/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6406213]

Why doesn't /lit/ create its own publishing house?

I'm not talking about meme-lit like Tundra, but since geographical location is irrelevant due to the internet, and because the internet has its own culture (or maybe subculture(s)) who don't care where a writer is from, why don't we take submissions from /lit/ (not sure how we'd prevent outsiders from coming here)?

We could have a policy where the writers and the editors are all forced to be anonymous. Editing would have to be high-standard, and maybe the amount each volunteer editor who signs up for any given book will receive a percentage of the prospective royalties based on the amount of work they did on it.


I honestly think this is a good idea, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.

[Anonymous No.6406230]

Pros:
- No need to pay rent on a physical office / location (unless we need to pay tax or some shit)
- Patrician community of editors / readers
- Already known as a representative example of internet culture (which not many writers cover in an interesting way)
- International userbase (will help people from countries with shit-tier publishing culture to get their work published)
- People posting / editing 24/7, so workload can be spread out

Cons:
- Possible issues with hierarchy, since there isn't one on here
- Hard to maintain interest if money isn't involved
- Memeposting and spamming the submissions inbox with memes / shitposting
- Difficulty in reaching consensus about the quality of any given work; maybe an internal vote or something will have to take place to decide if a book gets taken on

[Anonymous No.6406241]

Marketing / Promotion:

1. We could make a /lit/ twitter account and infiltrate the alt-lit scene who are looking for a new source of contemporary literature since the Tao, Dierks et al. scandal.

2. We could, via spamming and general mischief, force national or respective publications to pay attention to us (maybe have to be careful about this to avoid being dismissed)

3. Publish stuff by other boards (like the novel /x/ has written, but again would have to be careful about this since we don't want to steal and make money (>) from people who didn't want their work being used)

4. We could ask college anons to use fake names to review the books we publish, to gain a readership on college campuses

5. We could put fake approving quotes from people like Tao Lin etc, which are believable, until he's forced to either deny that he did (which be seen as lame of him) or approve what we're doing

6. We could raise money (money is the big thing here) to offer small advances or something so it motivates people to publish their stuff here

[Anonymous No.6406250]

Sounds like a good idea but you're still gonna have to be able to print something, how do you intend on printing the books?

[Anonymous No.6406251]

You cannot be serious.

/lit/ is a cesspool of pseudo-intellectuals, who have little to no knowledge of literature

Nobody here knows what constitutes good writing.

Nobody here knows nearly enough about literature to form their own personal tastes let alone judge others.

People here don't even fucking read the books they criticise.

Serious artists would take one look at this place and never come back.

It is a void of baseless opinions and posturing.

Nobody here has any literary potential.

SMH

[Anonymous No.6406255]

>>6406250
>>6406250
I guess we can put our heads together and maybe find somewhere that will publish them in the USA and maybe central Europe somewhere (so people in those two areas don't get shanked by shipping). I think other anons might have some better ideas though.

On the plus side our bookcovers will be aestehtic as hell.

[Anonymous No.6406256]

>>6406230
>Patrician community

Have you seen the writefag threads?

[Anonymous No.6406293]

>>6406251
>Projection

[Anonymous No.6406294]

>>6406293
>butthurt

[Anonymous No.6406336]

/b/ will rape all your hopes into the ground but it sounds nice

[Anonymous No.6406381]

There are some weird people here, like me, who actually would enjoy being editors. We understand that it's idiotic the thinking of >>6406251 >Nobody here knows what constitutes good writing. and that an editor's job is the discuss the work with the author to make it as logical and sincere as he can make it by questioning his ideas and intentions. I doubt there would be too much trouble with that aspect.
But what would be the point? A series of ebooks? that's hardly worth months of effort writing, months of editing and months of advertisement. And we could never compete with platforms like Amazon that sort of do that on their own.

On the other hand, it would be funny to just selfpublish lesser works as part of an imprint or something like that. Trying to make an artificial "/lit/-core" movement like alt-lit, with a similar variety in quality.

[Anonymous No.6406483]

>>6406381
>Trying to make an artificial "/lit/-core" movement like alt-lit, with a similar variety in quality.

I agree. Also there are a handful of people on /lit/ with stuff already written I'm sure, they just can't find a publishers willing to take it. And also for college kids it would be useful for them to use this as a sort of practice, knowing that we understand internet culture and the demographic we will attempt to sell these books to also understand it.

Look at muumuu books, it breaks even and has hundreds of ratings on goodreads for the books it puts out.

[Anonymous No.6406811]

>>6406213
>anonymous
>control the reputation towards a high-standard

it's called shitposting for a reason.

[Anonymous No.6406830]

>>6406213
Seems like a bad idea. Only shit prose literature with a leftist slant would ever get through.

[Anonymous No.6406839]

>>6406213
You don't realize how bad of readers and writers /lit/ contains do you? Nothing would ever be successful. We are all less than mediocre here....that's why we fucking hangout on a literature board of 4chan for fucks sake.

[Anonymous No.6406842]

>>6406241
>We could put fake approving quotes from people like Tao Lin etc, which are believable, until he's forced to either deny that he did (which be seen as lame of him)

top fucking kek

count me in, if only for this

[Anonymous No.6406845]

>>6406381
I'd like to walk on Mars, but that doesn't mean I'm a trained astronaut.

Go fuck yourself, faggot.

[Anonymous No.6406851]

>>6406241
If somebody puts up the money I would be down

[Anonymous No.6406874]

>>6406851
>>6406842
>>6406483
>>6406381
>>6406255
>>6406250
>>6406241
>>6406241
>>6406230
>>6406213


You are the fedora wearing, having mom take picture, katana wielding, trench coat sporting, waifu having, body pillow owning neckbeard fucktard who makes anyone who sees him cringe....and you don't even realize it.


You're all so pathetically fucking worthless and depressing. How do you live a daily life in constant embarrassment without killing yourself? You're absolutely everything society finds ridiculous and shame worthy.

You're two steps above child fuckers, and those are tolerated on /b/ and /pol/ anyways and 99% of the basement dwellers here cross onto those two boards anyways along with /r9k/, I'm the 1% because /r9k/ browsing is the literal signing of a contract dictating that you're entire cesspool of chromosomes should be eliminated with extreme prejudice.

Go.fuck.yourselves.you.ignorant.fucks.

[Anonymous No.6406896]

>>6406874
Try harder

[Anonymous No.6406911]

>>6406896
>T..t.t.t.try..try harder

[Anonymous No.6407193]

for realz ill edit stuff if this comes together (for free obvs). i need editing experience more than oxygen

[Anonymous No.6407199]

>>6406874
Why should anyone in this thread take any shit from someone who does the single.words.separated.by.periods thing? It's the most cringeworthy emphasis device in the English language. It's not even recognized by any serious style guide.

[Anonymous No.6407352]

i've thought of doing something like this with /lit/. the way i see it, we wouldn't be able to publish anything on paper right away. we'd have to start online with a small but dedicated group of editors. we'd need a website, which would be infinitely cheaper than a publishing house, but you have to start somewhere. also, to prevent shitposting i would say to disallow anonymous submissions. it would give incentive to only submit work one would want their name attached to. submissions should be open to anyone, though /lit/ as a community would be where the editors and audience come from. i would go with only a handful stories published quarterly. if it picks up steam then we move to maybe a bi-yearly print magazine. the thing to remember though, would be to first establish presence to keep interest. we can't just jump into publishing. it has to grow

[Anonymous No.6408179]

Let's do this guys. I am in.

[Anonymous No.6409743]

>>6406213
Reviving the old Zine Writers Guild publication seems like a better idea, to be honest. That was the only thing of value this board's ever done.

[Anonymous No.6409780]

>>6406213
this isn't that stupid an idea
look at vaporwave, we could do that but with writing; we already kind of have with tundra

[Anonymous No.6409781]

>>6409743
We could just make a new zine, with a new name and start from scratch.

[Anonymous No.6409802]

>>6407199
>talks about single.words.seperated.by.periods.thing. in a negative light.
>completely understands and is 100% affected by said emphasis device


butt hurt much?

[Anonymous No.6409803]

>>6409781
why? then it'll just die again
let's rebuild TAR

[Anonymous No.6409820]

>>6409781
I'd be for it. Hell, I was one of the co-editors of my college zine. We managed a pretty decent publication with a bunch of uninterested commuter students writing for classwork.

http://www.sequoyalitmag.com/

[Anonymous No.6409828]

>>6409803
I could answer the same to you:
>Why? then it'll just die again.
If we make something new we don't have failure on your past to worry about.
Also, TAR was charactertistic because it gave monetary prices to the best writers. I don't have any kind of interest in doing so. The more zines we make the more we can pretend we're a good board, and it's fun to invent names and formats.
I say: tabloid seize, three columns. Short stories share their page with flash fiction. Illustrations allowed.

[Anonymous No.6409839]

>>6409828
could probably make it a cross-board thing, too. /p/ can put out some good work when they're not gearfagging and there are drawthreads on /a/ where we could troll for artists.

[Anonymous No.6409844]

>>6409820
I like what you did with that Wix. I would still prefer a pdf that people could print and show off, though. We could have both.

>>6409839
It really depends. If we're gonna be serious about this I'm sure we could get some people from /ic/. They're nice if you don't pressure them too much or demand things they don't like.

[Anonymous No.6409880]

>>6409828
it wasn't a failure, they just got tired

[Anonymous No.6409886]

>>6409880
And so will we, but we can't pretend that it isn't so.
Fuck, I would be willing to keep permanent recruitment so we always have people interested and fresh.

[Anonymous No.6409892]

>>6406213
nah keep it to meme /lit/

We can't compete with traditional forms so why bother? Keep it fresh and spicy, like Tundra

[Anonymous No.6409896]

>>6409844
meeting a monthly publication goal ends up being kind of impossible after awhile. I remember the /lit/mag had maybe 6 (relatively) strong issues, two absolute shit ones with 90% poetry and then one abortive ninth issue that drove the whole effort into the ground.

Might be best to just stick with a curated site.

>>6409780
this guy's pretty on point with the vaporwave comparison. AMDiscs curated a lot of content for awhile before they become a "label". Really a ground-up grassroots approach

[Anonymous No.6409903]

>>6409896
>meeting monthly goals
Yeah, we had to cut back from monthly to quarterly for the university mag. Might be different with a board full of (aspiring?) writers.

[Anonymous No.6409912]

>>6409896
Mh... how about a curated site with a bi-monthly best of selection? If we're not going for at least a dozen good stories every two months we might as well not do it.
ZWG had the problem that they tried to be good looking to an extreme, they had a pdf, an epub and another type of publication, and all three had issues with their design. They had half a dozen designers and a couple editors, and they gathered a lot of hate from rejected people. We could do better than that.

When you say curated, you mean in general terms "paying attention to what we put" or you mean selecting material from critique threads? I can see the second part end up in a lot of butthurt from people we don't select and being accused of being attentionwhore divas.

[Anonymous No.6409928]

>>6409912
>ZWG
>rejecting

If some of the shit they published was put through a selection process, I shudder to think about what ended up in the rejection pile.

[Anonymous No.6409945]

>>6409928
Oh. they posted some of it and it was horrible. The thing is that the anons kept complaining and there reached a point in which more people had heard that they were elitist fagots than seen the shit they had sent. They overcompensated lowering their standards, afraid of getting more hate. It didn't have a very mature editorial.
More reasons to stand on out own.

[Hibari !trap0OylHY No.6409976]

I'm off to bed, but I would really like to work on a zine with you guys. I was chating with another anon about doing a specialized pulp thing, but we could have both or work together or go fuck ourselves. I'm in for any of those.
If anyone wants to make an irc in the vein of "/lit/'s newer zine" that would be great, but we can share mails or skype or something, I don't know what kids do now.

Love!

[Anonymous No.6410694]

>>6409976
>tripfag
>"brand"fag
>weeb
>cringey posts

OP here. I wish I could delete this thread but I can't. So I'm just going to sage and hope nothing in this thread materializes. You are cancer.

[Anonymous No.6411433]

>>6409886
alternating board of editors. it is the /lit/ way. you know it to be true

[Anonymous No.6411458]

>>6409896
>>6409903
>>6409912
i think quarterly should be good that gives more than enough time for slushing through submissions, coming to consensus among the editors, the actual editing if needed, and putting it all out there in a respectable manner. if we inundate /lit/ with shit every month it'll just fall to the wayside. we need to give /lit/ a good 3 months to shipost on the publications in between.

[Anonymous No.6411463]

/lit/ is garbage, no thanks.

[Anonymous No.6411473]

>>6411458
It's the other way around. If you take more than a month people will forget. Original Tundra had periods of weeks in which no one did anything because they forgot it existed. Between people pushing Tundra Miami and actually writing were three or four months, because we had lost all steam.
/lit/ has a small but always changing userbase. If you take too much time you either have a small number of people interested or you'll have to do weekly promotion threads, and personally I would hate people constantly promoting and never actually having anything.

>>6410694
>cares about tripfags
>thinks others are cringey
kek

[Anonymous No.6411552]

>>6410694
>expecting writers not to be cringey

you're the cancer, son

[Anonymous No.6412989]

So, no interest for the new zine project then?

[Anonymous No.6413266]

>>6412989
I mean it seemed like you had that one guy who made the website. It's probably gonna have to be something where there needs to be a separate thread and then an actual call for entries and whatnot

[Anonymous No.6414150]

>>6406874
is this a transcription of a speech you give to yourself every day?

[Anonymous No.6414525]

>>6407352
Underrated post.

[Anonymous No.6414640]

>Tfw you write in Spanish
>Tfw /lit/ magazine wouldn't care about you

[Anonymous No.6414785]

>>6414640
TAR Editor and the Metric Editor.

I can say that you are clearly underestimating the work required to pull around a magazine but also more important. I've only found one person that dedicated. 99 percent of editors become idle and later quit.

The Metric started getting outside attention at the end and our submissions inbox was getting swamped. And sure /lit/ had some bad quality submissions but it is even worse when it comes from the outside world.

It will require quite a commitment to get going. I'd be willing to help if you have a team of solid members.

I have all the tools needed to get going. But I refuse to pull it all alone again.

[Anonymous No.6414788]

>>6414785
Sorry wasn't mean for Spanish anon. Just in general.

[Scandal Monthly !wDeTZyvYEA No.6414824]

This is a bit more specialized idea but we're open for anyone willing to work
>>6414677

>>6414785
I can't speak for people that I don't know of who will come later to the project, but I've found myself being the only one trying to hold everything together and it's horrible. I still want to try again and again until it works, dedicating that effort is something I'm doing for me. If I got tired of everything I would just be hurting myself.
But you are free to wait a bit and ask around later on to see if you like how things are shaping up.

[Anonymous No.6414828]

>>6414640
La vida es dificil, lindo.
Cuando haya un hilo de /ñ/ posteá un pastebin con tus cosas y prometo un critique and comment, bueno?

[Anonymous No.6414839]

You guys don't seem to realize there are already a huge amount of small online publications that publish short pieces from people that are actually VERY obviously talented.
Try geting published in some of those before you start your own "magazine".

[Anonymous No.6414841]

>>6414839
What you don't seem to realize is that people can enjoy doing a magazine.

[Anonymous No.6414855]

>>6414640
conozco ese sentimiento, jotin.

[Anonymous No.6414858]

>>6414785
If you don't mind answering, how many submissions did you guys get a month? And what was the rejection rate?

[Anonymous No.6414859]

>>6406241
>1. We could make a /lit/ twitter account and infiltrate the alt-lit scene who are looking for a new source of contemporary literature since the Tao, Dierks et al. scandal.

Have you read any alt lit? 98% is trash, and that's a generous estimation. It's about as good as the writefag threads on here (not good). Your aim should be to recruit people with talent, not self-important cunts.

>6. We could raise money (money is the big thing here) to offer small advances or something so it motivates people to publish their stuff here
And here you grossly misinterpreting things. Any talented amateur writer would be happy to publish their stuff for free. Talented writers write obsessively, and churn our pieces like it's nobody's business. They don't need monetary compensation.

The reason this shit sounds doomed is because, like I've said multiple times on this board, it has to be run by people who actually know good writing and aren't willing to submit just anything. That means rejecting 98% of submissions for simply not having the 'flair' of a good short story/poem that would allure a stranger to return to the website to check out the mag.

That is all.
>>6414839

[Anonymous No.6414865]

>>6414841
ya and some 5 year olds can start a lemonade stand for enjoyment too. The people suggesting this happen don't seem to realize that it's not going to have the talent required to make people want to read it

[Anonymous No.6414874]

>>6414865
And you know this because you can read the future? If no one starts it there obviously won't be any good material.

It's important to try. And be a bitch if that's what it takes for people to send good stuff. Complaining like a little boy afraid of being hurt in his internet enterprise and wasting all those hours he could have used playing vidja or posting in /lit/ about how failed other people are isn't much better.

[Anonymous No.6414876]

>>6414785
>I have all the tools needed to get going.
such as?

>But I refuse to pull it all alone again
Tell me why I'm wrong, but why do you need a big team of editors? Can one person not just leaf through and tell within seconds whether a piece is worth publishing or not? I mean for a short story, you've gotta hook the reader in the first couple paragraphs anyways.

[Anonymous No.6414887]

i am in.
but writing sci fi.
in spanish.

[Anonymous No.6414888]

>>6414874
Trying is great, I agree. The thing is, there's no way to verify who has the chops or the discerning/keen eye for talent in the first place. It's anyone jumping in on the project, which is not going to make for a good mag. You want the startup to have people that have tried and true, know what they're doing

[Anonymous No.6414896]

>>6414887
>>6414855
>>6414640
Miercoles. Ya somos cuatro.
Si cada uno puede tirar dos historias y dos poemas, todos buenos, yo lo armo un poco y sale "Dora y /lit/ presentan: La nueva nueva ola de trova latina"

[Anonymous No.6414899]

>>6414888
People verified by being part of previous zines? In which they didn't have any verifications to get in?
I would get all the worries if you were investing money, but if you post in 4chan your time is clearly worthless.

[Anonymous No.6414901]

>>6414896
historias si, poemas no nunca entendi putada de metrica ;__;.

[Anonymous No.6414911]

>>6414901
Yo tampoco, tranquilo. Pero entonces dos cuentos de tres mil palabras y uno de menos de mil.
Nada más necesitamos al anon que estaba haciendo su propia Lolita y estamos hechos.

[Anonymous No.6414921]

>>6406213
>royalties
jesus christ, stop

[Anonymous No.6414969]

>>6406213
Hey guys! i want to help with your project, so i decide to make a mascot for the publishing house, i mean penguin as a penguin right? we need one too!
i am not an professional designer but i am sure that you will love it.

[Anonymous No.6415222]

>>6414839
>>6414859
etc
etc
etc

Look, why even post if all you're gonna say is that you don't believe in our (or your own, actually) ability to discern good literature, to edit, to nitpick, just stfu I and I am sure other with me, are tired to read posts coming from such an insecure place, it literally hurts.

[Anonymous No.6415236]

I am fucking interested in helping out OP anon, I wanna do it and see what will happen. This is my community and best case scenario it gives me something to take my thoughts off the mind numbing workday. I can edit. We should create something straight off the bat, we definitely need a website down the road but to talk around the ideas and see what fuckers are attracted to the idea, perhaps a irc channel to talk in is ok. This thread is not working, too much cringe.
Oh and /b/ will rape this project into the ground

[Anonymous No.6415244]

>>6406213
>(not sure how we'd prevent outsiders from coming here)?
What the fuck? You don't. It's a good idea though.

[Anonymous No.6415252]

>>6415236
>Oh and /b/ will rape this project into the ground

They really won't. /b/ is not organized at all these days, and their lack of attention span means that they won't bother to troll us.

Also what do you work as?

[Anonymous No.6415256]

>>6414969
you just copied the reddit logo

[Anonymous No.6415259]

>>6415252
We'll just keep a lowish profile and maybe they'll just rape us a litte. Nurse.

[Anonymous No.6415263]

>>6415259
What hours do you work as a nurse?

Also I really don't think /b/ is an issue in 2015

[Anonymous No.6415268]

>>6415263
Depends. Why ask?

[Anonymous No.6415274]

>>6415268
I'm interested in the jobs people have, the hours they work, and how they are able to bear sacrificing so much of each day (as I do) doing something they often find no pleasure in

[Anonymous No.6415278]

>>6415274
I work nights ordinarily but not right now, sometimes I have the morning shift, and other days the afternoon one. Sometimes double. It does not make for any kind of stable routine. When I can I like sitting up at night still.

[Anonymous No.6415285]

>>6415278
How many hours do you work a week?

How old are you?

[Anonymous No.6415302]

>>6415285
40, give or take. I'm 28. How about you?

[Anonymous No.6415305]

>>6415302
I work 44. I'm 23.

[Anonymous No.6415309]

>>6406213
I'm okay with this as long as we convince Deandre Otis Surrell to write the long-awaited 2 Nickels 2 Ounces for the imprint.

[Anonymous No.6415316]

>>6415309
I can contact him if you like.

He can be /lit/s version of Viper

[Anonymous No.6415322]

>>6406251
this

i actually work as a proofreader at a publishing company

there's no fucking way /lit/ has what it takes to make it in the business.

[Anonymous No.6415324]

>>6415322
>implying true patricians want to make it in the mainstream publishing industry
>implying the fact Goldman & Rubenstein Books think your book is good (read: marketable to plebs) is any indicator of its quality

[Anonymous No.6415439]

>>6414876
Submission system, Web hotel, indesign (if needed), finished legal framework for submissions. I'm also work full time as a chief communications manager with marketing skills and brand knowledge. I have also experience from two earlier failures.

[Anonymous No.6415441]

>>6414858
I have the numbers but in the end we had about 100-200 a month maybe

[H.Q.S.S.G No.6415449]

Haven't read most of the thread but I'm assuming this would be strictly prose?
I assume because nobody here knows shit about poetry and I would never trust my work in the hands of a typical anon.

[Anonymous No.6415457]

>>6415439
I want this guy involved if we do shit

>>6415449
Poetry is boring. Deal with it. Unless it's twitter-tier (Tao Lin, Spencer Madsen et al) then nobody is going to enjoy or appreciate your long-winded shit about some girl who cucked you in fourth grade.

[Anonymous No.6415474]

>>6415449
I'm willing to publish anything you want at $40/page editing, print on demand.

[Anonymous No.6415481]

>>6415457
Do you even read poetry

[H.Q.S.S.G No.6415491]

>>6415474
Why would someone pay to you publish their work when they can submit for free to a magazine or journal that already has an established readership with thousands of issues in circulation

Anthologies typically don't sell well, anyways.

[Anonymous No.6415645]

>>6415491
We will have to take advantage of the e-formats now that they exist. A publishing house out of 4chan would of course be interesting to a lot of people and if we can get our grubby hands on some good material we will be able to present it very quickly in e-format.

Another thing that is possible to do is to release public domain novellas and poems in anthologies. If I wanted to get rich this wouldn't be the way I'd go about it, but that's just me.

[Anonymous No.6415739]

>>6415645
Forget about e-formats, they are shit and will die as soon as HTML5 fully hit the markets.

You go web and web only and make it mobile-friendly.

[Anonymous No.6416392]

>>6414876
you shouldn't be so arbitrary. if it is just one person then it will only reflect that individual's taste. this should reflect a wide variety and not succumb to one style like alt lit. there should be something democratic about how the stories get selected, not just one editor choosing for all but a consensus.

[Anonymous No.6416417]

>>6414911
>anon que estaba haciendo su propia Lolita y estamos hechos.

I need to know more about this.

[Anonymous No.6416429]

>>6414525
thanks!
so what is the first step to get this going? obviously there are interested individuals and shitposters so we already have fans and haters. half the job done. do we start an irc? i really don't know how to do that. how about a skype chat?

[Anonymous No.6416437]

>>6414876
It's not fun doing it by yourself. You will literally be hated by /lit/. The work is slow and tedious. You will gain no respect by anyone (maybe a year or so if you are succesful) etc... I also think that you might underestimate the work needed to be done.

[Anonymous No.6416443]

>>6416429
I'm here and ready. So I can do a skype.

[Anonymous No.6416465]

>>6416443
Here is the statistics, it was much less than I remember. Approx 400 submissions over 8 issues. So 50 submission a month?

[Anonymous No.6416476]

this could be a good idea but the concerns raised may be a problem. i'm in though, i could either do some editing or leaf through submissions to weed out b/s.

i'm also bilingual para la edicion en espanol