Cune
A Journal of Grassroots Publishing

A Manifesto

The Problem
1. Hyper-commercialism  in large scale publishing.
2. Literary cleansing--i.e. thoughtful writers cut, new
     writers not published.
3. Bookstores: chains are driving out the independents.
4. The independents that survive act like chains, pulling
     literary titles before they have had a chance to find readers.
5. The mega-presses have colonized writers, lifting a tiny
     aristocracy and buying this elite with publication, careers,
     prestige.
6. The quid pro quo: the elite among writers keep alive the
     fiction that mega-publishers serve the culture (in fact,
     mostly, they serve their stockholders).
7. The elite among writers keep alive the taboo against
     self-publication simply to protect their own prestige.
8 The better writers think that they can flourish without a
     broad base of support--i.e. an immense group of literary
     hopefuls, would-be writers, once-was writers.
9. Grants for writing and publishing have lagged far behind
     other arts grants and now are disappearing altogether.
10. Independent presses are under severe commercial
      pressure--they can do little to nurture and develop writers.
11. When an independent press does invest in an unknown
      writer, a mega-press "steals" the writer at the point her
      work begins to sell.
12. The mega-presses "teach" the public that O.J. books and
      other bestsellers are literature. They instill an appetite for
      trash writing that degrades our culture.
13. Independent and small press books are routinely excluded
      from bookstore shelves--distribution is difficult or
      impossible.
14. The public assumes that we can have literacy without
      literature.
15. The public assumes that publishing is lucrative. In fact, the
      average literary book by an independent publisher costs
      from $20 to $30 per copy to publish and will sell for $10
      to $16 per copy. How does one gauge cost? If I spend
     $3,200 to typeset and print a poetry book of 128 pages, and
      I sell 100 copies--that's $32 per book.
16. The cost/price dilemma never will change as long as the
      number of people who buy independent press books is
      small.
17. Books, traditionally, have been the point of entry for ideas
      into our culture. But now the flow of ideas is being
      restricted.
18. Hundreds of excellent manuscripts go unpublished.
19. Hundreds more manuscripts never are written.
20. A culture that stops breathing will not survive.

The Solution
Grassroots Publishing

September, 1994