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Main : colonisation, economics, feminism, globalisation, human rights, Indigenous, language, writing

ISBN: 9781742199306
104 pp

Bibliodiversity: A Manifesto for Independent Publishing
Susan Hawthorne
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In a globalised world, megacorp publishing is all about numbers, about sameness, about following a formula based on the latest megasuccess. Each book is expected to pay for itself and all the externalities of publishing such as offices and CEO salaries. It means that books which take off slowly but have long lives, the books that change social norms, are less likely to be published.

Independent publishers are seeking another way. A way of engagement with society and methods that reflect something important about the locale or the niche they inhabit. Independent and small publishers are like rare plants that pop up among the larger growth but add something different, perhaps they feed the soil, bring colour or scent into the world.

Bibliodiversity is a term invented by Chilean publishers in the 1990s as a way of envisioning a different kind of publishing. In this manifesto, Susan Hawthorne provides a scathing critique of the global publishing industry set against a visionary proposal for organic publishing. She looks at free speech and fair speech, at the environmental costs of mainstream publishing and at the promises and challenges of the move to digital.

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Translations: French, Canadian, Arabic, Spanish

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Susan Hawthorne has provided all of us who cherish and love books, knowledge, ethics, cultural diversity, multiversity in all its forms, with a wonderful manifesto for our sustainable survival. Bibliodiversity. Read this book, share it with your friends, discuss its content, imagine the kind of world you want to live in and the books and ideas you want to keep sharing to help make the world a better place to live. Do not just read the book but use its bibliography as a learning resource as it is almost as rich as the book itself. Like those who sat at the feet of the Maori Rainbow God, Uenuku, learn from this wisdom and share it with the rest of the world.

Cathie Koa Dunsford, Director: Dunsford Publishing Consultants

Susan Hawthorne’s ideas are brilliant. Independent publishing feeds the cultural identity of our society as well as providing a source of income and satisfaction for writers, editors, and designers. This book must be read and distributed far and wide so that everyone understands the challenges but supports the joy!

Lisa Hanrahan, Convenor, Independent Publishers Committee, Australian Publishers Association

In Bibliodiversity Susan Hawthorne explores the present and future impacts of globalization, digital publishing, censorship (including self-censorship), the declining importance of reviews, monopoly-controlled distribution systems, and social media niche market promotion. She argues for the voices of diverse and marginalised people to be heard and for fair trade and fair speech rather than free trade and free speech

NANCY WORCESTER, Professor Emerita, Department of Gender & Women’s Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA

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Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Bibliodiversity

What is it? Who invented the term? Biodiversity analogy. Counter to globalisation. Feminist publishing. Multiversity of culture and language. Add: Copyright ?

2. One size fits all

How oppression is used to create homogenised subordinated groups. Racism. Misogyny. Language oppression. Marketing.

3. The soil

The personal is political.

4. Multiversity

What is it? The politics of knowledge. Appropriation.

5. Production

Creation and production boundaries. Ecological boost.

6. Feminism

Theoretical marginalisation. Impact of women’s poverty.

7. Pornography

Homogenisation of women as a class. Who profits? Text in chapter says: Who benefits? Institutionalised hatred.

8. Free trade and free speech

Choice. Who are the defenders of free speech?

9. Fair trade and fair speech

What is fair speech? How is it different from free speech? Power and equality of outcomes instead of equality of opportunities. Pornography. The Forest Council? paper agreement.

10. Recolonisation

eBooks, digital publishing and the recolonisation of old colonial territories. Pricing compared to farmers selling in supermarkets below cost.

11. Digital bibliodiversity

Networks. Publishing concentration. Fresh Booki.sh.

12. Organic publishing

The ecology of publishing. Making culture sustainable. Languages. Countering one size fits all, globalisation and clear-felled culture.

13. Principles of bibliodiversity

Patterns and processes. Networks. Nested systems. Cycles. Flows. Development. Dynamic balance.

14. Bibliodiversity in the twenty-first century

Acknowledgements

Bibliography

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