 Hello everyone, I am Dr. Michelle Villagran, Chair of the San Jose State University School of Information Diversity Committee. And we want to welcome all of you to our 2020 Diversity Webinar Series. This is our fourth webinar in an eight-part series, and it is the final one for Spring 2020. Now, all of our presenters, if you've attended past ones, and even this one and the future ones, are fostering discussion around content and topics related to diversity, inclusive excellence, equity and inclusion, and ones that you can apply within your profession and in your positions. You will see or be able to see a full list of our sessions, our topics, our presenters on the upcoming webcast page, which I will place in the chat shortly. You all are also on mute, so this is for recording purposes. Each session is recorded, and we do make it available on our on-demand page afterwards for future use. And they are generally posted within two to four weeks, so you can review this later or share it with others afterwards. Now if you have any questions throughout today's webinar, please place them in the chat box. And Yago will be addressing those at the end of the presentation. And so with that, I would like to introduce today's session, The Publishing Librarian, becoming a publisher, starting a printing press and creating content presented by Yago Cura. So Yago, I'm turning it over to you. Cool. Hi. Thank you so much, Professor. Thank you so much for joining in and finding this topic of interest. As Professor said, my name is Yago Cura. This is The Publishing Librarian, or becoming a publisher, starting a print and press and creating content. Now, a disclaimer before we start, I don't have all the answers. And I'm hoping that you're willing to find some of the really, really kind of poignant questions, because I think they're a little more important than the answers. So with that, I'd like to talk to you a little bit about who I am in the context of what I do. So who is Yago Cura? So I studied at Queens College, CUNY, Burke and Mortar, shout out to all my beautiful people in New York, all over the country, Oregon, places like that. So I was very lucky in that I was able to study something before. So from 99 to 02, I was able to get my MFA in poetry in the Poets and Writers program at UMass Amherst, very competitive, kind of caddy, high-school-y, kind of like program, but a very good one. Two years worked as an adjunct for CUNY at Kingsborough Community College, in Chiefshead Bay, which was nice for me. I was born in Brooklyn, so it was great to kind of go back. I joined the Teaching Fellows program, became English teacher for about 10 years. And I've been a zinster since undergrad days. I grew up in Miami and went to FIU. And the scene there was kind of like in the art department, like in every kind of college and university all over the country. I am a sometimes poet, and I like to write things about art. And I like to learn about art history and stuff like that. This year I served as the Reformer LA President. I am the proprietor of Inch as Press, which just means that I pay like all the bills. I also see all the revenue or share it with the endeavors that I'm doing as projects with collaborations and stuff with other people. Bilingual by Coastal, I've been five years with the Los Angeles Public Library. I'm very proud of my work with the LAPL. I'm very proud of LAPL as an organization. Shout out to all the beautiful people in LAPL. So for the past three years, I've been a bilingual outreach librarian. Here's a picture of me at Placita signing up this beautiful dog in the 2-2 with a library card. So that's kind of who I am. What is Inch as Press? So it's a micro press, and that's basically just a fancy way of saying like my reach is super small in terms of distribution, very little. So it's a handy moniker, you know? But I'm trying to kind of outgrow it. The Inch as Press comes from Inch as the Poesia, which is an online literary journal. And I was very concerned, very sorry, very interested in the idea that Jose Martí was really the first one to talk about, which is that there's really like one America, right? There's North America and South America. And, you know, their interests may be competing at times, but their history is shared, right? So Inch as a Poesia is a place for Latino writers, artists, metiches, people who are kind of like in the, you know, in the world of writing, want to translate stuff like that. There's no ads, no revenue, all fun. I kind of publish what I want when I want, which is limiting for sure. And there's challenges there as well, but I'm not beholden to anybody. And I kind of do stuff all because of the love. So there's the URL for the journal. In terms of Inch as Press, it was something I started to work on the first book, which was Huzzles for Foley. I went to grad school with James Foley, and we published this book in honor of the work he had done as an American combat journalist. And so this, you know, Inch as Press starts later than the journal. And Inch as Press is responsible for librarians with spines, but it's Max Macias, Autumn Anglin. These are people without which I, Jace Olson, I can do, like, we can do what we do without them. So sure, I paid the bills, but they were the ones that built it. And what I suggest is that you find people that you can trust that you can kind of work with and collaborate with because Max Macias, Autumn Anglin, Jace Olson, and the list goes on and on, have been fundamental to the success of librarians with spines. We're working on volume three. Shout out. Please send us an abstract chapter. I will say this. There's many hats, many masters. What that means is that I am writing the press release and paying the bills and kind of working with the web designer and taking pictures for, you know, the zines that we're going to sell on the website. So I do a lot of the work myself. But that's okay. I don't make a living doing this. And that's something that I really suggest to everyone here. I mean, I imagine that the predominately there's librarians out here. So we all have day jobs, right? But, you know, one of my things is like, I don't, people who make a living off of this, I find it really, really hard, you know what I mean? And that's just my experience. So what I suggest is you have keep your day job, you know, and just kind of do this because of the love. What pray tell is an Inche just to give you a background. This is in Buenos Aires. These are Inchas de Oca. My dad's soccer team, he's from Buenos Aires. So that's his soccer team, Boca Juniors. And these are what Inchas are. They're kind of like a homicidal football Agilent, right? Some people see him as a scourge. Some people see them as mafiosos. They're basically, they belong to that football club. The football club belongs to them. It's like a symbiotic and a beautiful relationship. Please don't call an Incha a fan. The fan ideology is like in this country is very, very different than like what Incha is in Latin America. Like imagine the Incha is kind of like a Borg but even more unpredictable, right? And they're kind of like mindless rabble, but beautiful. It's like football, football, football. This is what they want. So I thought, how could I translate that into experimental lit, into literature, into, you know, biblical stuff, right? And this is where the idea of kind of becoming your own creator of content comes in. So let me talk to you what the business model really was. You know, we all understand as a professional information kind of people that like the e-books is growing and will continue to grow. So what was the old model like, right? So in the old model, the old model is like you send the manuscript to an agent or, you know, an office of a publisher and then they publish it and do all the stuff. Authors receive about 10% of the sales, right? So if you're writing that great American novel and hoping to buy your first yacht with it, right? Unless it's Gerald then like you gotta move a lot of volume. And it's not just about selling 30, right? So it's not even selling 3,000 or 30,000. It's like selling, how do I sell 300,000 of this thing? Right? So copywriters, publicists that are hired by printing, you know, by publishing houses and publishers, they're not cheap and they don't come cheap, right? And there's also associated costs that we don't see because we're typically not in that world. So mailing ads, like ads is a huge thing. And then even press, you know, like the kind of relationship and rapport that you have to build with media to kind of move something at that volume, right? 90% of the sales, if you, you know, with the old publishing model, it goes back to the publishing house to cover costs, right? But, you know, as an author, you're coddled and coaxed. If you're a purebred, like a selling course and they can, you know, race you a lot and you consistently come in first, they're gonna coddle and coax you and kind of give you advances. And for sure, that's how it works. The authors take advantage of the publisher's network, right? So the publisher does all the work and they see very little of what's coming to them. But if they sell a lot, then the share gets bigger. Authors are protected, but also bound by contract, right? So then you have the instances where, you know, author signs to write four or five books and they can only come out with two. And, you know, the publishing house sues them and there's like a bunch of other stuff that happens, right? So it's like a double-edged sword, right? So the e-book business model, right? So if you're selling e-books or if you're self-publishing and doing that, dealing with, you know, Amazon and those kind of people and getting your book out there, you typically see about 60 to 70% of sales, right? So what I mean is, so like a book maybe costs $19.95, right? And then the author sees 10% in the old model. But an e-book costs like $6. But of those $6, e-book authors see about $3.50, you know what I mean, $4 of that $6. So there's more money that you see as an author coming back to you. But if you're self-publishing, you're wearing all the hats again, right? Like you're the press release writer, you're the this thing, you're the mommy, you're the daddy, you're wearing all the hats, right? There's no hand-holding. You make a lot of mistakes. You will make a lot of mistakes. You are your favorite intern. Like you are just doing all the work, right? Social media, those kind of platforms and applications definitely help. I'm not gonna lie. Mailchimp is great. Man, we have the interest presses on Square website, which paired with Weebly. There's all these great tools you can take advantage of, right? But it's basically in design and desire, right? Like the ability to know the software and then to execute it to produce something, right? You have to build an audience. It's typically starts with your family. So you're gonna definitely ignore your family and friends first and then hopefully build upon that audience. And it's really about networking, networking, networking, right? Like how many pans can you get this book into by yourself without a distributor, right? Let's talk about ISBNs. We all know what they are. We know what kind of purpose they serve, but let's talk a little more in depth about them and like how they actually work, what they cost, which is what I'm more interested in. So we all know they're unique book identifiers, right? So the specs, it gives like the format, the edition, the publisher, it gives bibliographic information that people can look up in the Balker database, right? So it's like if I have, theoretically, if I have this ISBN 13 number, it'll lead me back to the publisher, like an enormous breadcrumb, right? Balker administers the, I think it's called My Digital Identifiers, the website. And then you get listed in books and print, which is like a book and print that they make and has 40 million titles that's yearly, comes out every year and your title will be there and people can look it up and look on and off. So think of ISBN like a surf leash for your book, like you wipe out and you kind of come to this place where no one, they just, what's this book from? They look at the ISBN 13 and it leads them back to, gives them all this bibliographic information, including publisher and from there it's a little easier. Essential info, the one thing I'll say is that like an audio book has a different ISBN number than a print book. And the hardcover is gonna have a different one than the softcover. You know what I mean? So every iteration has its own ISBN, which can be costly. It's like you start, so I think about to have one book in all formats, including print and e-media, it's about four to five ISBNs, right? So just to give you an idea what kind of math you're looking at, this is the Inch as Press, like ISBN My Identifier, like home page, like you see here that in that column where the numbers are, that's all the ISBN 13 numbers and they correspond to the title and they've all been assigned. There's one that's incomplete, I'm still working on it. And when I say working on it, what I'm entering is all that information, like the dimensions, you know, if it's pamphlet, if it's what, how is it bound? Is it printed in what way? So typically you upload the cover, image, barcode, and it gives you a status. And once it's assigned, then it's done, it's kind of like set in stone and anyone can check it out and verify it. Again, just to give you an idea, the type of specs that you're dealing with when you do have an ISBN number at the top, you see ISBN 9781, you know, so you have that sequence of number, that's the identifier. But then really you're gonna need four, I guess categories, a schemas of information to enter the bibliographic information for this particular book, right? So title and cover, you can upload a JPEG, you can talk about if it's a full color, black and white, stuff like that, right? Then the second part is obviously contributors. And so something like Librarians with Spines has many, many contributors. I think the first one was like 11 authors, the second one was something like 17, 18. So you can imagine you're gonna spend a couple of minutes entering all the contributors, right? But that's, again, what tells people that this particular author has a particular chapter, right? We all know how it works, format and size. And so a lot of these questions, if you're not designing the book, you're gonna have to talk to your designer about, right? So you're gonna have to work in tandem with them, right? And then the last one is sales and pricing. And like, how are we selling this or does, what's the list price, what's the manufacturer price? What's it cost for this? What's it cost for the electronic version? So there's a bunch of things that you kind of have to answer there. But just to give you an idea of what it looks like and the kind of options that you have, I guess really to kind of just really stress how not easy, but it's something that anyone can do. Like I am no one special and I can enter this information and have an ISBN number and use it the way that big publishers do. I buy 10 at a time, they may buy 500 at a time, but that's really, we have both of us, the huge publishing house and me, the MicroPress, we both take advantage of the ISBN and Bowker and the service that they provide. I also would advise if you are thinking about starting a press and publishing a book and doing this, obviously ISBN number, but also a Library of Congress control number. And the Library of Congress started this program called the Preassigned Control Number Program a couple of years ago. You apply for a Library of Congress control number and they magically, they send it to you. There's a person that takes your request and processes it and you get an email from the Library of Congress, which is super rad. And it's kind of a great way as well. The caveat is obviously you have to send them a copy of the title, right? And it's within a couple of months. So ISBN is through Bowker, which is a commercial thing, but this is through the Library of Congress and has a different kind of ring to it and a different type of process and kind of beauty, right? So the LOC runs a PCMP, they assign the numbers. The number corresponds to the record created for each book in the Library of Congress catalog collections. You apply for the number, you mail them a copy of the title and you add the Library of Congress control number to the colophone in the front and there you go. You have another identifier to go with your book. So when we talked about this, Professor Villagran and I, we talked about like how, you know, this idea of diversity in publishing is nothing new. Lately we've seen a lot of, what's the word I'm looking for, a lot of them talk, discussion, dialogue concerning like a book like American Dirt and the Oprah Reading Club and amazing writers like Miriam Gerba and like how they have really kind of talked to us about inconvenient thing. Like a lot of people don't want to hear what they're saying, but I think they have a very valid point. Another valid point is that the history of literature is rife with self-publishing. What that means is that there's this idea that authors are born, right? So it's like, no, you know, this person sends the manuscript and everyone at the publishing house is so wowed and then they publish it right away. You can hear the printing presses rolling and then they become a millionaire and that's just not at all how it works with the history of literature if you look. So for example, you know, you look at someone like Blake, right? So like his marriage of heaven and hell, his songs, they're all written, designed and printed by him. I mean, he actually did the plates and stuff. So, you know, the idea that there was this like publishing house behind him is completely erroneous and BS, I mean, so from there to jump to Walt Whitman, it's really not much of a jump, you know what I mean? But again, you have someone who's designing just everything. And I think towards, he wrote like what, 11 or 12 editions of it, you know? And I think in the first one is with the letter that he has from Emerson. I think because Emerson wrote him a letter, a glowing letter about how beautiful leaves of grass was because he'd seen this first edition. So there's like a beautiful kind of story behind that. Marcel Proust, Swan's Way, Remembers of Things Past, completely self-published. Well, not completely, but mostly. Let's not forget Hogarth Press, started by Virginia Woolf, right? Who wrote that amazing essay, Room of One's Own, talking about the challenges and limitations that the publishing world literature history has put on women. So, you know, and then, you know, recently I'm doing research and talking, you know, I mean, reading about this stuff and there's this beautiful kind of thing about Joyce crying to Sylvia Beach. And Sylvia Beach was the owner of Shakespeare and Company, famous bookstore in Paris, right? And so he goes in there crying and, you know, about no one wanting to publish Ulysses. And she's the first one that actually publishes it in mass. And then eventually in the end, he kind of sells her out. And, you know, because Ulysses is Ulysses, right? It's like the pinnacle of the canon, right? But, you know, even in 2000, you had someone like Stephen King saying to himself, you know what, I wrote these books and I made a lot of money, but I could have made a lot more money if I had done them myself. And so like the novel, The Plant, right? Publishes himself in installments. I think his son now is writing, you know, that same kind of way. They're like a publishing house themselves, almost, right? And then let's not forget Andy Weir as the Martian that, you know, sold for a million dollars to movie rights, right? Because he actually published the novel himself and was giving it away free. So, you know what I mean? The idea that self-publishing is somehow not a part of just publishing, publishing is kind of BS. And it's more like a cased and social kind of class thing than anything. But hey, I may be wrong, you let me know. I'd love to hear what you think. Another kind of real kind of elephant in the room is the publishing world is almost exclusively white. And the first inkling that this was going on is in 1994. On the article, Houses with No Doors in Publishers Weekly, right? This graph is from 1994, right? And you can tell overall in the industry about 80% of personnel, staff, right? Are of particular ethnicity. And there's lots of reasons for that. Maybe one of them could be like who can afford to live on 18 and a half grand a year, another might be like, well, if I have to pay my own rent, like if, you know what I mean? How do I do that, right? Like it's, so it brings up a lot of the challenges, right? And so the one thing I wanna point out is this whole issue comes up again in October 2015. And what they find is that 90% of respondents identify themselves as white, right? So here we have this idea that like there are certain sectors in our society that are unwilling almost, it seems, to kind of desegregate and kind of offer challenges equanimously, right? Not just to like a select few or to the, you know, those born into capital and with these means, right? But I think there's more and more talk about this. There's more and more movement about this. For example, we cannot forget we need diverse books and the great, great, great lobbying kind of work that they have done. But, you know, just to give you an idea, like in 2015, five interns like were placed like at presses that are predominantly people of color, right? So there's still a lot of work that needs to kind of get done. There's a lot of, there's a lot of work and reflection that needs to get done. My point is not much has changed in 20 years, right? So if you're a person of color and you've been trying to get a book published and it's not working, I'm not saying it's because you're a person of color, but I'm saying that there are particular interests that may not be what you're trying to sell, right? And so there's lots of reasons they will say no and maybe you should strike out on your own. This is kind of that thing, right? Where you strike out on your own and you see what's out there. Very, very importantly, the whole publishing racket like really hinges on buying ISBNs in bulk. Let me show you something that not a lot of people know about. I'm so glad I see there's 63 people here. I'm really appreciative and grateful for you guys showing up. Let me show you something that not a lot of people know and that I would love for you to spread. So like you can see all the way on the right. So like one ISBN and one barcode, right? It's gonna cost you $150, right? So I'm thinking, okay, if I wanna buy 10, I'm looking at like at least $1,150, right? But that's not the case at all. 10 ISBNs and one barcode will cost you 320. So a third of what the projection would be, right? If they were just charging us per ISBN, right? So you buy one and it's 130 or 150 depending on whether you get the barcode. You buy 10 and it's 295, right? 320 with one barcode, right? So I'm looking at one ISBN as 150. I'm thinking 10 is gonna cost me that much and it's really not. It costs you a third of what you think. So always the idea is to buy more ISBNs, buy more unique identifiers, right? To have them kind of in cash, right? Just to give you an idea, 10 ISBNs, five barcodes are 395, right? So then they give you kind of different combinations, right? I saw 100 ISBNs the other day on Bowker for a little over $500, okay? So obviously you buy 10, each ISBN is 30 something dollars. If you buy 100, each ISBN costs you about $5, right? The majority of people don't understand that and they don't know that, especially people that work with books, but don't sell them or don't kind of publish them. This is kind of like that moment in a punch-drunk love, you know what I mean? Where you realize that you can buy all these like yogurt cups and get all these miles, right? I'm telling you, this is the way to beat them at their game. You buy ISBNs in bulk and you wait for the projects to come to you, right? So this is basically what I just kind of said, you know? Buy more than you can handle, you know? Like I suggest you start with friends, families, peers. What I mean by that is think of the stories in your families. Think of the stories that you've lived, right? Like think of the things you've seen. Guys, we all work in libraries, you know? I mean, the only people that don't understand libraries are dynamic kind of crazy places are people that don't work there. Like we all understand we have stories galore, right? So what I'm suggesting is create the content. Like, you know, we've all written papers and had to edit them before we turn them in. That's exactly what a publisher does to a manuscript, right? So the idea that it's something that you can't do because you didn't get your MFA is ludicrous. In fact, I think getting my MFA actually worked against me in certain ways, right? What I suggest is start small. Like a chat book and then work your way up to collaborations, anthologies. For example, you know, here that will librarians with spines is an anthology of, you know, library and information science articles and chapters, right? But I've published Huzzles for Foley, which is a book, you know, it's like a book of hustles for an American combat journalist and we're working on other stuff. We just translated a short story collection about queer soccer like in Argentina with my friend Abel Folgar. So like, you know, working on that as well. So if you have, if you buy 10 ISBNs, which is little, it's just $300, let's say, right? You get to have two books in all of the formats that you may come to need, right? That's what I mean by kind of do the math and always buy more than what you need. The stories will come to you. This kind of brings me to the end and really what we're talking about. And I wanna make sure that I emphasize this though. The means of production for making books has become very bargain basement, like super, not cheap, but, you know, it costs money but it's not prohibitive, right? Back in the 90s, I mean, you know, it was expensive to make booklets and have them booklet stapled and have all these weird things that the photocopy machines would do. This is not the case anymore. You can imagine there's maybe less people doing that but it's become very, very, very cheap. So making, being a person of color, becoming a publisher and publishing books is challenging but not really difficult. The real struggle, the real Gordian knot is distribution. And what I mean by that is how do I sell the most amount of books that I can without being a huge publishing house that has millions of dollars, you know, that it can command, right? And what I'm trying to tell you is that distribution is a key to moving volume because when you work with a distributor, they do the hard work for you of contacting the bookstores and doing all that kind of work that is super tedious and just really is gonna frustrate you, you know, like chasing money, chasing payments, stuff like that. They have to, you kind of shift that, you know, the onus of that responsibility onto the distributor. They charge you, you know, money for that. It's not like they do it for free or are the benevolence of their heart. However, I will say this as well. Even with the small distributors, okay? There's this idea that self-publishing that if you put together a book and you're not a person of renown or you haven't been on the scene or in the industry for very long, then, you know, you're kind of ghosted and pushed to the margins, which is, it is what it is, right? What I'm trying to advocate for you if you decide to become a creator of content is that you possibly work with a distributor to see if they can help you to kind of get the books into as many hands as possible, right? What I mean by that is if you check on worldcat.org, librarians with spines is in about 83 libraries, right? So like getting from 83 libraries to 8,335 libraries, you know, I don't even know if there's that many in the country, right? But getting them into like way more libraries, exponentially more, is really what a distributor can help you to do. Like I said, they're not cheap and they will call, you know, they will charge you, but they do help. And to say that they wouldn't be of assistance is silly. The problem is how do you get their attention? The problem is how do you introduce yourself when you're a very important nobody? That's really the question, right? So you're still gonna have to go bookstore to bookstore and that's kind of like hand-to-hand combat, okay? So like for example, in Los Angeles, if I was just concerned with getting a book out, right? I'd have to call Romans, I'd have to call Skylight, I'd have to set up a Gatsby's in Long Beach. There's like a whole litany, there's a whole protocol of bookstores that I would have to engage with. You know what I mean? I haven't even mentioned other books or la librería. So there's a whole like list of books that you have to engage with. And what I mean by that engage is consignment and there are challenges there as well. I hate to chase money, I would rather have money chase me, but you know, a lot of people don't mind and for them, consignment is okay. But consignment does require what I call funds custodianship, right? Like you're the janitor of that check and you got to like make sure that it's going to come to you. I will also just make sure we understand that self-publishing carries a stigma. What is meant by self-publishing most times is when you publish yourself, right? But that's not always the case. Let me give you an example. Volume Moment for Librarians with Spines has no work by me. I don't have a chapter in there, but volume two does, right? So to say that I am a self-publisher and I have only self-published is kind of erroneous, you know, and a little mean, you know? Because a lot of times people haven't even looked at the book, they'll just pass judgment on it before they even kind of open it up. So really, you know, I want you to ask yourself something like, like who gets to publish books, right? And who gets final say over what gets published, right? Like you may have a story to tell and many people don't want to hear it. That doesn't mean your story is not of worth, right? Let's not forget, especially when we're talking about publishing, someone like J.K. Rowling, I think she had six or seven rejection letters from big publishing houses. And I can guarantee you all of those people kicked themselves right in the ass. Because most of the times, you know, if you just send it, it goes into a slush pile and not a lot of people engage with it. And imagine all of the J.K. Rowlings that have been kind of passed over by publishing houses. You know what I mean? So that's, I want you to, you know, like imagine her story not ever coming out, you know? She took five rejection letters and was like, screw this, I'm gonna go enter like data for a living, right? So, you know, who gets to publish? You know, like what gets published? Who gets to say what gets published, right? How many zip codes get to hear your story, right? If you keep it within your zip code and another, that's great, but kind of limiting and challenging, right? So you definitely want to spread wings and kind of have your story, have a life of its own. And I think it's also an opportunity for you to kind of ask yourself, if you know of a publisher that's a person of color or you know, a publishing house, a small press that predominantly publishes writers of color, collaborate with them, ask them, how are you doing this, please? Like it doesn't hurt to reach out. I am available if you guys, you know, like if you have a question, I would love to kind of, you know, answer them. These are some of the sources that I use to kind of talk about the things we talked about. And you know, like I said, I don't have all the answers, but I'm hoping that you were able to kind of generate some really great questions. And if it's okay, I would love to kind of hear some or maybe we could kind of, you know, do it with the chat or something. So, Yago, I'm going to pop on here. Hi, everyone. Thank you. There have been some questions come in, but first I want to really thank you for your time with this presentation and your expertise. I think it's an area that, you know, even library students, when we go to library school, we don't, we might not even consider or once we become a librarian, we don't consider this as, you know, whether it's an interest, a hobby or something we do, eventually want to try to get into full-time. And I heard two real key takeaways myself about sharing our stories. I think we each have so much to contribute and it's getting it out there and being able to share it and be on just our local, like our backyard. And then secondly, I was going to ask this, but you touched on it, the ways in which we can help, we can impact, we can influence the culture of self-publishing as a person of color and what we can each do to contribute and get our voices out there. So I really, I really do appreciate this talk and I'm gonna go to the chat. I don't know if you can see it, but there were a few questions and go ahead, anyone place your questions in the chat if you do have comments and questions. There we go. The first one, this is from Jim. He said, hi, Yago, thanks for your talk. I thought this might be a good thing to think if things get bad, employment or job wise, but it looks like it's not a full-time gig and I appreciate your candor on this. The questions Jim has are, what do you think of print on demand and your business model? And print on demand in general, any insights on this from your perspective? Totally, thanks so much Jim for that question and just so we're clear, we've mostly done print on demand. I've dealt with one printer, McNaughton Gun in Lansing, Michigan, and we used them to publish some puzzles for Foley and they were great, but on the whole, yeah, you're gonna pay more money to have it printed at a press and the print on demand, the great thing about that is that it requires no capital from you or actually very little capital. For example, let's say you upload a book there, you as a publisher, they give you a special price to publish, so you can print those books and have them and that's what we do, we print those books out at a special price and we use square up to distribute them to all points in the country, right? But a lot of people view print on demand again as like this kind of like stepchild, you know what I mean, where it doesn't really get the importance that it should and the reality is a lot of these prohibitive costs, like they go away when you do print on demand, right? And really what it's about is, getting you to put on all those hats, right? So getting them into people's hands becomes more your job, not going out and trying to figure out how you're gonna get $600 to print out 250 books, right? So that's a great question and you know, I swear by the print on demand stuff, again, a lot of people are turned off by it, I get it, but for me it works. Great, and Jim, I hope that answers your question. There was a question, this was about the houses with no doors that you referenced and the, how white the profession or that aspect is. And Arianna Kale asked, is that for North America or is it all the Americas? So I believe in 1994, that study, it was a, I don't know exactly who administered it, right? But the printing presses, the houses were all sent to this survey and it was optional to take it. Some people took it, some people didn't. Of those that reported, this is what they were able to kind of tally up. But having, like after I got my MFA, I moved to New York because duh, that's like as a writer, that's where you go. Those were all the publishing houses are. So you're kind of like closer to all that. You know, there's a lot of ins and outs and a lot of those places, you can't even get through the front door. You know what I mean? So it can get really interesting. So the main reason I use that slide is just to illustrate that, we talk about these things, but if actually nothing is done, then the things remain the same. So like we were made aware of this in 1994 and like, I know a lot of companies like say that diversity is important to them and that's the truth, right? But how do we provide for that? If we just say diversity is important and that's how we improve it or do we actually build the architecture of something that is going to improve it? And my point is that for the last 20, from 1994 to 2015, there was absolutely no architecture made in terms of trying to better the problem. It was all kind of like, you know, it was all spoken and nothing was actually built, right? And so what I'm talking about is these are the conditions in which people of color find themselves. And these are the invisible kind of challenges. These are the invisible sensors that a lot of people of color have to deal with. Many like myself, like I don't have an important last name. I don't have a bunch of capital, but that doesn't mean I don't have stories to tell and that doesn't mean I can't work with people to get them to kind of coax the stories out of them that they have. And that's what this is about. So yeah, I hope that kind of answers the question. And again, it's not to, you know, it's not to, man, I really am just kind of looking at the data and saying, look, this is what I see. You know, I remember a really great interview with James Baldwin where they asked him, you know, why is he living in Paris? And he's like, look, I make decisions based upon like how people behave with me. And I can't, in this country, it's just not happening. People's behavior tells me that I'm unwanted here. And that's kind of, I'm massacring Mr. Baldwin's like, you know, interview, but like what I'm trying to say is something very similar to, right? I feel for in many instances that we're kind of, our stories are a little unwanted or there are stories that they think they know how to tell and they don't. We've seen that with like a lot of the television shows that are on Netflix now and this whole idea, you know. So thank you for your question. That's a great question. Excellent. I know Max had a few comments about, this is also directly related to information literacy and that information comes through a very small lens, which I agree with both of those. And then Max had a question, will he just be branching out into non-print publishing? That's a really good question. You know, I think we're all seeing, we're all seeing now that whether you like it or not, it's a good idea. Like I think before this pandemic, you know, I do outreach a lot where I used to get from people, like, oh, and I'm the same way I would prefer a physical print book, but I will use an e-book in a jam. Like if I need to get the info, I don't care. I can, I'll look at it on an iPod. I really don't care, right? But if you're talking about preference, I always prefer the book. It's just like how we as humans, our hands, it's almost like perfect for the tactile kind of experience. So to say that, any publisher to say, it's like, you know, it's lying in the dirt, we're not doing anything electronically is like, it's like a Monty Python skit. Like there's no one would do that right now. So most definitely we're looking to kind of do that. And maybe that's the way that we get into more libraries maybe not having a print book, but, you know, because the print book involves the library sending me an invoice. And, you know, sometimes it's like six months for some of those invoices to kind of, you know, clear. And again, I'm not bad-mouthing the hand that feeds me all that stuff, but I am saying, again, what I call funds custodianship. I'm just not down. Like I have a regular job and a family and a wife and I don't know what chinchilla form I need to tend to. I don't have time for, you know, I mean, to kind of run after money that people owe me. So it's really just a practical thing. But thanks for that question, Max. That's a great question as well. Definitely. And you have many other questions. So I'll continue here. Cool. Thank you. You're welcome. Angel had a question. Do you have any resources for persons of color publishers to collaborate with? Is there a list? And I'll add onto that. If there isn't a list, can we start one or do some research and put together a list? Most definitely. There are so many resources online. Like it's really dizzying to be fair. So, you know, five years ago there was, we need diverse books. And now if you look on Facebook, there's like, you know, like Latinx publishers. There's like myriad, myriad, myriad Facebook groups and stuff like that. You know, what I would suggest is really, you know, you create the list and it's gonna be Angel's list, right? It's gonna be like the things that you might see important or might find important. And I would love for people to be drawn to that list, right? Because you're seeing it with like new eyes, right? So I guess a person who may be getting more into this, you know, I'd be interested in seeing like your list and what you think is kind of like important, right? So I don't know, there's definitely a room for that. Let's not forget that, you know, like even some like fact sheet five, you know, which was started was like a review of zines, right? That a dude published. And he was just an independent publisher, you know? Like you, Angel, hopefully one day will be, right? So thank you for that question. Great question. Christopher had a question, well, statement and a question. I want to republish public domain technical books that's utterly out of circulation. Any advice for publishing things that aren't literature or that are out of circulation? Yeah, yeah, for sure. And thanks for talking about circulation and that whole thing, you know, there's a lot of like pitfalls and snares and you gotta be careful. And, you know, we're all, we're all working libraries. So we know, you know, these things come out of copyright and you can use them. They come into the public domain and I completely, so here's what I suggest, man. Let's say it's a manual for carpentry that was a hundred years ago, right? I would work with a graphic designer or someone that would make an interesting cover. I would reach out to someone at a technical college or that owns a business in which, you know, they do a lot of that work and ask them to write an intro or a preface. I guess what I'm saying is, man, if that's your thing, reach out to people who know about it and who aren't afraid to put pen to paper. There's lots of expert guys, but there's not too many people who are unabashed, who are not bashful. Like a lot of experts are really, they really are very careful with their words and what they say and there's very few people who are just gonna be very generous and open with you. I guess what I'm saying is, go the generous and open route. If it's about woodwork you're talking about, talk to woodworkers, talk to people in the profession, talk to professors and people who study that history, you know what I mean? And then go from there. And the book kind of writes itself. The content is already there. I guess what I'm saying is, make sure you build a really sweet house for this book. And how are you gonna do that, right? Again, work with a graphic designer, have them build something that's really nice. Maybe you're thinking about a wood print, right? It's obvious for a woodworking manual, a wood print would be super, super appropriate and really aesthetically pleasing, right? So these are all things we know. So man, go with your gut, reach out, collaborate, open it up, you can't solve this problem on your own and people are gonna help you, I guarantee you. Thank you for that question. That was a great question, great ideas and suggestions. Here's a question from, I can't see the full name. It says, L-O-R-E, but it says, hi, thanks for your talk. I have a question about contracts with the authors at many presses. How much percentage do authors get paid and do you recommend a website with good examples of contracts or rather what would be the best way to deal with that? Sure, so I'm gonna be completely open and honest. We do not pay the authors that collaborate on librarians with spines. And the reason is because the money that we make is just not enough. And so that's a great question. I'm going to be very honest in terms of contract. You can definitely get one off the internet and that's what I suggest. Just so it stipulates what people should expect and you're very transparent. For example, with us, they sign a contract saying that they're gonna appear in this publication that we cannot pay them but that they are getting two copies of the publication like in payment and they sign their name to it and that's pretty much it. In terms of bigger projects and like what those things are worth, you're not gonna find something on the internet. It's gonna be really hard to find something on the internet. For example, if someone wants you is contracting you to write their biography, right? It's gonna be really hard to find a contract for that on the internet that is very transparent with you. So you're gonna have to figure out how many hours it's gonna take you to work on this project and then come up with like a per hour number, right? So if it's like 70 hours and you're like, man, I'm, you know, 20 hours, you know? So that's basically what you would charge them, you know? So think about how many hours a project's gonna entail and think about what your worth is hourly and then that's what you put in that contract. You know what I mean? Which again, you can just kind of get off the internet but again, this is a great question. Now, with other publishing, with other print houses and stuff like that, you can guarantee that the contracts are way more complex, way more, they stipulate way more and they're very, very, very direct. You know, like there's certain things that you cannot do. If they pay you to write two books, man, you gotta give them two books. You can't give them a book and a half. I mean, you can give them a book and a half but your career's over, right? So it's like, you know, I'm actually reading a book The Last Taxi Driver by Lee Durkey and the main character is actually a person who wrote a book and then just couldn't write the second one and so it has to drive cabs, you know what I mean? They used to work at a college and stuff. So I guess what I'm saying is as a self-publisher, you know what I mean? It's a lot easier, a lot less complex. As a publisher-publisher, your bottom line is you have money to make and you're gonna hold people to that contract and if you try to break the contract, it gets so ugly and because again, I don't have money for lawyers, you know what I mean? As a self-publisher, most don't and they know that too. The big publishers know that and so do a lot of the people. So, you know, you have to tread lightly. That's a great question. I hope I've answered it like, you know, it's like I said, this is not a day job. I mean, like don't quit your day job. Like this shouldn't be your day job. Like this takes years to really kind of cultivate. You could strike out, like, you know, let's not forget, Paul Beatty's a sellout, Marlon James, that novel, those both were small presses and, you know, one won the Pulitzer and, you know, Man Booker. So it's like, it can happen, you know what I mean? It's not about that but, you know, it's like a gambling thing, right? So it's like when you go to Vegas, you know, you may win $4,000, but the house is gonna win always, you know, so you have to be careful and tread lightly. The contracts are great for that and small presses typically pay their contributors and copies. So thank you for that question. That was a great question as well. And Max did point out that money does go back into creating and promoting more volumes. So let's remember that too. For sure, and then let's not forget, like especially with librarians with spines, like we sell it for $22.95, right? But then I'm responsible for mailing it out and each book is about $2.75. Like if I get a carrier that's like cool and like we're chill and I can get the media rate, that's like $2.75. If not, if they kind of hassle me and they're like whatever and they start asking a lot of questions, it's like $3.25 or something like that. So you gotta realize that's $3 off of every book. So the book that, you know, we're not really making that, we're making that minus the postage and minus this. And, you know, I run this and Max, you know, with Max, we run it out of our homes, you know what I mean? So like, you know, it's a, we're a pain. I imagine our wives, you know, are really sometimes hate us, you know? Cause there's like boxes of books and crap. You know, I can't speak for Max. Max's wife, Rani's beautiful and she's great. I can speak for my wife and I drive her crazy. I can attest to that for sure. She's amazing and so humble and so beautiful and so amazing and she tolerates me. And that's all you can ask. Here's a great question about any books or resources, I guess specifically books, you would recommend to get started or get more in depth on self publishing and becoming a small press. Is there one title that you would recommend? Let me tell you why that might be fraught with a little, not danger, but like the books that are published, teaching people how to publish are there to sell. And that's obvious, right? I guess my point is, is I would trust more, I would stick to Library of Congress, like what I can learn from the pre-assigned control number thing. I would stick with Bowker and like the commercial stuff that they tell me about that stuff and like how to think about it. In terms of books, it's kind of like self-help, you know what I mean? Like self-help is I feel always trying to sell you something, right? So they're trying to sell you this way. I guess what I'm saying is eventually I get to the point where they try to sell me something if it's a book about publishing and I'm completely against that. Like the whole point of this is a DIY kind of ethic and it is this idea that like look, the thing that separates me from Penguin House is millions of dollars of capital for sure. They have staff of thousands, they have millions in terms of capital and a publishing history, I have none of that. But there's certain things that put me on par with them. And I guess what I'm saying is I stick to those things because those things are the things that I can touch. Those are the real things. Like the real thing is Penguin has a Bowker account and they have hundreds of ISBNs and they have a person who's sold job is to, to shepherd those ISBNs, right? I don't, I have maybe 20, okay? And so I can do it on my own. So the scale is much smaller. I'm so sorry, it's not that, if you gave me like a day or so, I could probably find like a book or two that's a little better, you know what I mean? What I would recommend actually, it's from my work as a poet, like you have the poet's market. So depending on what genre, buy the market book for that year. And actually that's how I would do my research and that's how I would kind of emulate the things that I would like to do is I would check the websites and the aesthetics and the business plans, you know, like how they do things of presses, websites, journals that I like and admire, you know, that's really, so don't get a book, but get the, like if you're thinking about starting a poetry press, get the poet's market at 2020 and just kind of leaf through it, you know, look at places that accept contests and stuff like that and see how they do things and how they run things. And that's where you'll get a better idea. If you go to a book, you're gonna get a line and someone's gonna try to sell you something. But again, you know, maybe look around too, right? Using self publishing or, you know, keywords like that, you know what I mean? That'll get you something. That's just my two cents, you know, but that's a great question and thank you for allowing me to express it like that. You know, I appreciate it. And also, Yaga, and I think you mentioned this before, too, looking at those Facebook groups or other locations that social media to see if there are any networking groups that might have conversations about this that address that specific genre. Oh, no, no, for sure. And like I said, if you look closely, like I know for a fact, like in Los Angeles, you have like writ large press and they're like a press that publishes poetry stuff and like they, you know, I would consider them a person of color press, you know what I mean? And the books they put out are great, but they've also done programming. They did this program a couple of years, a couple of summers ago called 90 for 90 and they did 90 programs in 90 days. And let me tell you, man, they're not making millions of dollars. That was all love and connections and rapport that they were able to build with people. Again, what I'm saying is we don't have the capital, we don't have that money, but what we do have is time and what we can build is rapport. And once you build rapport and make those connections, people will actually probably do the work for free. If there's that rapport, if that's that general feeling that we're in this together and we can do this together and you're collaborative, I guarantee you money is not gonna be an issue and everyone just kind of throws our defenses down. So that's just one example. You know, like I haven't worked with them much just because my, you guys can hear my babies in the back, my life is somewhere different and I don't know when I can work sometimes. You know what I mean? It's just kind of a little harder for me, but there are presses owned by minorities that are minority run and mostly published minorities. There are bookstores out there that are really taking the charge and really trying to, like other books in LA. I mean, phenomenal, phenomenal in terms of like who they're trying to reach, the programming they offer. Like I think better than libraries. You know, they're doing programming that is way more. Look at Libertal Mobile in Santa Ana. I mean, it's there, you know what I mean? Like it's there, but you do have to reach out. You do have to come with open palms and just like really in a spirit of trying to learn how to do this. And I guarantee you people will, the opportunities will approach you. You will not have to look for opportunities to publish things. You will talk to people, you will mingle, you'll network and all of a sudden they'll be writing to you and asking you what you think and if you can help them with this. So, you know, it's a great opportunity to kind of, you know, be humble and just kind of learn. And that's what I've been trying to do for the past 10 years. And I still have maybe scratched the surface, you know? I think we're at the top of the hour and I want to be really cognizant of that because our time is critical. So there are several questions, Yago, and some great resources that individuals have asked and shared. So what I'm gonna do is I will send those to you after this and if you can respond to those and just an award document and then we will post those answers and those resources with the recording on our website. So everybody can get those answers afterwards. That's super rad. No worries. I did want to say one last thing. Guys, you know, even though there are a lot of obstacles to publishing and you know, you're definitely gonna be learning a lot. I did also want to make the case for there are lots of public library systems and academic ones that are really trying to ensure that minorities are publishing and that there is a hail and hearty and almost kind of like just a very vibrant ecosystem of publishing. So just, you know, in terms like LAPL has resources. LAPL, you know, collaborates with independent authors in English and in Spanish. And I'm not just talking about telling them titles recommending. I'm talking about working with the California Center for the Book and a bunch of other entities. So you don't have to reach out to public library systems or libraries. There are nonprofits, organizations that are there to help you. California Center for the Book, California Arts Council. There are myriad, myriad, myriad people out there willing to help you if you can write a cogent proposal. So please reach out, but don't forget. A lot of these resources have been under your nose. You just haven't been looking for them. And your work as a librarian that always happens to me as a librarian. I'm always like, oh man, it was right there. You know, but I just, I wasn't looking for it. And so I wasn't able to find it. So maybe now that you're looking for these things, recheck the, you know, the kind of home pages of your public library. And I guarantee you, man, you're talking about Austin. You're talking about Los Angeles. You're talking about New York. You're talking about like Portland, Seattle. I guarantee you those public libraries have collaborations with independent publishers and organizations at the state level that you can take advantage of. You are not in this alone. It is not your problem to solve alone. That's the one thing I want to leave you with. Reach out, be humble, learn as much as you can. And you know what? Ask for help. And people respond. They always respond, you know? So, you know, with that, I really appreciate it. I don't want to take more time than, you know, you guys are lying. So I really appreciate the time and the patience. And I'll definitely get back to all your questions. And please, inchespress.com. We're selling zines. We're selling copies of librarians with spines. I'd love to put one in your hand. Thank you so much, Yago. This, again, was so informative. And I really appreciate everyone that's attended, as well as your time for putting this together and sharing your expertise with us. So with that, thank you, everyone. And we will be back in touch, and you will be able to see the recording and those answers to those questions we need to get to and the resources on our website within two to four weeks. So thank you again. Gracias. Y un abrazo gigante para todos la gente en internet. Okay, thank you in a big hug and for everyone on the internet. Let me know if you have any questions. I'd love to answer them. Thank you so much, guys.