Looking for a Publisher

[ecosophia]

Well, that's done -- one of the three writing projects I hoped to complete during my January break is finished in draft. The project? A summing up of the themes of magical politics and class prejudice in the United States I've been discussing since early in 2016, and pretty much wrapped up last year. The challenge now is finding a publisher for the project. 

Since it's a book on US politics, I want to find an American publisher, and since it stands the acceptable tropes of contemporary politics on their heads and talks at length about some of the most strictly tabooed topics of our time -- for example, the role of class interests and class prejudice in the rise and fall of the privileged progressivism of the recent past, and the rise of the populist backlash that's shaping the present and future -- I need to find a publisher who can handle extreme political heresy. Oh, and the book also talks about magic, so it should be a publisher whose tolerance for heresy isn't limited to the political realm. 

Of course the usual issues also apply: it would be nice to find a publisher that has decent marketing and a reputation as a source for outsider viewpoints, etc. 

I've begun looking around for options, but it occurs to me that my readers are an impressively diverse and well-read bunch of people, the kind of readers who have books full of weird alternative views sitting on their shelves right now. If you do, and happen to have a spare moment, could you let me know who published the weirdest of those weird alternative views? Many thanks, and may shoggoths surrepititiously do your dishes for you. 

Comments

Shoggoths

[sea_spray]

Now I just have to read the shoggoth concerto. Looking forward to it!
Thanks

Re: Shoggoths

[ecosophia]

Oddly enough, shoggoths doing dishes does actually come into The Shoggoth Concerto. They feed by absorbing and engulfing organic matter, right?

[aldabra]

I have a bunch of Derrick Jensen from Seven Stories Press in New York. AIUI they ditched him when he went fully-fledged high-profile TERF, but had stuck with him for years before that while he was advocating paramilitary industrial sabotage and human extinction in favour of the salmon.

I think you're on the right side of the TERF boundary.

[ecosophia]

Thank you for this! I'll check them out.

I hadn't heard that about Jensen. It makes sense, actually -- as far as I know, he's always been sharply opposed to technological interference with nature, and I can see how gender reassignment surgery would fall into that category...

[(Anonymous)]

Not a publisher suggestion, but on the topic of your book, did you ever read this? It's an article on "white bashing" rhetoric as a form of social climbing on the left, by a South Asian American conservative, who went to elite colleges. I've never seen the details of it described so well anywhere else.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/08/the-utility-of-white-bashing/566846/

[ecosophia]

Glad to see it. I've been watching that process at work for a while now, but it's good to have something to cite, so thank you.

[(Anonymous)]

JMG, you might want to write Ron Unz (unz@unz.com) and see if he has any suggestions, as his web site exists to provide a place to read taboo viewpoints.

[ecosophia]

Thanks for this! I'll check out his site and consider it.

[violetcabra]

I read an engrossing book on the internet wars called _Kill All Normies_. The author is an oldtimey, unfashionable British Socialist with a lot of very unfashionable talk on class warfare. The publisher can be accessed through this link, which discusses the book in question which has some similarities to the book you wish to publish: https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/zer0-books/our-books/kill-all-normies

Also, they accept unsolicited manuscripts, and has one title I saw that concerns "how the left can't meme"!

They also put out a bunch of books on occultism! on their manuscript submission page one of their basic categories is "pagan" books. They are a member of the "Association of American Publishers" which I think means they are based in the United States. Their information on publishing with them can be found here: https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/publishing-guide/chapter-1-the-proposal/publishing-guide-introduction/

[ecosophia]

Interesting! Okay, I've bookmarked the site.

Various though not very weird

[(Anonymous)]

A Distant Mirror - Barbara Tuchman , 1978 Ballantine Books
The Death and Life of Great American Cities - Jane Jacobs , 1992 Vintage Books
Ina May's Guide to Childbirth - Ina Gaskin , 2003 Bantam Dell
The Urban Farm Handbook - Annette Cottrell , 2011 Skipstone
Limits to Growth: the 30 year update - Dennis Meadows , 2004 Chelsea Green Publishing

[(Anonymous)]

Perhaps Inner Traditions? They are based in Vermont.

[ecosophia]

Hmm -- a real possibility. I'll have to see if they do books on politics.

Sentinel Publishing

[(Anonymous)]

When you mentioned a publishing house, I thought of the imprint of Penguin that did Chris Arnade's Dignity (amazing book on back row America) which is called Sentinel: https://www.penguin.com/publishers/sentinel/

It's a long shot but the main editor, Bria Sandford, does say:
"Fascinated by shifting political coalitions, she is drawn to counterintuitive takedowns of conventional wisdom. She enjoys editing a wide range of idea-driven nonfiction, with a focus on history, sociology, economics, and good old-fashioned polemic. Her bestselling and critically acclaimed authors include Brian Kilmeade, Rod Dreher, Reihan Salam, Ken Starr, and Senator Mike Lee. She tweets at blsandford."

The link to Dreher also peaked my interest considering your recent interactions.

Good luck!

Re: Sentinel Publishing

[ecosophia]

Thank you! Unfortunately Penguin, like most of the big corporate publishers, refuses to look at manuscripts unless they're submitted by a literary agent. I don't have an agent -- the two times I've tried to work with one, early on in my career, it proved to be an utter waste of my time, and when I attempted to interest some agents in making easy money now that I'm an established author with a large and not well marketed backlist, I didn't get a single reply. So I'm sorry to say Sentinel isn't in the running.

Publishers

[(Anonymous)]

Some of the best titles I own were knocked out by local printers in the 1960s and 1970s. There must be one of those somewhere...

Delivery of the latest tract in the series by brush-pass on a busy sidewalk, of course.

Re: Publishers

[ecosophia]

Or a dead drop in a hollow tree. Gotcha!

My five cents and good wishes

[(Anonymous)]

As the author of several books myself, I do appreciate the value of a good publisher, however for a niche book that will sell primarily on amazon and when you already have two blogs with large and loyal followings, plus a raft of other books published, why? I don't see that it would necessarily in this instance make sense to bother with trying to find a publisher for this book.

If you want to get your own imprint, I would suggest getting your ISBNs directly from Bowker and then using both amazon's CreateSpace/Kindle AND Ingram Spark (rather than just going directly through amazon). One does then need to pay for a freelance copyeditor and freelance book designer (when authors don't, it shows), but this isn't like the cost of casting bronze sculpture, and anyway your royalties will much higher for having skipped the publisher.

Of course, self-publishing may not necessarily make sense for another author, or for another of your works, however.

And of course, I could be wrong. Wacky things happen all the time in the publishing world. There just might be the perfect publisher, ready to pounce. I cannot think of one at the moment, however.

Ah, no, what about White Crow?

Re: My five cents and good wishes

[ecosophia]

I'm far from sure that sales from this project will be limited to my following. Au contraire, the blog post where I originally introduced the core themes of this book got more hits than anything else I've ever published online, and the four-part series in which I explored the subject in more depth landed me interviews on two documentaries and a major spike in readership. I think this could be a very widely read book, if it finds a publisher who can market it effectively.

As for White Crow, I'll check them out -- at first glance they look like a Spiritualist publisher, but we'll see.

[(Anonymous)]

Perhaps pick a few of your trusted readers, send them a manuscript and ask them to make typewritten carbon copies to be circulated privately. There still could be some blowback from that so make sure they keep OPSEC in mind.

[ecosophia]

I don't think it requires anything like that level of operational security; compared to, say, Peter Schweizer's forthcoming Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America's Progressive Elite, it's pretty mild.

[(Anonymous)]

Autonomedia publishes Peter Lanborn Wilson, who seems very much in the same space.

[ecosophia]

Thanks for this -- I'll see what their website has to say.

[(Anonymous)]

Is it customary to tip the shoggoths, and if so, how much?

Also, do they do bathrooms?

[ecosophia]

Not having a fixed number of limbs or anything else, shoggoths have no concept of number; a very few have learned to count, but it takes them the kind of mental exertion that it would take you or me to understand Einstein's theory of general relativity. Money baffles them completely. Thus the proper thing to do to thank a shoggoth for dining on your food scraps and other stray organic material is to leave a bowl of cheese polenta, which they adore. (I have no idea why; the characters in my stories are constantly doing and saying things I didn't expect.)

They don't like the taste of soap scum -- generally speaking, they don't like bitter flavors or really hot spices -- so if a shoggoth cleans your bathroom, it's normally a matter of a personal relationship of some kind between you and the shoggoth, in which the shoggoth feels grateful enough to take that chore off your hands. (That's the way it worked with Brecken and Sho in The Shoggoth Concerto, certainly.)

Publishers

[(Anonymous)]

The Media Consortium in Arlington Va. published the late Robert Parry. Olive Branch Press (an imprint of Interlink Publishing Group)in Northampton MA. published David Ray Griffin. Both involve political heresy, which the rude multitude call "truth."

Re: Publishers

[ecosophia]

Thank you. I'll check 'em out.

[causticus]

For the message you are conveying, it seems to be that an ideal publisher for that would be Artoks (https://arktos.com/). Their catalog is full of both political heresy and deeply spiritual subject matter. However, there is one caveat: going with Artkos will undoubtedly get you branded by your most fervent detractors with that scarlet letter known as "Alt Right"... as they've published a number of books of that ideological persuasion.

[ecosophia]

Thank you -- I'll certainly check them out. As for the scarlet letter in question, that's old news -- people started insisting that I had joined the alt-right back when I first said that Trump would win the presidency because he addressed the needs of the working class. (Not, please note, the white working class -- the whole working class.)

[(Anonymous)]

Have you considered Tuttle Publishing? They are small, offbeat, Asia-oriented I understand. Noted Buddhist author Steve Haggen broke into print with them IIRC. He had an agent then I'm pretty sure. I've not been in touch with Steve Haggen for 20 years, but if you are considering an agent, I could see if I get his name.

--LunarApprentice

[ecosophia]

Thanks for this. I'll check them out and see if they publish things along the lines of my project.

OT: Children of Phauz - at the movies

[(Anonymous)]

Very, VERY OT: but regarding the Children of Phauz - however much the reviewers hissed and snarled at it with their fur standing on end - while everyone else who saw CATS except the woman I went to the movie with, seemed to be utterly and completely creeped out by the humanoid features of the cats (who did all seem to have been neutered!), I, as an old s/f fan, had no such reaction. In fact, Children of Phauz was the first thought that came to my mind.

Raise a glass of good sweet whole milk to the cat goddess!

Re: OT: Children of Phauz - at the movies

[(Anonymous)]

Hear, hear! 🐈

Templeton Press

[sothismedias]

Hi John.

Check out Templeton Press when you have the time. I've cataloged a few of their titles and saw one yesterday not long after I saw your post here on this topic. They have four core publishing areas: "Science & The Big Questions, The Virtues, Health and Spirituality, Individual Freedom and Free Markets". Some of the books in the last section include, what I cataloged yesterday: "Fear the future: How the future is stacked against millenials and how socialism could make it worse", "The American Dream is not Dead (But Populism Could kill it", "Primal Screams: How the Sexual Revolution Created Identity Politics".... "America's Invisible Crisis: Men Without Work"... and more.

They also have a series called New Threats to Freedom:

"New Threats to Freedom
The New Threats to Freedom Series consists of small books written by noted policy experts on critical topics such as government entitlements, the explosion of working-aged males permanently out of the labor force, and the mistaken expectation for political power to bring about economic advancement. You can learn more about this series at:

https://www.templetonpress.org/about/editorial-guidelines "

There spirituality section is also worth a look, as is their Virtues series. One book in this section is called "Be the parent, please" and had the blurb: "Stop banning seesaws and start banning snapchat"...They might be a possibility, or at least a press to watch. I hope you find the "write" house for this!

Re: Templeton Press

[ecosophia]

Interewsting! Many thanks for this. They may be a little stuffy for a book on magic, but I'll give their site a careful reading.

New English Review Press

[sothismedias]

The New English Review Press is another possibility:
https://www.newenglishreview.org/New_English_Review_Press/

They have published two books by Michael Rectenwald, Springtime for the Snowflakes and the Google Archipelago. They have also published The Oil Cringe of the West: The Collected Essays and Reviews of J.B. Kelly in two volumes. It looks like they have several titles about religion and politics too.

Best of luck!

Re: New English Review Press

[ecosophia]

Hmm! Thanks for this. I'll definitely check it out -- and also read the magazine, which looks usefully intelligent, at least at first glance.

Publisher

[logicalmagic83]

Mr. Greer,
TarcherPerigee publishes the work of Gary Lachman. I have not read his works yet but they appear to run in the same vein of your work in progress mentioned above. They're a division of Penguin.

Re: Publisher

[ecosophia]

They are indeed, and I've published with them -- unfortunately they now only work with agented manuscripts. Oh well.

[(Anonymous)]

how about wikileaks? ;-)

[ecosophia]

Funny.

[(Anonymous)]

Hide the text in a young adult cli-fi series. Put the decoder ring in a box of expensive, greenwashed breakfast cereal. It only activates after being dunked in chocolate milk, though.

Or microfilm in a dead-drop bolt...

Publishers

[(Anonymous)]

Here's a suggestion for an academic press that has published some out-of-the-way material: The University of Texas Press has or had a series called "Discovering America" and it sounds like your project might fit in there.

Re: Publishers

[ecosophia]

Thank you -- I'll check 'em out.

[(Anonymous)]

Panta Rei Press is an imprint of Crossroad www.crossroadpress.com . They published Joseph McMoneagle's "Memoirs of a Psychic Spy," an autobiography of his career as a remote viewer and US Army Intelligence officer. It has unfavorable things to say about taking a career in the military, the reality of the psi results they obtained, and the backstabbing and intrigue of Washington politics.

It was previously published by Hampton Roads, so that's another possibility.
http://www.hamptonroadspub.com/submissions/index.html

MacMoneagle himself is an affiliate of the Monroe Institute in Virginia. If you look at the pubs in their bookstore https://www.monroeinstitute.org/store
you will likely find a few publisher leads.

Here's another thought--
If you think of the best publisher for your project as an example of a "lost object," could you use Geomancy to find it? Probably the geographical location of the publisher would give you enough info...

Wishing you the best of success,
E. Goldstein

[ecosophia]

Thanks for this! I'll certainly consider these. As for geomancy, hmm -- that's a thought.

US Chart

[(Anonymous)]

What Chart (date/time/place) do you use for USA ? Since you have been doing Mundane Astrology. I vaguely remember reading few years back, that it isn't obvious July4th1776 should be date.

Re: US Chart

[ecosophia]

Hmm. Did you intend to post this to the astrology entry below? Still, I can field it here just as well.

Traditional mundane astrology makes very little use of foundation charts, for precisely the reason you've noted here -- in most cases, it's very hard to figure out the exact date and time at which a nation begins! That's one of the reasons why the standard mundane approach is to use ingress charts -- charts cast for the national capital on the equinoxes and solstices. (The other reason is that these provide good accurate short-term forecasts.) So I don't use a foundation chart for the USA; I just cast the ingress charts (you can find some examples here and go from there. So far, at least, the results have been quite good.