmental arguments yet (though I just tuned in today). Anyone been to library book sale lately? Our local libraries have sales throughout the year–boxes and boxes of ten cent or twenty-five cent books, words, ideas, paper, all about to go into the landfill/recycling bin. Electronic publishing does ease the burden of trees. I’m not trying to be goofy here. But why do we write–I mean, why do we make or try to make our work public? To read, yes, but also to be able to say, look! me! and suck our own d*cks, so to speak–to take part in the illusion of literary immortality. I’m not going down in history. Why shouldn’t I take advantage of the beauty and transience and instant accessibility of online publishing?
How does print-on-demand come into play here?
What about the reader? How does the act of reading online affect the reader experience? I, for one, cannot stand reading more than a page online. My eyes can’t handle the strain. What would an optometrist say to that?
D.O., I expect to continue exploration of the question so stay tuned; if there’s someone(s) you’d like to hear speak to (m)any of your points, do let me know.
To some of your thoughts: Does your love for the “beauty and transience and instant accessibility of [what's] online” keep you from enjoying the reading printed books that may in fact find their way to the “recycle bin” you mention? Is it your experience with “bad” books that leads you to believe the desire to write on is a particularly body-bending, self-pleasuring? Or…?
As for making a written work public: not a facile topic with a ready-made answer. It’s obvious that some individuals (named or not) have found literary life up until this moment and likely beyond it. Including those who chinked away at the Rosetta Stone or inked upon animal skins, papyrus, copper; some of these artifacts we call the Dead Sea Scrolls. Not simply “look! me!” documents, yes?
Print on demand. An elegant solution–if first one handles that pesky “environmental/tree” question. And I do keep meaning to research where all the heat energy from all those hardworking laptops and printers goes…
It seems you are correct, D.O., in having a fraught relationship with your reading material.
Correction:
Second paragraph, last two lines should read:
“bad” books that leads you to believe the desire to write one is a particularly body-bending, self-pleasuring act? Or…?”
Thanks for the reply, Stacy. I don’t mean to simply discredit the long and noble history of the word on paper, stone, etc. That would be insane of me. Many have found the literary life–but even more have not. The sheer number of writers wanting to get their work out there is monumental, no? It seems like online publishing creates the perfect space to handle that load (whether the work is “bad” or “not bad”–which is irrelevant, really) without the excess waste and economic issues, which is the beauty of it.
Yes, my relationship with online material is “fraught.” Really, I can’t read extensively online (I haven’t tried an e-reader); the experience is terrible for me. I love books–as objects, as tactile things. So it’s actually the opposite: my online reading experience keeps me from appreciating works that are solely online. But aside from my experiences, as a medium I think it holds a lot of attraction.
I wonder, too, about this (and maybe this is trivial, ‘thinking’ as I go here): does online work somehow take away from the writer’s medium? What I mean is–say the writer’s ultimate goal is a book. An object. Take away that object by digitizing it–and what’s left? A painter has a painting, a sculptor a sculpture, photography a photo, and while all these things can be digitized as images, the object remains, their presence remains. What, if anything, does the writer sacrifice there?
It seems the discussion has made a huge, unwarranted assumption: that readers have casual, 24/7 access to the internet — and those who don’t, don’t count in this discussion. I think about all the other countries who are not linked in, as well as the many students and adults in the US who do not have ready access to the internet (consider what it would be like if you had to read your library book — in the library only!)
I believe these are good questions, and worth discussing — but please, let’s not make the same self-centered mistake that many of the wealthy did in previous centuries: that “we” are the only ones who should be involved in this discussion; that “we” are making all the decisions. What say you all to the concept that the books/zines are spreading to areas with minimal internet? Does that count?