Those who persevered through the entire three hour conversation between Rudy and me on the closure of Misery Tourism were left with a (minor) cliffhanger as we floated the idea of publishing real-actual-honest-to-goodness physical books.
I have a lot of dread and anxiety and very little actual knowledge about the world of indie publishing, so before committing to something that might just leave me poorer and sadder, I want to do some research. To that end, I pulled the irreplacable Stuart Buck, founder and sole proprietor of the Bear Creek empire, into a zoom call to discuss the perils (and joys) of running a press with very little money and no institutional support.
Like my talk with Rudy, this conversation was not planned or scripted in advance and is (almost1) completely unedited, so expect the William-Duryea-“like”s-per-minute count to be in the dozens. This gives our talk “authenticity.” (Read: It’s easier for me.)
I’m hoping that this will be the first of many similar conversations with people in the small press/indie lit world, so, uh, don’t unsubscribe from my substack, please?
Stu was kind enough to cut out a couple of instances where he had to change rooms thanks to a dodgy wi-fi connection.
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