An as-told-to interview with a Chicago publishing whiz, for our Spring Books issue.
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I think ’99 was when we did the Fahey book How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life, but Royal Trux guitarist and singer Neil Hagerty‘s book Victory Chimp came out in ’96 or ’97. That was actually the first attempt at publishing. Victory Chimp was a spur off of Twin Infinitives—one of the early Drag City records and one of our favorites, even to this day. At that time, Royal Trux were on Virgin. Virgin did not want anything to do with the book, so it gave us an opportunity to continue to work with them. It was this insane book that was beyond our understanding of what William S. Burroughs was as far as being really far out. We were up for it.
Over the past couple of years, we have gone after a few things that we’ve wanted to do. We wanted to reissue Rudolph Wurlitzer‘s Slow Fade, and in the process, make an audiobook out of it that was read by Will Oldham. That was a case of, “We love this author, let’s go after him. Let’s try and do something that’s a little bit outside of ourselves to see how the book business suits us.” The book business is just as on its knees as the record business. You measure success differently than you might have in the past.
As it stands, we’ve probably got a dozen titles that we’re selling on an annual basis. Ranging from Fahey and Svenonius, which are our biggest sellers, and the Bill Callahan book Letters to Emma Bowlcut. That book has attracted a little interest from straight-book sort of people, and it sells a lot to Callahan fans.
Read more interviews: »Doug Seibold, Agate Publishing
»James O’Neill, Houghton Mifflin
»Victor David Giron, Curbside Splendor
»Mike Levine, Northwestern University Press
