Pat King: OK, so the idea for this roundtable came from a conversation I was having the other day with my friend, Dr. Wred Fright. I jokingly mentioned David Hasselhoff's new "autobiography." Wred turned serious and told me that, while it might seem like a good idea for mainstream publishers to put books like this out, it's very shortsighted. Nobody will be reading these books in ten years but a new, innovative work of literature will still be on the shelves many years from now.

To me, that begged the questions:

What is the relationship between "underground" and "mainstream" publishers?

and,

Is it possible for outsider literature to survive or even flourish without mainstream publishers?

Michael Grover: The relationship is underground publishers the bigger they get the more they mimic mainstream publishers.

Miles Bell: No idea about question one. The difference is, presumably, that underground publishers are more prepared to make no money, take more risks, whereas mainstream publishers look at whether something is fiscally viable and have the marketing clout to push their writers much more strongly. Maybe the odd calculated risk here and there, paid for by the "sure things".

As for outsider writing continuing, I reckon it's safe to say it always has, always will. I'll write on walls if I have to. We're all doing it, as will those that come after us.

Pat King: Mike, in what way to you think underground publishers mimic mainstream publishers?

Miles, yeah, I really like how, basically ONLY underground presses are publishing innovative work right now. I know where to go to find material to review and such.

I know that we'll all write no matter what, but can publishing with underground presses be sustainable? I mean, is it a kind of here today, gone tomorrow phenomenon? Honestly, I can't think of many authors besides Bukowski who have made a name for themselves in the culture at large while publishing with independent/underground presses.

Michael Grover: I was just saying that the bigger small presses get, the more they become structured like the larger presses. It's the same with record lables.

Mathias Nelson: one relationship between "underground" and "mainstream" publishers with me is that if i make it "mainstream" and i make it big with the cash and all, then i wouldn't feel the need to strive for anything else, although i would keep writing, i wouldn't feel good about being published anymore because people would probably just start to publish me cause i'm famous. then again, i don't write for money, but fuck i'd love to live off my writing. everything else i do is awkward. all the jobs. social interactions. i really try to avoid people i don't know as much as possible, and at times even people i do know that i like. it's just natural for me. too many dumb motherfuckers, and i say that meaning the lack of empathy or self conscious, not book smarts. take me to school and watch me fail the test, but i'm aware of my surroundings and every stupid fuckin' thing people do in real life and i can usually tell what they are thinking because everyone is so damn unoriginal and they all seem to follow the cattle line into the slaughter house that is man busting his balls for little papers with dead people on them. all right? well, did that make sense? i'm curious how many of you feel awkward out there in the real world...it seems like a lot of writers do. if so what are your awkward tendencies. i'm very defensive and withdrawn, pretty much a stay out of my way attitude, not because i'm an ass, but because i'm sick of the monotony like "Hello," "Goodbye," "Oh what have you been up to?" "Really?" "Yea."

Miles Bell: Pat, I could write for a million years and not begin to make a name for myself in the culture at large. Probably will. And I don't give a squirrel's dick. If I wanted fame I'm in the wrong game. I'd be better off writing songs, going on Big Brother, or sodomizing Paul Wolfowitz. I count writing flourishing as people writing, not how widely they're read. Leave Mariah Carey and Steven King to hoover up popular culture.
Underground writing is always going to be sustainable while people who care about writing exist. Maybe even more in this, the internet's infancy, while it's still free. I could put a chap on line tomorrow.
As I've said before, for me, it's just about the writing.

And Mathias, I'm always awkward too. It's just I've learned to not give a toss. I often say things people don't understand or that don't even make sense to me. But I've learned to love embarrassed silences! People are great, and you know it. You're still trying to get in touch with them, my man, as am I.

Kathy Polenberg: In 1949 Simone de Beauvoir wrote:
The category of the OTHER is as primordial as consciousness itself. In the most primitive societies, in the most ancient mythologies, one finds the expression of a duality- that of the Self and Other. . . no group ever sets itself up as the One without at once setting up the Other over against itself."
This was SdB speaking of the Outsider artist and Art Brut, but it applies. The cultural self in the 20th century and onward has been particularly fixated on othernesses. But there are problems with taxonomy outside of science and such neccessary investigations and classification systems.

OOPS! I must clarify the quote is S dB "The Second Sex" - it was applied to the question of Outsider art and artists and Art Brut by Hall & Metcalf.

Anyway, the question of can we exist- coexist and is it to ours- or thier benefit to do so - or to not- is philosophical. As soon as we identify and recognize them we have identified ourselves as us. We are doing (or being) "it" weather its possible and beneficial to or not.

Aleathia Drehmer: We all have to be honest here. Everyone stand up, walk to your bookshelf, and count the number of mainstream publishing houses written on the inside covers of your books. Are we talking about mainstream publishers or are we talking about fluff material being printed?

I personally think that the underground publisher needs the mainstream publisher because it gives us a guide to show us the things we don't want to do. It shows the separation. If we don't have mainstream publishing, then how are we "underground"?

As for flourishing without the help of mainstream, I think we do because it is more than just literature that is published it is a culture. We are a moving sea of people that write about the things we see thus recording the parts of history that most of the world will not see unless they squint and see the underground shining in the dark.

Mathias, I think you make a great point about the general population "following a cattle call to the slaughterhouse" because in book stores I feel accosted by a bunch of drivel that I would never want to read. The fortunate thing is that the homogenized people that dont think for themselves allow the people with bright ideas to stand out. We can't all be creative. I think the world is made up of people with areas of specialty and what we don't consider to be talent in one arena might be in another. I was socially awkward once upon a time then I just decided that if someone doesn't like me the way I am, then who cares? I don't have time to be awkward anymore. I'm getting older everyday.

I think the biggest luxury in the underground is that it affords you the ability to speak your mind, to use the language you are most comfortable with. It is my impression that some of that could change under an editor from a big house and when money is at stake a writer's creative licsense might have restrictions to make the work fit what the publisher is looking for. I think people get into publishing not so much for the money (which is nice) but to be remembered. Writing is about putting your stamp on the world, about having your particular voice heard and recorded.

Misti Rainwater-Lites: I'd sell my soul to the devil (Random House, HarperCollins, whatever) to make my living as a writer, as it's all I really care about. If I found an editor with a mainstream publisher who was willing to give me a book deal but wanted me to clean up my poems, take the blood and guts out of 'em, make 'em presentable and polite to take home to Mommy, I guess I would do it. I really don't see that happening, though, so my soul is fine and hangin' out with the angels.

Awkward, of course. I think all of us underground writers are a bunch of misfit toys. Thank gawd for us, otherwise the world is nothin' but a bunch of "American Idol"/Oprah's Book Club/Kelly Ripa lovin' idiots.

Marissa Ranello: After reading through everyone elses comments, I see a pattern of "I don't care about the fame & money." I don't either, but...that seems to be a constant with "mainstream" writers & publishers.

They're in it for the fame and money money money money. They write to sell. They publish to sell. All wallet, no heart.

I try really hard to ignore mainstream publishers for the most part. It's hard, I mean, it's like walking down 5th Avenue and closing your eyes everytime you see a Starbuck's. I try to ignore them for 2 reasons:

1- I don't want to cater to the shit their publishing.
2- I don't want to whine about the shit they do/don't do for writers.

I think the "underground" needs mainstream publishers. If underground publishers ever truly flourish, they'll flourish because they're different from the mainstream. People will compare and contrast the two.

I'm really not sure if one can exist without the other. There will always be people who search for something with a kick. Then there are the folks who snooze through life, content to buy anything on a "Best Seller" display rack with a 20% off sticker on it. "It MUST be a best seller for a reason AND I'm getting a fucking deal!!!" (whack, whack whack, people in general are jerk off's)

Miles Bell: I think it's maybe a little unfair to say all mainstream writers are in it for the money and have no heart. Stephen King wrote some great stuff in the 70s and 80s, ripping yarns with real characters. I still read his stuff sometimes. Same with Iain Banks, Irvine Welsh, Don DeLillo, Jeanette Winterson, William Golding, Ian MacEwan. They got a break, that's all. Steinbeck's my favourite writer, and he kept writing great books long after he could've put his feet up.

Misti Rainwater-Lites: Yes, and Tom Robbins and Kurt Vonnegut and Henry Miller. What about poets, though? I'm drawing a big fat blank.

Marissa Ranello: You're absolutely right. It's not all mainstream writers. You mentioned a lot of great writers (Miles and Misti) and some of their books line my shelves.

I'm not sure if I agree that "they got a break." I see more typos in any Stephen King book than most chapbooks I've read over the years. But he continues to use his agent/editor Chuck Verrill. If that's what mainstream publishing offers as a "break," I don't want it.

For most writers, writing the story is the easiest part. When you're an "underground" writer, you rarely get to rely on an agent/editor named Chuck to do the dirty work for you (unless you have a beer buddy named Chuck that comes home from work with you at 5 o'clock).

It's like...the "mainstream" stops caring about the quality of the work (or it seems that way to me?)

Michael Grover: Modern poets? Martin Espada.

Pat King: Look, I've never thought of whether someone was an outsider writer was based on whether they've been published indie or mainstream. Outsider, to me, is a cultural thing, or, more accurately, a COUNTER-cultural thing. That's why, when I was offered to review a book that was published by Random House, I looked at the description and decided that it looked outsider as hell and I wanted to read it.

Now, don't get me wrong, I think that there's a hell of a lot less outsider writing in the mainstream. But Misti mentioned Tom Robbins and if he's not an outsider, I'd like to know who the fuck is? Sometimes it gets through. And yeah, I'll admit that it gives me hope. Distribution by a mainstream publishing company means that your message is going to get through to a hell of a lot more people. Right now, though, it looks like it'll just be a few outsiders in the mainstream and that's why the underground press is so important. We keep this stuff alive, no matter how small the audience. And it's a real cool audience to hang around with too!

J.D. Finch: I've got to admit that I've been kind of naive, until about six years ago, where I thought that Indy bookstores were outsider bookstores. Obviously not true -- it's just a difference of the stuff they stock.

A great outsider of earlier days was Richard Brautigan, the ultimate cosmic hippie writer whose stuff -- needless to say -- hasn't aged well, although a passage here and there can be beautiful.

I agree with miles that Steinbeck, one of the bestselling writers of all time, had the soul of an outsider. And I think he would have made a great poet, if he had chosen that direction.

But to the question of how the mainstream and outsiders co-exist, I would say that the term "sell out" has to be used in any discussion of the topic. I think mainstream publishing has gotten screwed again and again when they signed an outsider, after they saw their success. That's their problem though, and I give them no sympathy, and I think new publishing paradigms will let outsiders publish their own and be successful. Whether they will become more like Big Publishers in the process, I have no idea.

Has anybody heard of zinester Zoe Trope, who got signed by a mainstream publisher about four years ago, expanded her chapbook for them and pretty much disappeared? Lisa (Suckdog) Carver? She's edgy and I used to hear about her when she was outsider, though since her books and things like articles in the NY Times has become much less on the lit scene. I think covertmike knows her and maybe could give us an update. I'm not saying these writers are sell outs, but it seems that once their stuff hits the mainstream shelves their original fan base is turned off (because, I don't care what you say, when you are writing for a big publisher there are going to be rules you have to follow: i.e., "tone it down") while the new audience (your mother, your english prof, the ladies from the country club book club, etc., etc.) are going to be shocked...shocked! at the material.

It's a fine line that few can walk (most of the Beats stuck to City Lights and New Directions, because if they went mainstream they knew their work would be castrated) and I am hard pressed to think of anyone who successfully made the transition from outsider to a total mainstream publisher. Sure, William Burroughs published paperbacks in a sort of mainstream underground (Junky) though that was exploitation stuff and done under his pseudonym Bill Lee...

Of course I'm using a hardcore definition of outsider -- I know many think of Hunter Thompson as an outsider, but don't forget that Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas was originally published by Rolling Stone, which by that time was about as mainstream as you could get.

And in my definition Kerouac was basically never an outsider, and although I have opened myself to the pain of his writing, as well as the naive visionary trickster humor that he did so well and that can break my heart, sometimes he seems to me to be the mainstream's acceptable version of what that time's outsider was. After all, it wasn't far from Beat (the real thing) to Beatnik, mainstream media's version of it, where everyone wore black turtlenecks and had goatees or Van Dykes and snapped their fingers instead of clapped. Kerouac was wise to resist going on The Steve Allen show to read a segment of On The Road, as doing that pretty much made him a stereotype and society's dancing Beatnik monkey. I still love his stuff though. But in the end he went on the show and others like it, and I think he never forgave himself for it. A sell out? Maybe.

End of ramble. I hope I sort of answered the questions.

Kathy Polenberg: I can't think of a thing to add beyond jdfinch beautifully clear "ramble" (wish I could think so fluently) except a bit of historic trivia I picked up from a musician friend. The practice of finger snapping instead of applause evolved in clubs where jazz was performed and booze flowed but taxes and lisences and such payola was not paid by owners or approved by the city. When the cops were coming to break it up because a room was over capacity and not licensed to have musical acts - everybody made for the alley door.
To keep the crowd quiet so as not to arouse the interest of beat cops on foot patrol finger snapping became the agreed upon noise of an appreciative crowd.
That's what I heard about its evolution but an academic historian might have other explanations.

J.D. Finch: Thanks for the kind words kathy.

Great bit of trivia too. I love that sort of stuff, where it's not just a useless fact, but info that adds another dimension or makes one look at something just a little differently. Thanks for that.

Pat King: Yeah, I heard of Zoe Trope. I actually own the original chapbook that Please don't kill the Freshman was expanded into. I didn't know that there was an expanded edition coming out but was pleased to see her book in the "young adult" section of a Barnes and Noble near Birmingham, Alabama.

The book was very much an adult title but publishers will always brand a book "young adult" if it features people under the age of 18. Doesn't matter the content. I had a professor in Alabama, Dennis Covington, who wrote two "young adult" novels that could have been enjoyed by an adult audience too. Just like Zoe Trope, this labeling probably hurt the book. Most adults wouldn't read it because they don't wander off into the young adult section, plus, there's a stigma. And, in Zoe's case, at least, the book was probably a bit too "literary" for the age range it was being marketed to.

I don't know why mainstream publishers are such morons. There's a debate going on at www.litkicks.com right now about why publishers insist on releasing books in expensive hardcover editions exclusively and then releasing the paperback version many months later. Lit Kicks argues that it would be much more financially advisable for these publishers to release both hardcovers (for libraries and collectors) and paperbacks (for people who don't want to spend nearly $30.00 on a new book) simultaneously. I agree with this.

Such short-sighted thinking from these people.

OK, well, thanks to everyone for participating!

Last update : 11-09-2007 20:21

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