Why I am a Guerrilla publisher.

I bind fanfic and other underground writing into real books. I am a Guerrilla publisher.

Why are you doing this?

• To make a demonstrative statement on the validity of “fic” in general (and fanfic within that specifically) as a newborn genre of literature that has really only come into its own in the last 15-20 years.
• To disrupt preconceptions about what is valuable and worthy of being memorialized in print, much less published in a fine edition.
• An act of anti-capitalist resistance. Participation in the traditional gift economy of fandom. Most of my projects are volunteer and gifts.
• Preservation of fandom history and works for future generations. These books won't blip out of existence by politically-motivated, puritanical updates to a corporate terms of service. These books are acid-free, archive ready, made to survive for another century.
• Demonstration against censorship of fiction. Most of the books contain subject matter some people may find objectionable on various grounds. I have begun to deliberately seek out works that authors and artists were persecuted online for creating.
• In summary, it’s a big Fuck You to power structures that silence people. On a positive note, it encourages people to keep creating and I hope reassures them that their work has enduring value. It makes my friends so happy that they cry, so that’s nice too.

Stylistic Choices

My book design is deliberately conservative because I am challenging ideas of what should be inside the book. The more a book looks like something a “real” publishing house would put out, the stronger and more subversive the statement it makes.

I've settled onto a bit of an equilibrium point with regards to my setup, production speed, the amount of labor I put into each book. My goal is not to make the most exquisitely fine objet ever bound. My long-term goal is to capture and preserve in print a broad array of fic and outlaw writing. Therefore, I haven't leveled up my equipment to "fine binding" levels, I economize as much as possible the decorative paper, and don't lavish hours on technical perfection. To me it is a race against time to bind as many works as I can. I am racing against repressive bans of adult content, the chilling force of contemporary purity policing, and my own mortality.

Future Plans

Starting out two years ago I'd set a goal of 100 works, and I'm now on project 90. I am on track to meet that goal by the end of the summer, but have no plans to stop.

In the future I would like to somehow propagate this practice to others, and create a movement of decentralized, anarchistic, hardcopy fic distribution. I believe in the community-building power of fandom as a gift economy, a bit of an oasis from capitalism, and want to perpetuate this practice as much as possible. It may not be possible for many people to get into full-blown bookbinding, but I would like to see old-school zines and other paper goods circulate more.

I have deep concerns about the future of these fragile online communities we continually build, only to lose. Every couple of years, a major purge event causes many people in fandom spaces to precipitously fall out of touch. One way I see to combat this is to "get real", and distribute physical things to your circle of friends.

If we are serious about being connected, if we would like to have each other as a modern-day "found family" in the queer tradition, rather than a bunch of randoms unified only by commercially unsavory thirst-consumerism, then we have to do the work to stay connected in an environment where nobody but us gives a fuck about our community, and none of the monetized structures we exist within online are going to go out of their way to support or enable that.

We have to do it; it's up to us.

And that's why I'm a Guerrilla publisher.

(Pseudo x-post on Tumblr)

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