I want to run small press

Hi Lain. I love to read, love books and I want to run my small press. What do you think, where should I start? What should I publish first? Maybe some meme or controversial book? Or any public domain nonfiction? How should I promote it? I understand that people don't read nowadays, so maybe print some inform literature? Give me some ideas, please. Pic random.

sorry to say i don't know much about printing, but this seems like a wholesome project and as a reader, i'd love something like this. maybe you could start off with zines? they're much smaller scale and would probably get you some experience in promoting this sort of thing. short stories work well in that format. best of luck to you!

>>7279 Yes. Printing classics is useless because everyone have a bookstore with tons of Dostoevsky and Melville. Printing obscure books like Divine Pymander or Principia Discordia is too niche to find at least one reader who will give money for that. It's a business after all. And really I don't need much money for my own work but printing, paper, printer rent, all that things cost much. >>7280 Good idea, thank you dear Lain. I think I can at least try. And maybe it will push me to the normal internet with youtube channels, twitter promotions and so on. Brrrrr, really hate it.

>>7282 >everyone have a bookstore everyone have a bookstore nearby*

>>7276 One thing I'm wondering about is whether or not you've dealt with the logistics of running a small press. Dealing with orders, payment, shipping, customer feedback, that sort of thing. I could just see it being very overwhelming and causing a rush job to handle it. Starting small or looking at what similar businesses have done before could be worth studying. As for what to print what books is it that you prefer? It could be worth starting with that so you don't get tired of it as easily if at all. Even if you don't get enough traction after finding a community to print things it could be a good dry run. Calculating costs for the product, handling an influx of customers, and learning how to deal with the small issues that will inevitably arise only in the actual process. So let me ask, if you could make it printing anything what would you prefer to print?

>>7284 I want to print some non-fiction that can be really helpful for people. From language learning books to lockpicking guides. I don't want to play with government like Loompanics did at least now. So I don't want to publish books about drugs and you know all that guerilla things. Also I study for a philology degree so book field is closely for me compared with programming, for example. But I think now that I really need to register some Twitter and tweet there for a 10 times a hour to gain some audience. That's too stupid and I hate it honestly. About logistics — I think that's not a problem. Nowadays there are many services that can deliver anything.

>>7285 Well it's good to see logistics aren't going to be a problem. That's just the worst hassle I could think to deal of on the spot. Past that I wonder what you'd use to show off all your products. Twitter for advertising? Sure that's fine for outreach and feedback but how does it show off your services? How do I search through all you offer in a simple way. I'd suggest a small website at least a one-pager with a few sections you can hop to. Mailing list, updates, list of books you'd like to print categorized nicely. You could complete that in an afternoon honestly, just put it on neocities if you're not sure how you want things done. I'm really just trying to play devil's advocate. Twitter for information is good for people who like twitter but a nice website that feels established and potent would be different. My point is I can see a website being used to inform people at various groups and platforms but a platform only being good for that platform and groups therein. Putting things at a website and linking to it with brief snippets, the full thing on the website, could be more useful. Sorry if this feels too tangential, web dev who just enjoys talking about websites here.

>>7286 Oh I know, I'm a big fan of all this small web things and websites without javascript or even css sometimes, so of course I'll create such a website but after that I should promote this link, the idea, I should create some side project and create quality content to promote my book store much smart. So this bookstore advertising will not look as stupid advertising if I make something creative and smart, right? So you get it.

>>7287 I get what you're saying yeah. You seem to have a nice course of action laid out. Maybe a fitting side project would be making personalized journals? Have an e-mail or twitter people could send images and a description, hack something together in photoshop, and have a back-and-forth to get a design they're happy with and then assemble and ship it out? Would that work? That sounds easy to get started in both making ones for advertising and maybe a couple generic ones to sell just as another product.

how much difference is there for you in difficulty between printing a single, one or a couple off book, vs a small run of things ? if doing just a couple is pretty easy, making nice copies of whatever someone willing to pay wants might be a good way to go, or at any rate a good option to make avaliable.

>>7276 The easiest way to start out would likely be to make a literary journal and procure money that way.

>>7290 to make a 'literary journal', if I know what you mean, requires sources, like people submitting things to get published. If you want submissions, you need people to know you exist. If you want good submissions, well then you want good people to know you exist, and to think you're worth their time. This is not always a super easy thing to do, let alone regularly, let alone profitably. Its the sort of thing uni lit departments do to give their journalism/typesetting/writing students something fun to do, and who cares if they burn some money while they're at it. Its fun, but it doesnt always make money, and its a big project just to get the soykaf to write in the damn thing. Stick with the classics. Everyone loves the classics. Trying to get modern stuff is a good way to get dumb trash.

>>7291 What would make people such as myself want to buy classics from a random startup company over something like say Oxford World's Classics or Penguin's Classics series. As for the whole thing on Literary Journals, they are surprisingly easy to host for cheap if you play your cards right. You can easily do a virtual-exclusive magazine with like one or two magazines per year.

>>7292 >cheap to host maybe I'm high on computers but we're not talking about hosting virtual magazines on computers. Virtual-exclusive I can't parse, exclusive of the virtual or exclusive to the virtual ? I'll take it on good faith that you read the OP and that you mean exclusive of virtual, and hosting as the curator. Maybe I'm projecting but I guess I'd need much more serious convincing that the stuff someone pulls together into a 'literary journal' isnt drivel. I do, however, sometimes buy books, and I'm sometimes willing to splurge on a nice copy. I've read the lainzines, some of the stuff in there is nice, but a lot of it is just weird and I get the impression their irregular publication schedule is partially driven by the lack of submissions. OP could be less niche, but he's still gonna be niche. I'd point to Theodore Beales printing projects as an example of something that seems similar to what OP is doing that seems to work. Its focusing on 'classics', the main point being that they're nice cool editions of books with wide audiences. Good gifts and also just nice to have if you're into collecting. You can get cheap pulp of all of these much more easily but you can't get nice new editions like what he sells very easily. >why should I buy from a lain when I could buy from a megacorp or a university. Because lains are cool, and megacorps and universities are gay. Why does anyone go on etsy and buy some fancy handmade shirt when they could get a roll of singaporian t-shirts for a dollar a pop ? The Mysterys of the Human Mind never cease to amaze.

Btw you can't create e-shop without javascript. Enjoy your stripe.

>>7294 >cant do webshop without JS This is a Bald Faced Lie, sadly mostly true For the record I've written one with html and cgi scripts that used crypto, but if you want things like credit cards then yeah. In the last year I've bought a few things from online stores with checks in the mail, as well. Lots of options, but all probably limit your customers and make things harder.

>>7295 >>7295 >cgi okay, but you can't host cgi on neocities. the only option is mail autoreplyer as i see

I love the idea of physical piracy. That's pretty good.

But how to promote magazine? Y'all know that promotion is spending much money. Maybe register tiktok. And post there some soykaf. Really don't know anything about marketing. (Maybe you have some books on it?)

it would be a great idea start with some Zines, like Lainzine, make physical versions of that, also put on the eye some cyberpunk and futuristic books, internet privacy and security related, and maybe start accepting lainons original books

>>7302 So where to get public domain books or articles? I know that Gutenberg has a lot of classics but what about more modern? For example, nonfic books or guides or articles for zine? Btw author's name is unchangeable thing, the only good for me is that I can print public domain without asking about it.

Are you going to print and sew the pages together yourself? If so, i recommend you check out a guy called Barba de abejas, he runs a somewhat succesful project in Argentina on a really low budget all by himself. Also, there's no need to host a website to run a press, just use Tumblr. The .pdf is a small zine he did to teach people how to format and print books using Word or Office Writter. >https://barba-de-abejas.tumblr.com/encuadernaciones

I have been interested on opening a small publishing house for publishing translated works of my favorite authors to my favorite language that have not yet been translated. Unfortanely my English is like kicking dead whales down the beach so I would need to find a translator which makes this whole operation much harder. With old books I wouldn't even need to pay for rights.

>>7313 Maybe if you find someone who also appreciate that kind of books you two could work together, he can translate and you can do the printing and binding. Translated books sell really well, so it's a good market to target.

>>7314 Oh I want to write a script that will parse websites like goodreads to find which books people need but can't find. Give me some ideas for such script, Lainons. I'll send it tomorrow here if i'll be lucky with it

>>7315 I would recommend starting with a book that is short, they are easier to make, and to sell. I think it would be better to make a list of books you want to publish, and then make a script that searches if they been published in the major publishing houses in your country.

I've been very tempter to start running a small publishing strcuture. I already run a music netlabel, and seeing the lack of an equivalent regarding books is always saddening. I mean, it's either "indie publishers" who are still professional with a high bar, or militant structures who only publish political essais. I'd love to set up a way to make small runs (~10 to 20 to begin, maybe more later) and publish books just like I'm publishing music. The problem being, since this doesn't really exist right now, I need to convince some writers that it'd be a cool way to publish books outside of the general market

>>7276 >What should I publish first? Maybe some meme or controversial book? Or any public domain nonfiction? Usually people start a printing press because they have something of their own they are dying to share with the world or know other people with things that need to be shared, or have an archive of obscure out of print books they want to resurrect. If you have to come here of all places for content suggestions, I really doubt you'll have the motivation to carry this through.

if you can publish lainzine physicals, we'd make it worth your while.

>>7434 maybe he just wants to talk about it.

>>7598 sock puppets aren't copy pasta if copy pasta arent sock puppets, twerp

>>7284 turning a small press into a viable daily breadwinning cashcrop business is a long shot no matter which way how much ya swing let's be honest here. is it to make lotsa munny or a hobby with a product thay people could maybe want to pay for. ==I would like to remind you that printing is a physical activity with profound consequences., regdless of the alternative media available/