Remember the Internet: Hacking Publishing

The speakers, who run Instar Books, open by breaking down what a publisher actually does. They describe five core jobs: production, editorial work, marketing, publicity and operations. Their argument is that these jobs, rather than any special gatekeeping quality, define the value a publisher adds between writer and reader, and that the relationship works more like a partnership than a judgment.

They then explain their own approach. The company handles production in-house, sells ebooks directly to keep a steady income, contracts out publicity, pays small advances with royalties, and compensates the founders largely in equity rather than cash. It started with no money and funded its first titles from its own books. They say it has stayed profitable, though the model depends on the founders holding other jobs, which limits how many titles they can produce.

The centerpiece is the Remember the Internet series, short templated books that each examine a discrete online moment, such as Tumblr porn, a Tori Amos bootleg webring and Google Glass. The series grew out of an opt-in project that collected message board posts from a dying user, and the speakers discuss balancing personal memory with journalistic history. They also cover digital experiments, plans for a second season, and an audience discussion about what counts as the internet. The takeaway for practitioners is that a small team can publish niche work sustainably if it plans each title carefully and owns distribution.