Bibliodiversity: A Manifesto for Independent Publishing
In a globalised world, megacorp publishing is all about numbers, about sameness, about following a formula based on the latest megasuccess. Each book is expected to pay for itself and all the externalities of publishing such as offices and CEO salaries. It means that books which take off slowly but have long lives, the books that change social norms, are less likely to be published.
Independent publishers are seeking another way. A way of engagement with society and methods that reflect something important about the locale or the niche they inhabit. Independent and small publishers are like rare plants that pop up among the larger growth but add something different, perhaps they feed the soil, bring colour or scent into the world.
Bibliodiversity is a term invented by Chilean publishers in the 1990s as a way of envisioning a different kind of publishing. In this manifesto, Susan Hawthorne provides a scathing critique of the global publishing industry set against a visionary proposal for organic publishing. She looks at free speech and fair speech, at the environmental costs of mainstream publishing and at the promises and challenges of the move to digital.
2014 | 9781742199306 | Paperback | 104 pages
Reviews
Susan Hawthorne has provided all of us who cherish and love books, knowledge, ethics, cultural diversity, multiversity in all its forms, with a wonderful manifesto for our sustainable survival. Bibliodiversity. Read this book, share it with your friends, discuss its content, imagine the kind of world you want to live in and the books and ideas you want to keep sharing to help make the world a better place to live. Do not just read the book but use its bibliography as a learning resource as it is almost as rich as the book itself. Like those who sat at the feet of the Maori Rainbow God, Uenuku, learn from this wisdom and share it with the rest of the world.
—Cathie Koa Dunsford, Director: Dunsford Publishing Consultants
—Susan Hawthorne’s ideas are brilliant. Independent publishing feeds the cultural identity of our society as well as providing a source of income and satisfaction for writers, editors, and designers. This book must be read and distributed far and wide so that everyone understands the challenges but supports the joy!
—Lisa Hanrahan, Convenor, Independent Publishers Committee, Australian Publishers Association
In Bibliodiversity Susan Hawthorne explores the present and future impacts of globalization, digital publishing, censorship (including self-censorship), the declining importance of reviews, monopoly-controlled distribution systems, and social media niche market promotion. She argues for the voices of diverse and marginalised people to be heard and for fair trade and fair speech rather than free trade and free speech
—NANCY WORCESTER, Professor Emerita, Department of Gender & Women’s Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA
This manifesto was written with the systemic complexity of the challenge of survival of our species in mind. Susan Hawthorne warns us brilliantly from start to finish to recognize the vital interdependence of all living systems. Bibliodiversity can be read as a manifesto for the defense and promotion of diversity in all its forms, but also as a master class in ethics and testimony ‘to free one’s self ... and not to be impeded’.
—JUAN CARLOS SÁEZ C., Director Gerente, JC Sáez Editor, Chile
This passionate, challenging and highly readable manifesto champions the vital role of international, independent publishers who give voice to ‘the risky, the innovative, the controversial, the marginal and the imaginative voices’.
—Richard Smart, Consultant for Independent Publishers Committee, Australian Publishers Association
...the points that Hawthorne has to make here are enlightening and important, and whether you are the owner of an independent publishing company, a writer who works on books in your free time, or simply a reader who wants to discover the best texts out there, Bibliodiversity is a must-read.
—Craig Manning, Independent Publisher
Much of what Hawthorne writes in her manifesto is for and about the publishing world but her book is a strong statement to all of us about the need to insure that our own reading and thinking includes bibliodiversity... If we are ever to live together in relative peace, we need bibliodiversity to get to know each other as friends rather than stereotypical enemies.
—Me, you, and books
Susan Hawthorne has been championing and refining this manifesto for years through presentations and conversations and it is very important that she has now further contributed to bibliodiversity by publishing this work! This publication should be mandatory reading for anyone within the publishing industry—to understand the role that you play—and core curriculum for all students of publishing and publishers of the future—to ensure sustainability for the industry. Whether you are a publisher, bookseller, librarian or writer, you are above all a reader, and you each have a responsibility to encourage bibliodiversity—start playing your role today by reading this manifesto.
—MARY MASTERS, General Manager, Small Press Network, Australia
This is a huge and interesting work; a precious testimony to explore and understand bibliodiversity from the point of view of a feminist publisher. Bravo!
—LAURENCE HUGUES, Directrice, Alliance internationale des éditeurs indépendants Paris, France
Susan Hawthorne’s insightful and warm-hearted essay argues for a wide landscape of independent publishing to balance what is called ‘mainstream’, meaning the male power of big money.
—GERLINDE KOWITZKE and HILKE SCHLAEGER, Frauenoffensive, Munich, Germany
...Hawthorne is the eternal optimist, having no doubt that global corporatisation will
not kill independent publishing—Katrina Kincade-Sharkey, North and West Melbourne News
Susan Hawthorne has done a great service to the book publishing industry. In this concise book she clearly and succinctly explains the importance of independent publishers. Using the analogy of biodiversity, she points to the importance of bibliodiversity in providing expression for minorities, for peripheral regions, for often unheard voices and for literary forms such as poetry.
—Errol Sharpe, co- owner and publisher at Fernwood Publishing, foreword to the Canadian Edition
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Bibliodiversity
What is it? Who invented the term? Biodiversity analogy. Counter to globalisation. Feminist publishing. Multiversity of culture and language. Add: Copyright ?
2. One size fits all
How oppression is used to create homogenised subordinated groups. Racism. Misogyny. Language oppression. Marketing.
3. The soil
The personal is political.
4. Multiversity
What is it? The politics of knowledge. Appropriation.
5. Production
Creation and production boundaries. Ecological boost.
6. Feminism
Theoretical marginalisation. Impact of women’s poverty.
7. Pornography
Homogenisation of women as a class. Who profits? Text in chapter says: Who benefits? Institutionalised hatred.
8. Free trade and free speech
Choice. Who are the defenders of free speech?
9. Fair trade and fair speech
What is fair speech? How is it different from free speech? Power and equality of outcomes instead of equality of opportunities. Pornography. The Forest Council? paper agreement.
10. Recolonisation
eBooks, digital publishing and the recolonisation of old colonial territories. Pricing compared to farmers selling in supermarkets below cost.
11. Digital bibliodiversity
Networks. Publishing concentration. Fresh Booki.sh.
12. Organic publishing
The ecology of publishing. Making culture sustainable. Languages. Countering one size fits all, globalisation and clear-felled culture.
13. Principles of bibliodiversity
Patterns and processes. Networks. Nested systems. Cycles. Flows. Development. Dynamic balance.
14. Bibliodiversity in the twenty-first century
Acknowledgements
Bibliography