quote:Originally posted by New Way Of Decay: Was this before or after you did editorial work for Bizzarre? Because I don't think that's a true and accurate description of how things just get picked up Amp. If I'm wrong and you started writing on the back of a fanzine you started, then much respect.
quote:Originally posted by New Way Of Decay: Was this before or after you did editorial work for Bizzarre? Because I don't think that's a true and accurate description of how things just get picked up Amp. If I'm wrong and you started writing on the back of a fanzine you started, then much respect.
Yes I did start writing on the back of a fanzine I published - exactly! I was on the dole, wanted to be a writer, didn't know how, so I made a fanzine. I had never met any journalists, never been paid a penny for a word I had written - basically didn't have any idea about anything. I just made a zine, photocopied it at the community centre, left it lying around bars and shops in London. If stuff is good / new / interesting / whatever, it will get noticed - but if it's not out there because you're waiting for some publishing house to say your stuff is ok, how can it get noticed? As for Bizarre, I got that because I submitted a review - unpaid, btw - to a magazine called Careless Talk Costs Lives, and the publisher of Bizarre read it, loved it, took me to lunch, and gave me a job. I didn't spring fully-formed from the womb as a media whore, you know. (It takes work to become like this.)
Re: Thorn. It just seems like you’re very down on any kind of DIY activity…I don’t know. I mean, I’m just transcribing an interview with this girl who set up a publishing house to publish art books with two of her friends. They’re beautiful art books – perfect bound and full colour and hard-cover. She publishes 1000 of each and distributes them. The first book was funded by a grant, the second book was paid for by the three publishers themselves – people in their mid/late 20s – who have fairly low-paying jobs – just because they want to do something new and interesting, and create beautiful books. They found an ultra-cheap printers in Istanbul – 5000 euros for 1000 books – so that works out at £3 a book – and obviously they sell them for more. I don’t know how many they do sell – she says that if they sell books that’s great, but that’s not the bottom line. That kind of DIY spirit, that’s allied to what you call ‘vanity publishing’, right? How vain of them to create books, not knowing that the demand for these books exist, not waiting for some all-powerful outside force to sanction what they’re doing! But I find that really exciting and cool and fun. I don’t believe that creative effort is only important if money and acclaim automatically follow – and you can’t either, right, or you would never have finished your book. Or, if your book doesn’t get published, does that mean it must be completely shit? Plenty of good writers weren’t published in their lifetimes… as were plenty of shit ones, of course... I don’t know, you just seem to have a blind faith in the ‘quality control’ of publishers that I’m not sure is warranted.
quote:Originally posted by London: That kind of DIY spirit, that’s allied to what you call ‘vanity publishing’, right? How vain of them to create books, not knowing that the demand for these books exist, not waiting for some all-powerful outside force to sanction what they’re doing!
Vanity publishing isn't what I call it - it's what the title of the thread calls it, and the entire publishing industry.
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It's also known as 'self-publishing' and 'DIY publishing'. Are you going to engage with anything else I've said above, or just attempt a correction and then type a rolleyes smiley like some latter-day Rick J impersonator?
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If I ever finish this stupid fucking nano book I'm goddamn going to vanity publish and cry myself to sleep at night pouring over the ghastly pages. It'll serve as a reminder to never write again!
Surely it's just like framing a photo you yourself have taken? I don't see the problem.
As a sidenote, how's the divorce coming dang? I think you'd be more than capable of writing a book like I dunno, any one of the number of male authors who right timely pieces on turning 40. or 50. I don't mean it as an offence, but your every post sounds like that ;D
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Sorry; I'm having trouble articulating myself on account of the words you've already stuffed in my mouth. You see, I never said "I believe that creative effort is only important if money and acclaim automatically follow", and I don't think that's the implication of what I've written. In fact I said "Sure, that site looks like a good way to end up with an actual bound copy of your work". I mean - that's a long way from suggesting something's only worth doing if you get money and acclaim for it. It's an acknowledgement of the exact opposite; that the best thing about it is that you get your book in book form.
So it's difficult to engage with what you've said because it seems directed at a kind of alterna-dimension post.
What I wanted to emphasise - and what I stand by - is that it's really unlikely that you'll get a storm of publicity over doing something that's incredibly easy to achieve (I could have a book on that website in - what - minutes? How long does it take to upload?) and has been done many times before just because you bothered to issue a press release about it. See, it's not really about whether I think the D.I.Y press has any value, it already holds zero currency in the industry because it's so easy; hence why would the press care? Because you leave a copy in the street? As I said: if so, fantastic, but I'm not convinced that's enough. So as I said if you want a copy of your work, brilliant. But I really think the idea that i-D, wallpaper etc are going to turn you into a superstar is insane.
Also - I don't see this as being down on D.I.Y. projects, more just being down on taking the easiest possible route.
quote:Originally posted by Uber Trick: Best start respecting then!
Shut it you!
quote:Originally posted by London: Yes I did start writing on the back of a fanzine I published - exactly! I was on the dole, wanted to be a writer, didn't know how, so I made a fanzine. I had never met any journalists, never been paid a penny for a word I had written - basically didn't have any idea about anything. I just made a zine, photocopied it at the community centre, left it lying around bars and shops in London. If stuff is good / new / interesting / whatever, it will get noticed - but if it's not out there because you're waiting for some publishing house to say your stuff is ok, how can it get noticed? As for Bizarre, I got that because I submitted a review - unpaid, btw - to a magazine called Careless Talk Costs Lives, and the publisher of Bizarre read it, loved it, took me to lunch, and gave me a job.
Fucking. RESPECT. Dude.
quote:I didn't spring fully-formed from the womb as a media whore, you know. (It takes work to become like this.)
No! No pity points for AMP. Building yourself from the ground up is an admirable achievement.
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: Also - I don't see this as being down on D.I.Y. projects, more just being down on taking the easiest possible route.
Sorry, I want to give this validation. yeah, we've recently been having a think about what we want to put out material wise. The general agreed attitude is that we start on a demo, because it would be easy to blow a stack of money on a single and put it out on our own backs but then there's no market. We'd be pushing a really smooth recording to nobody, so we mixed our first demo over headphones. LOL! Headphones! But we still got really kind replies and we get people come up to us and give us feedback about tracks and they are raw as fuck. (the tracks, not the feedback) Very actually, raw as fuck. Just like 'I fucked that line up' and 'yeah whatevs, it's getting late'
So anyway, Misc and I sat about carving up artwork with a guillotine, everything we are putting out has had us fucking around, tweaking with things, experimenting and learning]. It's as DIY as you get. It's a hard choice to make. Do you go for the best possible sound or do you leave in those problematic mistakes? The listener can hear that subconciously. Vocals are too shitty? DISTORT.
Anyway, look at the tracks on that site musically. Who is going to buy that stuff? It's just a way of pumping it out yourself but being too lazy to do anything with it. It's self congratulatory, something I'll fall into the trap of being if I don't make some pretty fucking solid decisions right now. I've been sitting around on my ass with a product and not really thinking about what the product is meant to achieve. In this case, it is validation. What are you looking to achieve dang?
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: But I really think the idea that i-D, wallpaper etc are going to turn you into a superstar is insane.
Also - I don't see this as being down on D.I.Y. projects, more just being down on taking the easiest possible route.
I never said 'superstar': it's just easier to generate press in these magazines than you think - assuming Dang's project isn't a complete pile of shit and is properly documented. Probably be better to do something in a more interesting format than just some book off a website though though - if you're only talking 100 copies then surely you could get some small fine art publisher to screen-print some... yes, the more effort* expended and the better quality of the work, the more attention the piece is likely to garner. So maybe we are saying the same thing after all. Or maybe I'm assuming Dang's project is going to be brilliant and interesting, and you're not.
Dang, is your project going to be brilliant and interesting, do you think?
*eta - i just guess i don't automatically equate 'effort' with 'hauling your stuff round some publisher and hoping that someone accepts it' which is what you seemed to be saying.
quote:Originally posted by London: I never said 'superstar'
My eyesight must be going then. What's the word before 'easy'?
quote:Originally posted by London: do a bit of emailing, get the project covered in stuff like Marmalade and i-D, become underground art superstar - easy.
Eh. That's a bit... I dunno. Twatty of me maybe. Couldn't leave it alone. Twatty.
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quote:Originally posted by London: I never said 'superstar'
My eyesight must be going then. What's the word before 'easy'?
quote:Originally posted by London: do a bit of emailing, get the project covered in stuff like Marmalade and i-D, become underground art superstar - easy.
Eh. That's a bit... I dunno. Twatty of me maybe. Couldn't leave it alone. Twatty.
jesus ok sarcasmo-man
I said 'underground art superstar'. Pretty much everyone in Shoreditch is an underground art superstar. It's not the same as a Real Superstar.
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quote:Originally posted by New Way Of Decay: Is no-one else unnerved by Evening Thorn
Co-incidentally it's because I'm (not) working on a final edit of boke chapters before sending them off tomorrow. VP keeps coming in and saying "I thought you were WORKING?" I don't get this much shit when I post on TMO at my day job.
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: Co-incidentally it's because I'm (not) working on a final edit of boke chapters before sending them off tomorrow. VP keeps coming in and saying "I thought you were WORKING?" I don't get this much shit when I post on TMO at my day job.
quote:Originally posted by New Way Of Decay: Is no-one else unnerved by Evening Thorn
I am! Thorn seems like he's wound up so bad that even the weediest of baby threadworms couldn't find space to peek its translucent head through such a tight anus. Thorn, I would have thought that having changed your job and got a girlfriend etc you'd be all like, happy or at least grimly cheerful, but you seem like you're a white hot ball of tension and rage! Been like it for some time now. I'm too scared to properly interact with you online now because all you seem to do is come out with ultra-sharp sarcasm & dead eyed reasoning. Even your film reviews are little more than elaborate attacks on unseen parties.
You used to be one of my favourites, but now you bring me down.
Still, this isn't a personal attack, more like, friendly concern that your attitude to the boards seems a bit negative, almost sour. You need one of Honeybaby's notorious love prostitutes.
[ 16.05.2006, 16:13: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: Still, this isn't a personal attack, more like, friendly concern that your attitude to the boards seems a bit negative, almost sour.
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You can't blame him. As this seasons most prolific poster, I apologise for tales of wanking, bum gravy and my fucking band. You all deserve better.
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