micropublishing Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Corvus Editions: The Mission

November 27, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

Corvus Editions is in the throes of yet another reinvention — something the current book trade makes necessary on a remarkably frequent basis — and this page will soon be updated to cover the movement of the project into the realm of print-on-demand publishing. But, for now, this last reimagining of the project will do nicely as an introduction to its goals and philosophy. Corvus Editions publishes memorable, if often forgotten, works of literature, history and philosophy, in attractive, sturdy, affordable hand-bound editions, made from recycled and reused materials. It is a micro-publishing enterprise, committed to supporting other microenterprises—particularly those […]

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Corvus Editions interview at Making Change

October 5, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

Corvus Editions is among the projects featured on the Making Change blog, which covers Etsy artists “who create with a political/environmental/social agenda,” and I’m sending some of my bottle-cap pins down to the Making Change store in Santa Monica, California. It’s an interesting adjustment, trying to make my projects intelligible in a world of brief “artist’s statements” craft categories, but it’s clear that in order for Corvus to survive, it’s going to be as important to reach people who are concerned with the survival of “real books,” as it is to promote the project in political circles. Much of my recent […]

Practical support for microenterprise

August 24, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’ve been featuring the 500 Friends of Reading Frenzy! Kickstarter project in the sidebar here since it was launched. It’s now in its last week for funding, and 75% on its way to a goal of $5000. Reading Frenzy is a remarkable operation: a tiny shop which has been able to smooth the road for a lot of tiny projects, in an economic environment that tends to squeeze out human-scaled, low-overhead enterprises. There’s something fundamentally upside-down about a system that selects against lean operations and personal commitment. We should fight the tendency, particularly since the resources required to launch and […]

Kevin Carson on Corvus, and an update

September 15, 2009 Shawn P. Wilbur

Kevin Carson’s latest post talks about my micropublishing project, Corvus Editions, as an example of “household and informal microenterprise.” It includes some details about operating costs and such, taken from a mailing list exchange, which will be new to readers of this blog. I’ll be producing a report on the first three months of operations, in the first issue of M. Corbeau’s Blackbird, sometime around October 1. I expect to have about 100 titles in the catalog at that point, including a third issue of LeftLiberty, a collection of mutualist, proto-mutualist, and near-mutualist texts from the Owenite “high tide” of […]