Richard McGowan's Blog: Smashed-Rat-On-Press - Posts Tagged "load"

Musicians, painters, writers, and other artists should obviously be compensated for their work. We as a society fail miserably to support the arts that we all depend on for nearly all non-natural beauty in the world and in our lives. Artists often give up a tremendous amount in terms of personal wealth and security for the privilege of Arting Freely and Often. And a good percentage of what a customer pays for art ends up in the pockets of middle-dudes.

I'm getting sick contemplating a quite-likely digital future in which everything in the arts is licensed by giant corporations who are ready to mutilate anyone or anything that gets in the way of their profit margin and their "rights"—no matter how long an artist has been dead. I'm also sick of corporate unwillingness to negotiate reasonable terms with other institutions, particularly libraries—because nothing is really about art, it's all about profit and control.

This story just burned us up: the University of Washington Library was trying to get a particular digital album for their music students. The terms? They could pay $250 plus a licensing fee to get access to 25% of the album for two years. (In the past, they might have paid $25 to buy a CD they could loan out. A reasonable music company would burn them a one-off CD and sell it to them for $50—or even $100—with a smile.

Smashed-Rat-on-Press has embraced a policy of fighting back against greed and unreigned corporate cultural control with our new Library and Institutional Licensing terms. For a modest one-time packaging fee, SROP will license the entire catalog of publications for unlimited loan distribution to bona-fide public and university libraries in the USA and abroad. Librarians are welcome to contact the Rodent at SROP to learn about our attractive terms.

And now I'll return to the comfort of my cozy room beneath the rock.

Sometimes the furry-faced folks hereabouts think maybe Smashed-Rat-on-Press ought to host some of its own free samples and previews. Make some wild hoopla. Like, put free samples on the SROP site and have pointers and big blinking signs and all that.

Because SROP doesn't deal with the "big box" stores, but only sells directly through small, locally-sourced, organic Ma-and-Pa boutique vending solutions, there isn't any true consumer-oriented place to guzzle loads of free samples and binge on previews for SROP books. (Lulu.com doesn't count in this regard, but the Lulu.com SROP pages have always included decent samples of the print editions for every SROP title. I don't think anyone goes there to look, even though the bibliographic entries here on GR point to the print-edition pages as the "official" URL for the titles.)

At other times the rodents here think it's not worth the bother to make or offer samples. If SROP isn't dealing with the "big box" stores, nobody out in the world knows about the books anyway. Hence, they not only don't know about the existence of the books, they don't know they could just ask the Head Rodent for the entire book. For free! [insert blinking icon here] So, making special previews is total a waste of time.

That's the idea anyway. We could all be wrong-thinking rodents. And there could be a small roving herd of unicorns in your backyard.

The year is almost over, and GR has begun to show us our years in books... Oh, how time flies! Maybe you haven't read your quota for the year?

If any readers out there happen to be seeking short books to stuff their books-read-in-2018 count, here are some of the shortest volumes from Smashed-Rat-on-Press... Nothing over 35,000 words! That means you might even be able to gobble one per day between now and the new year! (Some of the poetry books are particularly quick reads, of course.)

(But for heaven's sake, please don't buy any of them and ruin the current record run. Just follow the bread crumbs to free e-copies.)