Bash Compactor: Writers Revolt

The publishing industry is like a wartorn country these days: Everyone is either running for the hills or talking about a revolution. But who’s going to step up and become the Castro of the book biz?

Mischief and Mayhem is the name of a newly formed publishing house for which a party was thrown last week at Flatiron nightclub Room Service. Upon entering, each guest was presented with a paper mask printed with the image of a bandit’s face, partially obscured by a black bandana. According to house founder and host Dale Peck, the prolific novelist and Lambda literary award winner, the image was a metaphor for what this new publishing house was all about.

“We’re concerned with what we see as a perceived chastening of what writers can write about in the era of mainstream publishing,” Peck, scrumtrulescent in a striped suit, told me.

Packed inside the party was a who’swho of publishing folks fond of fancy parties: Mary Gaitskill, Joseph O’Neill, A.M Holmes, John Reid and Joshua Furst. Also in attendance were two go-go dancers, one male and one female, gyrating throughout the night. Most of the guests donned formal wear and sipped $10 drinks, discussing the Publishing Revolution that was supposedly taking place. The more I heard the word “revolution,” the more I wondered what it would mean to everybody in the room and, more importantly, to me.

That’s when Jenny Dierbeck, author of Mischief and Mayhem’s first book, The Autobiography of Jenny X, took the stage.

“In the publishing revolution, writers will not be tyrannized by their Amazon ratings for one reason: We won’t have them. Writers will not be tyrannized by the response of Barnes & Noble for one reason: We aren’t distributing our books to them. Writers will not be seduced by numbers, by the dream of six- or seven-figures for their advance, for one reason: We won’t get any advance.”

That’s when I left the room to go have a smoke. Once I made it outside, however, I found myself too woozy for a cigarette. My world had been rocked. My book wasn’t going to be in Barnes & Noble? No Amazon rating? Most heartbreaking of all was the disappearance of my imaginary advance. With the money I’d just spent on two Budweisers, I needed that more than ever.

Luckily, former bookstore owner and digital media consultant Justin Stone Diaz was outside to help me calm down. “There will always be people who are into the physical object,” he said, “publishers publishing a certain amount of books for people who carry tote bags.”

I was about to leave when I heard Peck announce that Bloody Belle and Calvin Clamdigger, the evening’s dancers, were working for tips, encouraging the remaining guests to give them money. Walking home, passing a space where a Barnes & Noble used to be, I was mortified by the thought of flaunting my ass and hardly getting paid for it. It was a scary thought, one that seemed much less likely if I were to quit being a writer and become a go-go dancer instead.