This text was written in one coffee-fueled blast of energy the morning of the program Towards A Self Sustaining Publishing Model, organized by Be Oakley of GenderFail andpresented on Zoom by Printed Matter on April 2, 2021. Video of the talk has since been archived on Printed Matter’s YouTube channel. About the original event:
“This rescheduled event is part of The Classroom; a series of programs organized by David Senior (Head of the Library and Archives, SFMOMA), and produced for Printed Matter’s Virtual Art Book Fair, February 24-28, 2021. pmvabf.org
Join us for this conversation that brings together Marc Fischer, Vivian Sming of Sming Sming Books, and Yuri Ogita and Devin Troy Strother of Coloured Publishing to talk openly about the ways they fund their projects. During the prolonged crisis of Covid-19, this panel confronts how we can continue to make our work without governmental, institutional, or large donor funding. Be Oakley of GenderFail will engage the panelists in a conversation about the money we make, the resources we have (and don’t have), and how we can make a living. This panel will be a resource for smaller imprints and self-publishers to talk openly about radical forms of supporting each other.”
I posted the text from my talk (included in full below) on social media and it resonated with people and was widely shared, Longtime publishers seemed to feel that the writing consolidated a lot of things they think about in one concise place and people expressed interest in teaching it to their students. This printed version is intended to assist with that application.