Know Thy Enemy

Last Saturday, was out drinking with [identity-protected] and some of her friends. One of her friends just so happened to be a regular at local literary workshops and contests and obviously, one of the topics for the night was the ins and outs of the literary scene.

Some of the gems I picked up:

• Costs of Publishing: You know how much it costs to have a book printed here? At a minimum: For 150 pieces with 300 pages each, it costs 30 thousand bucks. With the US dollar exchange rate of PhP 55 to the US dollar, that would be US$555. Now, I don't know if this includes marketing and artwork or if this is just the bare bones cost. I presume that the price quoted above is the one given to the local literati when they want to have their books published, including the essay-collections I mentioned in a previous post. This I guess explains the similar book-format of local literature. At the very least, I'm checking how local publishing rates against the various forms of vanity publishing. For a more explicit look at publishing, check out Tor editor Teresa Nielsen-Hayden's Follow the Money as well as celebrated author Neil Gaiman's Everything you wanted to know about literary agents...
• Selection Process: I also learned how some literary organizations pick the candidates they want to participate in their writing workshops. My friend said if the literary group is set to get four participants, they normally get two who they perceive have talent but whose material needs work. The other two slots they award to candidates who already have recognizable talent as a kind of 'reward' (for what, I don't know). Obviously, knowing each other is still a big factor. I still don't know what the criteria is for winning in contests though.
• What To Write: Interesting enough, the friend kept mentioning social commentaries inherent in the stuff he submitted to these workshops. Because of this, I presume these literary groups rate social commentary as an important factor in any written work they receive (something I've always suspected). My question is: Wouldn't the works run the risk of becoming out-dated because of the so-called social commentaries?
• Pressure: The top story that night was how one of the workshoppers broke down after first coming face-to-face against the deluge of group criticism. That and the quote that was engendered: "It's not psycho if it's sweet."

As these things go through my mind, I'm more serious in going after Dean to pepper him questions, especially after I hear that he's shopping for his first novel.

After all, I would seriously love to set up a small press firm locally but I don't know where to start.