The Foundry: A Literary Collective
Manifesto

The world economy is in critical condition. The publishing industry, plagued and governed for years by a hegemonic, grand-slam-earning-books-only attitude, is increasingly turning away from literary projects that will not go toe-to-toe, in terms of earnings, on the New York Times Bestsellers' List with, say, ghostwritten "autobiographies" of professional wrestlers such as Mick Foley, also known by the wrestling-character names Mankind, Dude Love, and Cactus Jack; or celebrity trash, such as O.J. Simpson's If I did it. When the publishing industry focuses so intently on selling the most books possible, it aims, as a result, for the lowest common denominator. Jerry-Springer-show baseness. It values prefabricated music performers such as Britney Spears above musicians who create their own music. Experimentation, originality, and innovation suffer.

It isn't pretty.

Even established authors with lengthy, successful careers find themselves endangered, suddenly labeled too "mid-list" today.

The legendary essayist Annie Dillard, in her introduction to the collection In Fact, wrote: "Publication is not a gauge of excellence. This is harder to learn than anything about publishing, and very important. Formerly, if a manuscript was 'good,' it 'merited' publication. This has not been true for at least 20 years, but the news hasn't filtered out to change the belief. People say, 'Why, Faulkner couldn't get published today!' as if exaggerating. In fact, Faulkner certainly couldn't, and publishers don't deny it. ... The chance of a manuscript coming into a publishing house and getting published is one in three thousand. (Agents send in most of these manuscripts. Most agents won't touch fiction.)"

Even the great John Updike, asked about his writing life, told an NPR audience that he didn't know how any writer could earn her way with her writing today.

Small presses have often been the Ground Zero where the real art, the most dangerous and challenging literature, first appears. The technology exists to take the power of publishing back from the massive-market publishers. The Foundry: A Literary Collective (TFALC) is a committed group of artists working together to expose the world to worthy, challenging, amazing literary art.

It is entirely possible to produce, edit, layout and format a novel manuscript, produce a cover - either an original or from a template - assign it an ISBN, and sell it at online booksellers at no cost to either us or the author. Because earnings are not our primary goal, TFALC will never request money nor rights from its participants. All rights to work we collectively publish remain with the authors and artists. We work together to produce a polished, professional novel, and ask that participants include our logo and tag on the back cover, and list TFALC as the publisher. This lets the world know that the project isa product of TFALC - a collective effort.

Using the technologies of the current century, we have the capability to operate with no overhead, no need to find a site to store our inventory (we have no need to store inventory), and to leave the number of copies of each novel and its marketing packages - both through a third-party provider - in the hands of our authors. In this way, our effort is also green; only the number of copies an author requires at any given time will ever be produced.

While we certainly won't mind if our projects earn money, earning revenue through sales is not our motivation. (All royalties will go directly to the author; TFALC does not either collect monies from or pay monies to our authors. This, also, is handled by a third party.) When the means of production of literary art becomes co-opted, those who produce literary art must change the rules.

We're changing the rules.

• TFALC is a small, coop group of writer-artists. Membership in TFALC is generally by invitation and suggestions from friends, but query if interested in taking part.