I was very lucky to have my first book traditionally published. It was a good experience and I learned a lot, but I plan to self-publish my next book. Publishing is an industry and as much as writers would like to think we can participate in it and still maintain our particular artistic vision and integrity (and many can, I'm sure!) it's not always possible. I write weird books - about autism poetics, coming to faith, surreal psychogeography of the Arabian Gulf, growing up between cultures - and I want to keep doing that. I think it goes without saying there is a niche market for that kind of thing, lol!
All this to say, I am endlessly inspired in recent years by the increasing number of writers staying true to their vision and finding alternate routes to publishing. It makes the reading landscape that much more exciting. I'm looking forward to your book.
Yes, wonderful thoughts Natasha! I agree with you. Publishing once had a fine and needed place when local bookshops were well frequented and book manufacturing was restricted or closed to the masses. Today, with publishers competing over tens of millions of titles, with short-form social content reigning over everyone, where Instagram followers means everything to most everyone, when one or two companies control nearly all of the marketplace, when inanimate algorithms control views and sales, and people read less classics and more extended-blog-post-in-bound-forms, the future of publishing seems bleak to me. It is a social game and not a marketable art. When Dostoevsky wrote, I don’t think he was thinking of algorithms or a distopic and inhumane social state. As AI and the techno-social elite rises, so also will authors, artists, dreamers and the historical use of publishing fall. I love your books by the way…a big fan ❤️
Fascinating about the "publishing" world, and tragic. Publishing use to involve craft, all sorts of people with various skills doing meaningful work. Now it's almost all automated. Soon, it can all be done with machines and AI. Even the writing!
I wonder if that logging next to your property is for biofuels. In any case, hot air will begin rising off the denuded land, drawing moisture off your own, and everyone else's land.
It has taken me a few weeks to be able to come back to your post and formulate my response into words––I was so deflated reading the truth of this moment...that publishers require platforms. Even though you are clearly one of the voices we ought to and need to listen to––someone who is busy actually doing the work he is writing about rather than IG'ing or FB'ing or X'ing (or whatever is the next newest thing). The true experts have their hands in the dirt, whatever the dirt of their expertise might be. I do see the transformation/unraveling afoot when it comes to the archaic dinosaurs of things like major-house publishing and traditional academic education (and perhaps other things), and I welcome this transformation wholeheartedly. In the meantime, I'm so delighted to be finding your books in whatever way they manage to birth themselves into the world. thank you...I'm not sure how you do it.
Christiane, thank you for this note, your thoughtfulness, and especially your kindness. The feeling of deflation is becoming common as the very essence of "commonality" inflates and rises to the outer edges of our world, running away from us: up, up, and away from this mess, from our mess. Folks like you give us hope. Folks who look up and ask it to come back down, gently and with open hands, while also having feet firmly planted in the soil, in Earth. Soon, we will be releasing the book and so stay tuned! I simply cannot wait to share it with you all.
I totally get your sentiment, and share it, however: I don't know where you live, but it doesn't seem fair to equate loggers with the landowners or timber companies.
There are definitely many problems with the timber industry in America, but loss of forestland isn't one of them—all around the country, we grow more timber than we cut. Sometimes we should be cutting more, in my professional opinion. Urban sprawl contributes to far more forest loss.
Loggers are mostly on the bottom of the totem pole and I know many of them. Like I said, I relate to your sentiment though. I'm actually writing a little rant that relates to this as I speak.
Wonderful point. I write of loggers as the conglomerated logging industry, from the top to the bottom. Globally, I have no accurate perception. Locally, here in Virginia and the greater mid Atlantic, we are deforesting more hardwood (native, old growth or second/third growth) than we are not and we are harvesting the planted pine that we planted. Virginia lost its last scaled apiary last year, a once forest of flowers. I think the key is not not cutting but commercial cutting and humans being the masters of meadow and woodland. We manage thousands of acres of forest with fire, animals and chainsaws but I would like to believe we ask permission first and only take what the local folks actually need (we hand hewn and build log cabins with traditional tools).
I hear you. There's lots to lament about the industry. I work as a consulting forester, and it's disheartening sometimes. My dream is to work a piece of land like you. But who knows.
In Middle Tennessee where I live, urban sprawl is rapid and significant. I fear I'll be priced out of land acquisition, and it would weigh heavily to sell small family lots to developers just to afford a larger, more rural plot.
Yes. There sure is! Your note on Urban sprawl is well put I think. I’ve worked with many Forest consultant folks like you and find my time amongst them as some of the most rewarding and educational. Bless your work! We have a forest consultant friend from GA on the book project, helping me understand some things beyond my current views. We need the all of us coming together, I think. Thank you again 🤙🏼
I was very lucky to have my first book traditionally published. It was a good experience and I learned a lot, but I plan to self-publish my next book. Publishing is an industry and as much as writers would like to think we can participate in it and still maintain our particular artistic vision and integrity (and many can, I'm sure!) it's not always possible. I write weird books - about autism poetics, coming to faith, surreal psychogeography of the Arabian Gulf, growing up between cultures - and I want to keep doing that. I think it goes without saying there is a niche market for that kind of thing, lol!
All this to say, I am endlessly inspired in recent years by the increasing number of writers staying true to their vision and finding alternate routes to publishing. It makes the reading landscape that much more exciting. I'm looking forward to your book.
Yes, wonderful thoughts Natasha! I agree with you. Publishing once had a fine and needed place when local bookshops were well frequented and book manufacturing was restricted or closed to the masses. Today, with publishers competing over tens of millions of titles, with short-form social content reigning over everyone, where Instagram followers means everything to most everyone, when one or two companies control nearly all of the marketplace, when inanimate algorithms control views and sales, and people read less classics and more extended-blog-post-in-bound-forms, the future of publishing seems bleak to me. It is a social game and not a marketable art. When Dostoevsky wrote, I don’t think he was thinking of algorithms or a distopic and inhumane social state. As AI and the techno-social elite rises, so also will authors, artists, dreamers and the historical use of publishing fall. I love your books by the way…a big fan ❤️
Fascinating about the "publishing" world, and tragic. Publishing use to involve craft, all sorts of people with various skills doing meaningful work. Now it's almost all automated. Soon, it can all be done with machines and AI. Even the writing!
I wonder if that logging next to your property is for biofuels. In any case, hot air will begin rising off the denuded land, drawing moisture off your own, and everyone else's land.
Thanks for pushing through the barricades.
Wonderful question—it is not. Just pulp and pallet wood. Thanks for reading and being here ❤️
It has taken me a few weeks to be able to come back to your post and formulate my response into words––I was so deflated reading the truth of this moment...that publishers require platforms. Even though you are clearly one of the voices we ought to and need to listen to––someone who is busy actually doing the work he is writing about rather than IG'ing or FB'ing or X'ing (or whatever is the next newest thing). The true experts have their hands in the dirt, whatever the dirt of their expertise might be. I do see the transformation/unraveling afoot when it comes to the archaic dinosaurs of things like major-house publishing and traditional academic education (and perhaps other things), and I welcome this transformation wholeheartedly. In the meantime, I'm so delighted to be finding your books in whatever way they manage to birth themselves into the world. thank you...I'm not sure how you do it.
Christiane, thank you for this note, your thoughtfulness, and especially your kindness. The feeling of deflation is becoming common as the very essence of "commonality" inflates and rises to the outer edges of our world, running away from us: up, up, and away from this mess, from our mess. Folks like you give us hope. Folks who look up and ask it to come back down, gently and with open hands, while also having feet firmly planted in the soil, in Earth. Soon, we will be releasing the book and so stay tuned! I simply cannot wait to share it with you all.
I totally get your sentiment, and share it, however: I don't know where you live, but it doesn't seem fair to equate loggers with the landowners or timber companies.
There are definitely many problems with the timber industry in America, but loss of forestland isn't one of them—all around the country, we grow more timber than we cut. Sometimes we should be cutting more, in my professional opinion. Urban sprawl contributes to far more forest loss.
Loggers are mostly on the bottom of the totem pole and I know many of them. Like I said, I relate to your sentiment though. I'm actually writing a little rant that relates to this as I speak.
Wonderful point. I write of loggers as the conglomerated logging industry, from the top to the bottom. Globally, I have no accurate perception. Locally, here in Virginia and the greater mid Atlantic, we are deforesting more hardwood (native, old growth or second/third growth) than we are not and we are harvesting the planted pine that we planted. Virginia lost its last scaled apiary last year, a once forest of flowers. I think the key is not not cutting but commercial cutting and humans being the masters of meadow and woodland. We manage thousands of acres of forest with fire, animals and chainsaws but I would like to believe we ask permission first and only take what the local folks actually need (we hand hewn and build log cabins with traditional tools).
I hear you. There's lots to lament about the industry. I work as a consulting forester, and it's disheartening sometimes. My dream is to work a piece of land like you. But who knows.
In Middle Tennessee where I live, urban sprawl is rapid and significant. I fear I'll be priced out of land acquisition, and it would weigh heavily to sell small family lots to developers just to afford a larger, more rural plot.
Yes. There sure is! Your note on Urban sprawl is well put I think. I’ve worked with many Forest consultant folks like you and find my time amongst them as some of the most rewarding and educational. Bless your work! We have a forest consultant friend from GA on the book project, helping me understand some things beyond my current views. We need the all of us coming together, I think. Thank you again 🤙🏼
Sorry, I believe I was confusing. “We manage thousands of acres” I mean my wife and I, not the general “we.”