[...] That’s what many people had speculated on, that the creator-owned properties would be going away. Kind of a weird way to have that confirmed, though, as a blog entry comment. [...]

[...] Speakeasy has recently come under much criticism for … oh, a whole laundry list of things. Read my original post at the link for details. Now Rich Johnston, Speakeasy creator, has interviewed Adam Fortier, Speakeasy publisher, in an attempt to get answers to some of the concerns raised. [...]

No, because they take a certain level of financial risk in every book they publish, and they also have an editorial filter that screens out the more obvious DOA projects that some other publishers willingly take on. (Lethal Instinct, anyone?)

Speakeasy’s model seems to straddle the fence between that of subsidy publisher and outright vanity publisher, taking no real financial risks of their own, other than the potential creator default.

And no, I don’t equate self-publishing to vanity publishing. The former is old school DIY, while the latter is a publisher who will put out anything for the right price, with no regards to quality or saleability.

For prose, it’s generally time-consuming to check and the cost of a mistake is fairly high in terms of lost time (worse if it’s non-fiction and you need it to be factually accurate), so people are willing to pay for editor/publishers to act as gate-keepers so they don’t waste their time.

For comics, most people can tell literally at a glance whether it meets their minimum standards, further checking for polish in terms of dialog and humor is a matter of moments, and the cost in time of being wrong is fairly small. In fact, for comics that cost is so small that the distributors and retailers perform most of the gate-keeping. It’s comparatively rare to see a comic on the shelves at a comic store with art so far below par that you wonder why the retailer even ordered it (and if you do see such, it’s at least moderately likely to come from a “major” publisher and be signed “Liefeld”, for instance).

As for poetry, that’s a different kettle of fish, because poetry is worthless, monetarily. With a handful of exceptions, you can’t even give a living poet’s work away except to other poets–and often not even then. Generally speaking, the “market” in poetry acts like a fine-arts charity: the publications are subsidized by institutions or private donors, authors are paid in author’s copies if at all, and all the copies are sold to potential authors and institutions which are interested in subsidizing the field. Authors are giving the journals first publication rights in exchange for bragging rights, so naturally everyone in the system resents and discounts any publishing that would dilute the reputational economy.

Even though I think self-publication is perfectly respectable, in the age of instant and cheap distribution via the web, anyone who self-publishes either comics or poetry except directly to a fan-base built up by publication on the web is nuts.

Apparently, contractually, this doesn’t extend Speakeasy’s interest in the property. The creator is able to pull the project. If they see value in the Speakeasy slug, they’ll continue with it. If not, they won’t. I’d prefer someone else to take the hosting, for example.

The point Fortier made is that the book would not have concluded… now it will. No stuck about it.

I’m not ignoring any cogent points. I was stating why I was at Speakeasy. Cogent point aplenty in LITG, where I can get some hits out of it.

I shared all info I had in LITG. This came from what I printed.

Is there a difference between a vanity publisher and a subsidy publisher?

I’m just not sure we’re thinking of similar thing when we use that term.

Kurt, hmmmm. Owning properties is key to Hollywood development, it’s true.

If that’s their direction one could see how they might arrive at these new policies as some sort of halfway mechanism that has the appearance of continuing to support the independent creators while simultaneously purging the existing ranks. If that’s true (and it’s purely speculation on my part) the question then becomes can Speakeasy overcome the harm they’ve done to their name and become viable as a publisher of their own properties. I’m not offering any odds on that one.

Which, honestly, baffles me. In poetry, vanity presses are anathema to any poet who wants to be taken seriously, and you’re better off self-publishing chapbooks until you’re able to break in with a reputable small press. In comics, vanity-style publishers seem to be the norm.

As much as people often want to blame Diamond’s de facto monopoly for enabling the Big Two’s stranglehold on the marketplace, I’d argue that the real problem is their willingness to effectively embrace/encourage the vanity publishing model.

Mark, oooh, snap!

It’s “out of the box” to solicit someone else’s work with little to no intention of publishing it, and then move it to your own website.

[...] Great post about speak easy on Comics Worth Reading. [...]