Though the term “indie” is increasingly losing relevance as it’s co-opted by everyone from lame emo bands to latte-swilling hipsters, pop culture still appreciates true scrappy, independent, do-it-yourself spirit – except when it comes to books, opines British novelist David Barnett in a post on The Guardian’s blog. While we canonize iconoclastic musicians and filmmakers, writers who choose to publish outside the mainstream don’t always get the respect they deserve, he suggests:
Without indie music, there would be no Smiths, no Happy Mondays, no Kylie, even (she was on Stock, Aitken and Waterman’s own indie label, PWL). Without indie cinema, there would be no Reservoir Dogs, no Ghost World, no Night of the Living Dead. Without indie publishing there would be no … who? Who are the big indie writers, those who refuse to compromise by not allowing The Man to dictate what and how they should write, and earn massive respect because of it?
Barnett goes on to address books’ uncomfortable fit within pop culture (i.e. literature = “high art”), though many of his observations clearly apply mostly to the British scene (for instance, his argument that books published by small presses don’t get much attention wouldn’t hold as much water here in Canada):
The literary world only bestows acceptance, it seems, on those who are published through the traditional avenues. Independent and small presses get short shrift - national newspaper supplements seem loath to review indie books, the big high street sellers won’t stock them, unless the books are about the tough lives of mill girls or histories of public house names, which can be shoved on a shelf marked “local interest”.
Perhaps the problem is that independence in books is too closely associated with vanity publishing. Few diamonds are found in the welter of self-published books, and booksellers or reviewers probably don’t have the time to distinguish between the output of a small but genuine publisher and something knocked up on a frustrated author’s PC in an afternoon.
Without indie publishing there would be no …Bukowski?
that’s small press. Indie is self-published, something else.
I would say the most obvious success story in indie publishing is someone people rarely call a self-publisher, but who is: Dave Eggers. After publishing his Heartbreaking memoir he published his first novel through his own publishing company McSweeneys, and made it available only from independent bookstores. I found it pretty inspiring to see a fellow self-publisher make a decision like this.