Cune
Cune Press / Cune Magazine
Our Strategy for World
Domination
After five years as a grassroots press, we are beginning to see the lay of
the land. Our response is to shift our operations to the Internet. Only by reaching
consumers directly will Cune, or other grassroots presses, be able to survive. That's why
we have started two pilot projects: W2R (writers-to-readers) and Troas.com.
W2R is our effort to organize a loose coalition of
booklovers to explore ways of linking book creators with book purchasers. Troas.com
(modeled on the ancient Greek seafaring city) is an online community composed of web pages
created by booklovers from all over the world.
Background
A little background is in order. In the mid-1990s (as in the mid-1980s and the mid-1970s)
there has been a rush toward "small press" or grassroots publishing. The
impetus: commercialism among large publishers.
Grassroots publishing houses have been formed by creative
types, writers and artists. Some of them get as far as Cune Press and produce a few
beautiful books. All of them end up crashing into a brick wall:
Lack of cash.
Lack of distribution.
Lack of business systems.
In the current publishing landscape, the way that independent presses make enough money to
survive is to sell the rights to their books to the major houses. The grassroots presses
which do well are those which figure out the most creative ways to collaborate with major
publishers.
Disintermediation
In an ideal world, however, Cune and other grassroots presses would figure out how to
reach the public directly. "Disintermediation" is the current term. Use the
Internet to cut out the middleman. And isn't it a little silly to have a conglomerate
based in Germany midwife a book of personal essays on local themes by a writer in, say,
Bainbridge Island? And why should that Bainbridge Island writer feel that she has failed
if she does not succeed in landing a conglomerate publisher?
Cune has done well by bringing literature to individual
living rooms. We held 66 readings for our collection An Ear to the Ground--many
of these events in the houses of friends, in small theatres, in libraries. The response
has been excellent. But the numbers are not there. To survive, we need to sell ten times
as many books as is possible by meeting the public face to face.
The media could provide an answer. Except for the point
that it costs big bux to break into the media. You need publicists. And even then, the
media is geared to low low low brow writing.
Our public readings proved that the readers for thoughtful
writing do exist. The need is to find these people at low cost. Could the Internet be the
answer?
W2R
Currently W2R is
experimenting with using subscribed email bulletins to bring the public to our online
bookshop. Also, we are inviting the public to participate in our Readers' Lounge--a way of
bringing readers to the site.
Troas.com
Volunteers from W2R are pioneering troas.com,
an online community centered around books. The substance of troas.com will be web pages
created by booklovers from around the world. Ultimately troas.com will be an independent
online commuity incorporating many of the features that are being tested in Cune's
Readers' Lounge.
The Promise
If writers and artists can sell books to the public online in sufficient quantities, then
we can afford to publish our writing and to represent the writing of a broad range of
other authors who at present have a difficult time getting into print--or even to find
buyers for novels and story collections published electronically.
Such a breakthrough could bring an explosion of good
writing from all regions and localities. See Crisis in Publishing.
Practical Books
We began Cune Press to publish literary titles. We have come to the point where we realize
that "practical" titles which sell year in and year out without advertising will
give us the income to maintain our business systems.
In this way, when we publish a literary book the
distribution, sales, and bookkeeping machinery is oiled and ready to go. Another advantage
is that some of the customers who purchase a how-to book or a guide book will also get
interested in a novel or collection of essays on a similar subject.
--Scott C. Davis,
Founder of Cune Press
January, 1999
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