That One Time I Had to Strike Against the IWW

Michael Scott Monje Jr. send us "That One Time I Had to Strike Against the IWW" on Shaping Clay

Trigger Warning for discussion of abuse

So last year I didn't get the chance to do one of these posts properly. I was too swamped, between teaching 21 credits, doing freelance copywriting, and pushing myself to publish 6 books I was editorially responsible for in 6 months, two of which I wrote. I'd already maxed out my labor investment in Autonomous Press, and I was just hauling ass to try to get the titles off the ground so they could be marketed and soled. So that we could get profitable and get paid.

I essentially silenced my own voice in the name of the collective, and in return I got... eight thousand dollars of short-term debt. I haven't realized profits from the press yet, and it's in no small part because my books did not receive the kind of basic book marketing I'd even been able to sustain for myself as a self-publisher. The press was going at a breakneck speed, but when I inquired about issues like a Goodreads presence or investing in trade shows (or even specific academic conferences), I was alternately told that I was making things too much about myself, that I was being too demanding, or that the press was "too focused on autistic books."

Excuse me?!

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