A LETTER FROM JOHN FOWLER
EDITOR OF GRIST
[FOWL01.01]
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FOWL01.01 and RIFT01.01 are copyright (c) 1993. See below for full notice.
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From: IN%"
[email protected]" 2-SEP-1993 15:18:57.78
GRISTONLINEGRISTONLINEGRISTONLINEGRISTONLINE
John Fowler
Editor, Publisher
17 West 64th St, #2E
NY, NY 10023-6710
(212) 787-2861
[email protected]
CSI 72674.3032
September 1, 1993
Hey Ken--
So here we all come popping out of the
woodwork like crazy all at once. Seems like
I hear about a new poventure everyday--it's
great. What an explosion. When I wrote the
first version of the press release for GRIST
the figure for InterNet I found was three
million. Last week, I saw 10 million and
last night NEWSWEEK had it at 12 million.
Now that's a growing audience.!
Anyway, it looks like you're in the Nous
Refuse collect, right? Ficus S. put me in
touch there just this week and I'm glad to
see some names I recognize and hope that
I won't get pummeled with "cybershit"
Pardon the attitude but.....
As you say, doing a mag (I still can't say
zine--shows where I'm coming from I guess--
like 1964) is work. It just don't happen. I
learned a lot from early efforts. And
although I admit I had some illusions about
the ease of publishing on the net, I've
gotten over them. It seems to me the basics are
the same, but the things that have changed
like cost, range of potential distribution,
speed, and really ease (after all you don't
have to collate and staple and mail and pay
postage or take returns and it never goes out
of print and so on and so on) so it's EASY
compared to.....or dealing with a printer and
high finance if you're on that level.
But what it really boils down to is getting
good writers and good works and being able to
put together something that people want to
read. That kind of stuff usually doesn't
come in over the transom.
The next thing is basically SUBSCRIPTIONS.
And they don't come in over the transom
either. The "market" on the net is so
diffuse that I'm still having a time figuring
it out--let alone Bitnet, Fidonet, Euronet,
AsiaNet and all the other branches, loops and
crannies! But that's the challenge isn't it?
It's work and it's got the added "technical"
side of dealing with all the software and
protocols and dirty phone lines and problems
getting access etc. not to count the
evolution of all that we're going to go thru
til the end of our lives. I have a feeling I
won't have to go though as much as you will,
since I may have a few years on you,
but I switched over to microcomputers from
bookselling/publishing when apples were the
only thing and finally burned out trying to
keep up with change. Now I'm back into it
and don't know how long or if I'll be able to
keep up.
But then Poetry has always been poboy and
alternative and underground and all that so
why not do what one can do and be satisfied
with that. Quality of the words and a clean
presentation has seemed to work in the old
media but there's going to be a lot of glitz
to deal with. I see the net staying rather
primitive for a while, compared to what
Paramount and Todd Rundgren et al are going
to put out. So we may seem like a not very
attractive medium to a lot of folks. But I
have no problem with that.
I want to get some of the better minds of my
generation at least archived and hopefully
active at some level, before they get lost in
the cyber shuffle. So there are so may
possibilities for publishing in one form or
another that I really can't get too depressed
about it.
I sent in a sub request to your listserv and
it bounced once. But please sign me up and
I'll put you on auto for GRIST.
I think the more of us there are, the better.
There's some interesting history about guys
from the early days of the Net doing some
pretty innovative things and going for
several years with only 30 or 40 subscribers.
Then slowly they grew and got to 100, 200,
600, 1000. To me that's kind of scary. And
look how much bigger the base is now than it
was 6 or 8 years ago. I don't even know how
I'd get 1000 subscriptions out! Do you?
There's more of us than just you and me--but
I haven't seen anything that sets me on fire.
A lot of very amateur stuff. But there are
people getting into it. It'll take time and
a lot of hand holding probably.
I look forward to it.
My project now is to break into the BBSs and
get the announcements out on the net. Not
really my kind of favorite thing, like direct
e-mail promotion, but that's what it takes.
Let's trade notes on the process and see what
we learn. I've got a short list of boards
that claim to be poetry based, maybe we could
split the effort and cull through them. Then
there's the libraries. They were a main
support for the original GRIST. How do we
reach the libraries that are undoubtedly
forming e-collections or what are they doing,
just letting pauls archive for them? A whole
area to figure out. It's great. So much to
do, and hopefully an opportunity in there
somewhere to further the art.
Better wind down.
Looking forward to seeing RIF/T----
[email protected]
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RIF/T: AN ELECTRONIC SPACE FOR NEW POETRY, PROSE, AND POETICS
EDITORS: Kenneth Sherwood and Loss Pequen~o Glazier Version 1.1
ISSN#: 1070-0072 Fall 1993
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