Interview: Kristopher Young of Another Sky Press

Another Sky Press publishes books, but they also circulate an idea. It’s a big idea; the notion that money need not obscure art, and that an artist and his audience can have a relationship based on trust and respect instead of commodity.

I recently had the opportunity to pick the brain of Another Sky Press’s architect, Kristopher Young. He has a passion for his brainchild that I found infectious, and I was impressed to learn that he is also the author of one of Another Sky Press’s first releases, Click. Our conversation also inspired me to think more deeply about the process of the writing and reading, and I realized that each step along the way — from thought to creative output to printing and distribution — are each an opportunity for transformative social interaction. My muddled thoughts on the matter can be found in Column No. 2 of “God Save Vaudeville,” where Verbicide indulges me monthly.

Young’s enthusiasm for sharing stories was made evident by his prolific answers to my superficial questions. I approached him initially as I would a traditional publisher, and we discussed what all writers want to know first: how do we get our book published at the press? It was immediately clear that Another Sky Press doesn’t just distribute books, but is a radical improvement on publishing as a whole.

What does Another Sky Press look for in a book when going through submissions?
For me, the first line of a book is the most important part of a book. But that’s for a published book I’m considering buying; pre-edit, that’s something that can be changed, so it’s less key.

The single most important thing in regards to a submission is that not only is it a book we want to spend the time and energy to read, but that so moves us that we want to go above and beyond and help it become a finished novel. It needs to be a book that we want to be part of, which we want to pour our energy into, because if it’s not, we won’t. This sounds obvious, but it’s actually quite different from the norm — we don’t take salability into consideration in choosing to publish something. This isn’t to say we don’t care if a book sells well — we obviously want all of our authors to be successful. This is quite different from publishing something of little literary value simply because you know it’s going to make a quick buck.

Personally, I tend to prefer edgy yet literary works. Head trips, utopian or dystopian futures, dreams, nightmares, sci-fi, noir, etc. I want to think, Damn, I wish I wrote that, but at least I get to edit it. I want incredibly rich raw material. I don’t care if I need to spend forever editing, as long as I’m consistently wowed by the author’s voice, be it via imagery, or turn of phrase, or simple cadence. We’ve published books that required virtually no editing, and others that have required quite a bit; a project I’m working on currently is so raw that I’m not sure most editors would ever take it on — for me, however, I loved (and love) the source material so much that the effort is absolutely worth it.

The author is also a huge factor in a project. We end up friends with our authors, and that connection, that relationship, is very important to all of us here. If someone comes off jerky, or pushy, or otherwise hints that he or she would be terrible to work with, there’s a very good chance we’d pass on the submission regardless of how good it is. On the same dime, anyone we publish, any work we publish, becomes representative of the press. We have no interest in, say, publishing the works of a racist, regardless of whether or not it shows through their work. How we spend our time and energy is important to us, and, as the saying goes, there are plenty of fish in the sea – and, given the number and quantity of our submissions, we can be as selective as we want.

What’s your rate of submissions?
We get so many submissions that we have had to turn them off for the time being. Several a day, often. It became a problem, because trying to keep up with this sort of tide is pretty much impossible. Imagine trying to read several novels a day, respond to them all in a timely manner, and then actually get other stuff done as well. We tried that, and it wasn’t working — some authors get upset if you don’t tell them you loved their work and want to have their baby the day after they submitted something. This isn’t the norm; most authors are friendly and understanding, but it’s not exactly uncommon either.

Thankfully, you don’t need to actually read every single submission from start to finish, but there comes a point where you’re actually hoping new submissions aren’t your thing because you don’t want to have to spend the hours to read them vs. the minutes it takes to know it’s a “no.”

Right now we’ve got so many projects underway that we simply can’t take any more on with our current resources. So, we turned submissions off. It removed a huge stress, and we’ve got projects lined up for awhile so all is well.

What are some drawbacks to having books online?
I honestly can’t think of any.

First of all, while a PDF might be a good way to get a sense of whether a book is for you or not, there’s still something wonderful about holding an actual book in your hands. Turning the page. The smell of the paper. The dogged ears and the accidental coffee stain. It’s not unthinkable, and perhaps even likely, that someone who begins reading a PDF for free might just want to finish reading it with a trade paperback in their hands. Stranger things have happened.

But more importantly, we shouldn’t view our fans with dollar signs in our eyes, else we’ll be blind to everything else going on around us. Every person that reads a book may end up being the author’s biggest supporter. A reader’s value to an author cannot — or, at least, should not — simply be measured as “how much did the author see in royalties for that sale,” but rather as far more important potentials — we must factor in all the friends they tell to go read it, we must factor in the review they posted on a major online retailer’s website, and, as a result of their efforts, we must factor in the exponential of all those other people who in turn bought the book and proceeded to tell even more people. We must even factor in that email they wrote to the author telling them how much they loved the book (which put a smile on the author’s face for a week). And, on a broader spectrum, we might even want to take into consideration the impact the book had on the reader — books can be powerful and important, and positive impact is positive impact, even if it doesn’t directly affect the author or publisher. When it’s all said and done, any money that may (or may not) have changed hands during the specific transaction of acquiring the book is a small fraction of the whole.

The point is, not only is it okay if someone experiences a book for free, but it’s actually a good thing — certainly far better than the alternative of them not having read the book at all. With that in mind, I believe artists should seek to remove as many barriers between their art and their audience as possible. Why hinder a potential fan from experiencing your creation? What is important for an artist is to have their book read, their song listened to, their painting viewed. This is how you gain an audience, and, ultimately, this is how the artist will prosper.

It’s also worth pointing out that someone reading a book for free online isn’t much different from all the other ways people can already read a book “for free” if they wanted to — if they went to a library, borrowed it from a friend, or (effectively) bought it used or remaindered (since in neither of those cases does the author see any royalties). It’s just a different medium. If anything, reading online is an improvement since they might go pick up a copy — whereas in all other cases, they already have book in hand.

Even ignoring the potential positives of having new fans, there are any number of reasons why having someone read a book for free is a perfectly valid situation in and of itself. For example, what if they just didn’t like the book? Should people really be expected to pay for the privilege of having read it? Rather, let them keep reading books till they find one they do love, and support that author instead. Remember, it’s effectively free to allow someone to download a PDF. Sure, it’s bandwidth, but it’s negligible. So, if a reader dislikes it, it’s a wash. It cost us nothing, we don’t need a cut, and we certainly don’t need to be paid for their dissatisfaction or ambivalence. That’s not how we operate, and thankfully we don’t have to now that we live in a world technologically capable of something far better.

I can see why this is a scary concept for those companies that produce a ton of crap, but perhaps a model like this would be the spark they need to actually focus on content. It’s a bit too easy to get by on mediocrity right now. It’s also an issue if one thinks they deserve a cut of every single audience/artist interaction, such as certain organizations and corporations seeking to wring every last cent out of a property they can; but by putting the profit motive first, they are working in their own interests, not the interests of the artists they pretend to represent and protect.

Now, back to some examples — what if the reader simply couldn’t afford to buy a copy? Is letting him read it for free really a problem? There is no lost revenue, and for reasons already discussed, I believe it’s far better that he read it than not. So again, I’m okay with that.

Perhaps the most controversial person would be the one who reads the book for free, loves it, has the money to support it, but for some unknown reason decides not to. I’m sure those people exist. And they’re okay in my book too. Imagine if you’re walking down the street and stop to watch an amazing street performer and end up dropping a fiver in his hat. Then, a block later, you see another performer that’s even better and watch them as well — but you don’t contribute because while you do have money, you’re not made of it. Fair enough. What’s important isn’t that every last person supports any given project, but that enough people support projects they love that it all works out in the end. This is about having faith in not only the individual, but the audience as a whole.

This is about letting each individual reader make their own moral and ethical decision as to whether to support an artist at all, and then set their own value based on their own enjoyment and financial ability. When putting this kind of faith in individuals, it becomes meaningless to try to second guess them. If someone reads a book and doesn’t contribute, that’s okay. Perhaps they are broke, perhaps they hated it, perhaps they weren’t in the mood. If they do contribute, all the better.

I realize some people take issue when paying for things that others might get for free. They feel “ripped off.” But here, we’ve even solved that problem. A person can’t be ripped off when they are the ones in full control of who, why, and how to support an artist. Bringing the street performer analogy back, it’s ok to give the performer money even if your neighbor declines to. Judge yourself against your own ideals, not others.

On to a related topic: that our culture has fallen into a “pay first, experience later” paradigm is predominately a result of the evolution of distribution technology. Records, tapes, CDs, DVDs… physical media that required store fronts and had tangible costs to get to the consumer (note that I hate the word “consumer”). In effect, we were buying the medium itself, not the content. We are paying for the plastic, the packaging, and old school promotion. (Even promotion has evolved — thanks to the internet and various online communities, word of mouth is far stronger than it’s ever been.) The artist only sees a small fraction of the purchase price, if anything.

Technology is beginning to catch up to idealism, and that’s a beautiful thing, because technology is a tsunami. It wipes the slate clean. It destroys outmoded business models overnight. And while the middlemen and corporate offices might put up a futile fight, or run around in circles screaming, it really doesn’t matter. Digital distribution removes all these barriers, and while some companies seek to build new, artificial barriers so they can charge a toll, I say, let the technology flow. Let it do what it does best. And people will still support the arts, because people love a good book, they love a good song, and they will always want more. And they are smart enough to know that the best way to get more is to reward the creator, even if they aren’t forced to.

This brings us back to the model behind Another Sky Press. Way back when, I dubbed it “neo-patronage” — an evolution of the patronage system that was once in place to “support” the arts. To oversimplify, under the antiquated patronage system a rich patron would pay an artist to create a specific work.

All sorts of red flags should go up there — the patronage system was not ideal by any means, though it did result in some stellar art. Perhaps most damningly, the artist generally lost their independence and had to create what the person paying them demanded. Also of note, in general only the rich could participate, that is, be patrons, since only they could fund a major work of art.

It was my goal to eliminate the negatives from the old patronage system, while adding as many positives as possible. As previously mentioned, Another Sky Press works on a contribution system. We only charge for the production cost of the book plus shipping. After that, the reader can optionally add a contribution. They can also read the book online for free and contribute without buying a physical copy at all. Doing so effectively makes them a patron of the arts.

So, instead of a single patron, we now have many. This distributes the support network so that it is no longer dependent upon single rich patron, but rather an author’s entire audience, all of whom contribute what, when, and if they see fit to. A dollar here, 10 bucks there, less, more. Everyone can participate to their own ability.

The contribution is also now made after the fact – the audience isn’t saying “Create this,” but rather, “Thank you for creating that.” This is a crucial difference, since the original creation is no longer dictated by the patron(s). The artist is freed to do as they please.

Also of note is that this serves to divorce the “sale” from the “product.” That is, whereas before you might be buying a book, here you are contributing for an experience. One of the many plus sides to this is that someone can borrow the book from a friend, love it, and decide to contribute themselves, while in our present day system the author would see no royalties as all. This actually happens, and it’s pretty darn cool if you think about it.

So, in neo-patronage the artist isn’t beholden to any single individual or even a group of individuals. If an author writes a great book that is well loved, the audience will show their love by supporting the book in various ways, including contributions. Those contributions serve both as payment/”thank you” for the existing book as well as funds towards creating the next. This is commerce, yes, but commerce radically different from current day consumerist/American capitalism.

A question that often comes up is “Will people pay if given the option not to?” And we find that the answer is yes. There are countless reasons for this, and I sure they differ greatly from person to person. It makes sense to want to show your support for something, in the same way that people like to support their favorite band. There’s even that somewhat selfish desire to have the artist create more, so that you have more to enjoy. It feels good to support what you love. It feels good to be a part of something positive.

Now, what people don’t want to pay for is crap. This is a major reason why a movie theater requires your 10 bucks before you go see the crappy sequel to a movie that wasn’t that great in the first place (but oh, the explosions). Nobody likes feeling ripped off. Paying upfront may work when the movie is great, but it fails when it isn’t. Taking hype out of the equation, letting them read the book first if they want, removes this issue altogether.

But… if you trust in your content, you’re good to go.