Print-on-demand publisher opens up shop in Guelph
Reading can be a solitary activity – but a new addition to Guelph’s creative community is aiming to change that. Publication Studio, a print-on-demand publisher originally based in Portland, Oregon, has opened a new branch in Guelph, and held a launch party on June 5 to involve the public in the process of printing and binding books.
Publication Studio Guelph will use simple production methods to produce books one at a time, and on demand. “A book doesn’t get made unless it gets bought. So that’s the idea of how to build a new economy around publication,” said Patricia No, Co-Founder of Publication Studio in Portland.
PS Guelph will focus on the social life of literature, holding social events and creating public involvement through the publication of books on-site. The catalogue includes books and art that fall just outside the conventional, mainstream publishing landscape. There are nine Publication Studio sibling studios in cities around the world, with other locations in the San Francisco Bay Area, Vancouver, Toronto, Boston, Portland (Maine), Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Sweden.
In an age where technology and digital media seem to be precipitating the demise of the publishing industry, and the popularity of printed material appears to be on the decline, small independent bookstores are gaining more interest. Niche and specialty bookstores now serve a communal function. “I think of the bookstore as almost more of a gallery now. It’s curated, each bookstore is a little bit different,” said No.
While we often view digital media in opposition to traditional modes of publishing, it isn’t necessarily a threat. “We can’t forget that books are technology, just the same way language is a technology, and so the digital technology is actually really exciting. I think that books will be designed to be really powerful in a digital way.”
All PS books are also available as e-books, which can be read for free on a site called A.nnotate, that allows readers to highlight passages, make comments, and read comments others have left. “It creates a digital book club, basically, like a forum, like a community in the margins,” said No.
“And there was a question when we first did this, ‘Won’t this deter from book sales?’ ‘If you can read everything online, why buy the book?’ And it actually hasn’t at all. People want to buy the book, because the relationship to an object is really different from your relationship to digital information.”
Becoming involved in the production of the book as a tangible, material object allows an opportunity for a more personal connection between author and reader. Toronto artist Jesse Harris attended the event to launch his new book, Pop Art Poem.
In addition to bound and signed copies made available for purchase, pages of Jesse Harris’ book were also taped to a wall, and people were invited to scribble and write on these pages to be printed at a later date. There was also a functional typewriter in a corner and people were encouraged to contribute to an ongoing (nonsensical) story for fun.
“We’re less interested in just publishing, and more interested in creating a public [involvement] out of publication. We do that by making and adhering to a social life of the book. It’s not just publishing a book and putting it out there, but it’s about asking the community to participate,” No explained.
The studio in Guelph is located at 46 Essex Street and is shared by Silence, a local music collective. The space also includes the Department of Lost Records, focusing on local, Canadian, and independent music and used records.