Hol Art Books

From a nice review of Frank Gohlke's new book, Thoughts on Landscape, in the latest issue of the digital Englewood Review of Books:

"Thoughts on Landscape is drawn exclusively from essays originally written for other publications, interviews, or transcribed lectures ... [and so] it is possible to trace Gohlke’s own understanding of his art, which is a fascinating look into a creative process, as similar turns of speech, phrases, or ideas that stick will evolve and turn up in different forms over the course of the book, as ideas are crystallized or new perspectives added to the mix."

Read the complete review ...

Stacy Boyd, an editor at the peerless, and quite progressive, romance publisher Harlequin, posts about our team publishing model and Museum Legs. I love hearing these stories of discovery, first stumbling into us at the Brooklyn Book Fair, and then later reading about our model online, and eventually being led to delve deeper into both the book and the model and even to consider working on a book project with us down the road. This kind of intense, random, curiosity-driven individual exploration is both the reason and the reward for us.

And though Stacy mentions looking for a book project on museums, I'll point out that yes, there are indeed art romances out there, and yes, we'd love the chance to publish one.

We're thrilled to share a feature article on Hol that appeared today in the publishing industry newsletter, Publishing Perspectives ("Daily International News and Opinion in Publishing"). I really enjoyed speaking to the writer, Edward Nawotka, in the weeks prior, and think his take on our model, our niche, and our progress so far, is a good one. I was glad too that he elaborated on the Museum Legs and Nostalgia's Thread teams—some talented people, who do great work, and who took a major leap of faith in embarking on their book projects with Hol—as well on some of our nascent translation efforts.

Click through to read the whole article, "Art Book Entrepreneur Tests 'Team Publishing' Model", and also don't miss the connected bonus material: "Niche vs. Trade Publishing, Which Has a Brighter Future?"

There's a nice little write-up of Hol in the new issue of Poets & Writers magazine. Thank you to editor Kevin Larimer for his interest in our model and for including us in the magazine's regular Small Press Points feature. Thanks also to to Cheryl Klein, director of the magazine's California office and participant in the Future of Publishing Think Tank, for the connection.

A nice look at Hol at The Flog. I was particularly taken with Fette's idea of distribution (and also for us, development and marketing) as a social service. Meaning for me, that it's something we now have the power to choose to do for one another outside of, and with reasons and rewards beyond, (though hopefully not excluding) a strictly financial system.

From Artblog.net. Thanks Franklin.

A nice mention of Hol in The Art History Newsletter, whose focus is to "synopsize news and opinion of interest to art historians".

Despite the rather foreboding lead-in quoted above, I was pleased to find this morning that Andrew Berardini has posted about Hol on his blog, The Expanded Field. The central question he asks, and that I think is worth asking is:

"Is it exploitative to have people basically work on a book for free for a company to make profit or is it a beautiful new platform for small innovative groups of people to put together books they really believe in..."

But the one very important point Andrew's question misses is, Hol only makes a profit when everyone else on the team does.

So, I might suggest that the question should rather be, Is it exploitive to have people assume more of the risk in the publishing process?

I've worked to build in rewards for this extra risk -- 1. Having greater control over what gets published and how, and 2. Getting a greater share of the profits when a book does meet with success -- but only as Hol gets of the ground will I know for sure if these benefits are enough. In the end, I find encouragement in Andrew's closing:

"Anyway, check it out let me know what you think. As soon as I saw it, I started to wrack my brain on any book projects."

For those interested, I've been lucky enough to have Eoin Purcell post a rather extended interview with me on his terrific blog.

Peter Brantley, Executive Director for the Digital Library Federation, posting on O'Reilly Radar: "Models in which complex, multi-faceted production systems are involved are still somewhat rare, since they typically require active mediation. One of the few that I have run across is a nascent company called Hol Arts. As it is currently engendered, it represents an intriguing hybrid."

Read the whole story...