Publishing Statement
Since the first version of this Citizen Initiative publishing statement was uploaded in 2007, many things have happened. Yet my basic viewpoint remains the same. I then described my publishing effort as "an uphill struggle against the bookselling establishment." That reflection needs to be qualified now, as my internet presence changed the attitude of some major concerns. I discovered that many parties overseas were promoting my books in the hope of sales. On the home front, WH Smith Retail Ltd proved generous in online gestures, having formerly been indifferent. Yet of course, the books remained unchanged. The content was just the same as before.
CONTENTS KEY
- Resisting the internet
- Citizen philosophy versus big business
- Self-publishing
- Citizen initiative versus sectarian polemic
- Different types of publishing
- Spells win against critical observations
- Waterstones and anthropography
- Survival value and the vanishing independents
- Drawbacks of the internet
For many years I resisted internet exposure of any kind, preferring a low profile career. I did not believe in the contemporary elevation of persona, and disliked pictorial promotions. Images of authors were not mandatory in publishing. I was here influenced by the attitude of the academic press, which viewed such images as being in the bad taste of commercial publishers. One could look at hundreds of academic books, and not find one photograph of an author, however elevated the entity. Cambridge and Oxford were quite unrelenting in this respect. I also admired the more antique aversion of Plotinus to portraiture, a trait which the biographer Porphyry documented some seventeen centuries ago. That stern aspect of European temperament is largely alien today, and almost extinct. The internet feature of Google Images was very much an acquired taste in my case. Facebook is still something I cannot come to terms with.
My image did not appear in any of my books, and only became visible on the web in 2007. That was twenty-four years after my first book was published. Visual identity evidently makes a difference; people feel reassured that the author does actually exist, and is not a martian. Of course, on the web these days, there are so many strange presences who exult in pseudonyms and other forms of anonymity, and so one has to respect the need for clear identity in any serious undertaking.
The web is a very different medium to book publishing, and has been described as a "lawless jungle" by some critics of contemporary idiom and promotion. Books are reviewed on Amazon by entities like Magic Rat, and Wikipedia is certainly not exempt from accusations of identity obscurantism. The who's who of the internet has many blanks. Some sceptics argue that photographic identity should be a requirement for all website and blog contributors, and that all entries on Google Search should be accompanied by the real name of the composer. I have complied with these critical stipulations.
I did not become a web presence until August 2007. I loathed (and still do) many aspects of internet presentation. The preoccupation with commercial ads, pop ups, and animation devices does not appeal to me, and the basic blog mode of expression is too abbreviated for my own tastes. For many years I opposed topical dilations on Artificial Intelligence, which seemed in danger of replacing the human brain. During the 1980s, computers invaded university libraries, and I can remember being annoyed in CUL (Cambridge University Library) by the key-tapping which broke the silence that I preferred on the library floors. I remained opposed to the prospect of using one of these new inventions, and kept resolutely to pens and notebooks. At home I used a manual typewriter, and that Olympia Monica lasted for many years in the avoidance of electronics.
In my Second Letter to Tony Blair (2006), I mentioned that I did not use a computer. I did not even know how to operate one, being so averse to those machines. My feeling was that any educational element had only a random chance against the big business and personal business instincts which tend to govern web media. One of my maxims was that a browser screen can deceive or distract, and I still in general adhere to that view. However, I did acknowledge the ability of the internet to convey information, and friends often passed to me relevant data found on the web. Yet I refused the offer of assistance to launch a website on my behalf.
It was only in late 2006 that I at last capitulated to the advice for internet resort. This was after I had composed and despatched various letters that are featured on this website. I was advised to make those letters known to a wider audience, and added other documents of relevance. Even then, I did not at first use a computer myself, and it was only the practical difficulties encountered in launching the Citizen Initiative website that caused me to acquire my own computer in 2007. Better late than never, it would seem.
2. Citizen philosophy versus big business
My six websites to date may be regarded as an extension of what I have chosen to call philosophical anthropography, not to be confused with ethnography. The blueprint for this was Meaning in Anthropos: Anthropography as an interdisciplinary science of culture (1991). I now prefer the phrase "philosophy of culture" to "science of culture." I do not claim any science. My second website (kevinrdshepherd.net) is closer to that blueprint than the first, exhibiting a more complex array of subject matter. Yet both come under the label of citizen philosophy. In this respect, I may point to the sub-title of Pointed Observations (2005), which includes the phrase Critical reflections of a citizen philosopher.
The same book Pointed Observations bears a quotation from page 343 on the jacket. That quote reads:
"The incentive on the part of citizens to dispute or query official and public matters, and to extend educational horizons, might be described as a democratic prerogative. That incentive may involve supplying information frequently neglected. Even if the subject is well known, the context may look different with additional data."
Though I value the word democracy, in general that is a shallow reference point representing too many situations in which underdog citizens are pushed out of the ideological arena by capitalism, bureaucratic myopia, academic superiority complexes, and new age evasionism of the type recently documented on this website.
The subtleties of context can easily be lost in the market-place. One can find, for instance, that academic philosophy is losing ground in some retail outlets, which accordingly maintain only a small philosophy department accepting only major names who sell fast, e.g., Nietzsche and Foucault. Then again, one will be competing with such heavily entrenched stock in trade as commercial novels and the disconcerting refinements of Sci-fi, Fantasy and Horror. The obstacle course devised by retail chains extends to Magic and Ritual, Divination and Prediction. To dispute or query such public and commercial matters can be a daunting task, especially when many retail outlets in Britain are promoters of the publishing giants and zero-rate anything outside the big business circuit.
The exploiting shops argue that they must sell what is in demand, but that deceptive expedient so often means excluding what is more educational. For instance, large numbers of relevant academic books are consigned to a limbo of "available to orders only," the shelves instead being filled so often with books of little or no educational consequence. It is strongly arguable that big business creates the demand, a problem which stifles improved standards of literature.
I am known for being a self-publisher of serious works carrying annotations and indexes. The earlier Anthropographia project relied heavily upon academic and library buyers, and in the context of IRSA (Intercultural Research Series of Anthropography), which was considered unusual. The economic difficulties generally befalling small publishers were offset by the success of my two most popular works. Gurus Rediscovered sold well in America and was also distributed in India. Sufi Matriarch sold in France and Islamic countries. The IRSA auspice continued into Minds and Sociocultures Vol. One, though that book was not published by me but by a freelance agent with experience of the book trade (I have since gained the distribution rights). See further Reasons for self published works (2008).
Via Citizen Initiative I approached retail chains in Britain, as distinct from academic and library outlets and independent bookshops formerly in support. The results were revealing, and a substantial file accumulated. I had always been on good terms with Blackwells, who were the original and major purveyor of my books to the international and academic library circuit. Blackwells eventually acquired Heffers, the leading bookshop in Cambridge, with which I had strong links. Other retail chains had a less academic reputation, and their orientation was rather different.
4. Citizen initiative versus sectarian polemic
One of the Citizen Initiative books came under attack from a pseudonymous sectarian on Wikipedia; this attack appeared on a user page and related to appendices (in my book) mentioning critical sources pertaining to his guru. That episode has been instructive for observers. The sectarian (SSS108, alias Equalizer, alias Gerald Joe Moreno) was subsequently banned from Wikipedia (though not because of me). Sectarian arguments are not regarded as authoritative by non-sectarians, and self-published works with an annotated content are not rendered invalid by the inclusion of critical reports of Sathya Sai Baba as relayed from ex-devotees.
Wikipedia is very much a secondary source for researchers, transmitting many articles and user pages that are not regarded as comprehensive or definitive by academic experts. Web materials have a secondary status in comparison to books, and commentators who have not written books are at a disadvantage in deriding annotated published books on the basis of a sectarian agenda. See further Wikipedia Issues and Sathya Sai Baba on this website.
Images of Kevin Shepherd, 2004. Images copyright Kevin Shepherd. These images have been abused by a sectarian cyberstalker in America, and in a context of libel and misrepresentation. These images originally appeared on different pages of this website before being made into a triple image by American sectarian hate campaign, as reproduced here. See further Hate Campaign Blogs of Gerald Joe Moreno.
The same thwarted sectarian has since resorted to describing me as a “vanity publisher” and a “vanity self-publisher,” but those descriptions are regarded elsewhere as being invalid and defamatory. Vanity press is quite different to serious self-publishing, as is well known in the book trade and amongst academics. Both the principles and procedures involved are very distinct. Further, the trend to libel in sectarian circles is a confirmation of the unreliability of reporting associated with such sectors, which are associated with Wikipedia to the disadvantage of the latter enterprise. See further Wikipedia, Gerald Joe Moreno, and Google (2008) and Internet Terrorist Gerald Joe Moreno (2010).
In relation to publishing, the sectarian stated accusingly on his website saisathyasai.com that I used four self-publishing imprints. This serious error doubles the number, which is actually two, and one of which had terminated in the early 1990s (namely Anthropographia). Moreno also mistakenly asserted that "publishers do not wish to be associated with his works; even Routledge (a well established and giant publisher) turned away Shepherd's manuscript." The misinformation was acute.
I did not approach the generality of publishers at all, and Routledge did not turn away my manuscript, as they were not in receipt of the ms. Routledge merely declined in view of the reported length of a manuscript, which did not fit their agenda of compact works at the time. Furthermore, I did not publish that manuscript, which many years later was published by a freelance agent sympathetic to my work. Cult commentaries are totally unreliable. Further, I have only published three books under the Citizen Initiative imprint, which in no way makes me an enterprise capitalist. I append here a former web memo re the "Routledge book" that Moreno ignored:
l to r: Siberian shaman, ancient Zoroastrian motif, Hindu brahmans, Shankara, Jaina statue
Minds and Sociocultures Vol. One
Zoroastrianism and the Indian Religions
This complex work has two subtitles, and was originally offered to Routledge in the early 1980s at first draft stage. That expanding publisher turned down the prospect without any inspection of the manuscript, which was never sent to them, being considered too lengthy for commercial interest. The contents subsequently underwent amplification from the author’s accumulating notebooks, and were rewritten in the 1990s, at which time a new introduction was composed. The result was published at Cambridge by Philosophical Press. The lengthy introduction (or Part One), pp. 1-202, has been described as a book in itself. This includes a confrontation with Eliade, Jung, Krishnamurti, Leary, Grof, Aldous Huxley, Ken Wilber, Colin Wilson, and others.
The publisher wished to offer the introduction as a separate work, but the author insisted upon an integral presentation. This adamance made the project more difficult, as very lengthy books were considered a difficult undertaking even by leading university presses. One of the reasons given by the author to the publisher was his objection to popular theories of the “perennial philosophy,” which had abetted the tendency in new age trends to blank out history and archaeology. The objective was to show up discrepancies, and to revive a spirit of due historical analysis. The project involved clearly relates to the history of religion, though the author also frequently refers to sociology. The major bone of contention was the Indian religions, which have been contracted extensively in potted versions. An alternative set of references is here provided, deriving from specialist scholarship. The relatively unpopular Iranian religions are also encompassed.
Published in the UK, 1995, by Philosophical Press.
ISBN-13: 978-0952508908 ISBN-10: 0952508907
996 + xvii pages. 2 maps.
5. Different types of publishing
Academic publishing houses generally produce expensive books, and sometimes very markedly in specialist fields of expertise. The commercial publishing houses vary in their standard, and some are distinctly non-academic in output. The commercial "giants" dominate retail chain consumption.
Vanity publishers produce books for authors who pay the going rate. Many "vanity" authors are one-off performers in general interest categories such as novels. They are usually forgotten. In contrast, the true self-publisher attends to all stages of the publishing process himself (or herself), though there have been different applications, e.g., novelism, history, or other subjects. The survival ability has varied pronouncedly. Ten years in this sector is considered a long time.
Some self-published books have been discovered to contain factual details that are difficult to find elsewhere. Subjects varying from the early life of George Orwell to the Findhorn Foundation have gained important profile in such books, which accordingly become reference works.
In recent years, digital printing created a new wave of self-published books. Some of the authors have merely wanted a few copies of their work for friends, while others took on the open market with a few hundred copies. In contrast to these are more intensive self-publishers who have not resorted to short-run digital printing, and who have seriously competed (though on a smaller scale) with commercial publishers in offset printing, producing quality books in quantities of one thousand and more copies. This minority are on the map in the publishing world, though they are not part of the big business process. The present writer can claim to be in the lastmentioned category, having survived for almost thirty years.
Many of the books produced by prominent commercial publishers fill a tight role on the agenda, often being remaindered (sold at reduced prices) after two or three years. Books that are not reprinted, or translated into other languages, may transpire to have little or no survival value, even if published by a major concern. Academics and major libraries generally have no interest in such books. In educational terms, there is a big difference between "library shelf" and "commercial shelf" rating. This is not usually understood by general readerships.
To give an example here of my output. The book entitled Some Philosophical Critiques and Appraisals (2004) was offset printed and published in hardback, using 100gsm paper, and to a scale of 1,500 copies (which is a long run for self-publishing). That book includes over 800 annotations and two indexes. The retail price has to date been kept low (£15).
6. Spells win against critical observations
An increasing drawback noticed in some retail chain bookshops is the preference for alternative therapy, spells, and related interests. Bookshop buyers in popular occultism tend to opt for books exhibiting a sensational element, popular idiom, and uncritical treatment of materials. This dubious trend is sometimes called "spirituality" or "personal development." Some of the consequences are quite predictable, adding to the general impoverished literary diet of the younger generation. The vogue for spells facilitates a return to medieval superstition.
Now becoming well known is an incident which occurred at the Dorchester branch of Ottakars in 2005. This shop had been observed to promote the new age magazine Kindred Spirit and had displayed several books on love spells, which were evidently considered a commercial attraction. That chain bookshop refused to stock or display Pointed Observations and the companion work, stating that these were too academic and too "heavy." Serious content was a deterrent in this sector. The same shop was stocking volumes like The Element Encyclopaedia of 5000 Spells (priced at £20, more expensive than the Citizen Initiative books). As a local author, I sent a list of subjects incorporated in Pointed Observations to the managing director of Ottakars headquarters, urging that such pressing issues should be made known and not excluded from the commercial shelves. The subjects listed were as follows:
a) Critique of the excesses of the magician Aleister Crowley, which included vampirism, wife torture, the suggested rape and murder of a young girl, and heroin addiction.
b) Critique of the LSD and related "therapies" of Dr. Stanislav Grof, which have been influential in circles often described as new age. Coverage is included of measures taken by American scientists to cordon the Grofian resuscitation of MDMA therapy, which is an illegal practice.
c) Critique of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh cult who were involved in MDMA use, extreme promiscuity, and terrorism (and whose influence strongly endures in the problem called Tantric sex).
d) The crime of Ira Einhorn, a new age superstar who preached love but who brutally murdered his girlfriend and who hid the corpse in a closet, and after being glorified by Harvard University.
e) An exposure of the dangers in cocaine use and cannabis use, employing recent research in the face of widespread official and public ignorance about cannabis.
f) AIDS data as detailed by the BBC, though rejected by too many bookshops selling erotic novels, love spells, and other distractions.
g) The alarming spread of violent murders, paedophilism, and juvenile crime as known to the police and the Victims of Crime Trust.
h) Critique of the Findhorn Foundation, a controversial new age community who have promoted, e.g., Aleister Crowley and neoReichian gestalt, but who screen out critics of the anomalies (which include a case of alleged child abuse). The Foundation were recently televised by Channel 4 (in 2004), but the coverage omitted controversial issues, the media being seriously deficient in this instance.
The Ottakars headquarters responded to the confrontational letter by supporting the action of their Dorchester branch, and denying any ideological bias. The Range Development Manager stated in June 2005 that "we will not be placing any orders now; we base this decision on purely commercial grounds." The point to grasp is that purely commercial grounds are the operative factor in book selection and exclusion. There is no due consideration given to education by such components of the book trade, who are accordingly open to strong criticism.
7. Waterstones and anthropography
There are conscientious staff in some bookshops who do feel concerned at the avalanche of decadent literature, the exotic claims of alternative therapy, the spread of magic and witchcraft, and the insidious overture of the drugs lobby. One of Waterstones branches in a major city recognised the relevance of Pointed Observations and the companion book Some Philosophical Critiques and Appraisals (2004). That branch urgently requested the Waterstones management for an adoption of those books by all branches. The request was vetoed by the commercial policy in operation at this major retail chain. Further enquiry elicited an explanation from the management headquarters that they did not see how they could be expected to work on any other basis than a commercial one. There was no comprehension of an educational role.
A kind reviewer of Some Philosophical Critiques and Appraisals commented that this book of mine would be cheap at three times the retail price due to the research content. In the introduction, I mentioned that some of the concerns expressed "link with a somewhat larger project of definition, one that I have called anthropography, and which has some roots in academic archives" (page ix). Very briefly, and at risk of compression, citizen philosophy represents the interaction with contemporary problems, while the overall project of "interdisciplinary anthropography" resorts to a more extensive database relating to earlier centuries. See further my Aspects of Citizen Philosophy (2009).
8. Survival value and the vanishing independents
The secondhand book market is a very different subject to the retail zone. I have been surprised at the high prices charged for a number of my books by various enterprises in different countries. Such prices have varied, though noted to move up to £200, doubtless facilitated by my adherence to hardback editions and annotations (I only ever published one paperback, and then very reluctantly). I have been told that this development is a very good sign for the survival value of my output.
With regard to the retail sector, some predictions have been pessimistic. Recent economic recession does not assist the diminishing number of independent bookshops in Britain. The independent booksellers have been predicted to face extinction within fifteen years if the current rate of shop closures continues. Major causes of this feared demise are the increased competition from chain outlets and supermarkets. The endangered species is also affected by online selling.
Internet hazards come in varied forms. Serious publishers and authors are frequently disconcerted by the media setbacks to literacy. There is a strong case to be made for web factors contributing to an increasing illiteracy. Two of the most obvious complications are pornography and computer games, which have been widely observed to comprise a retrogressive influence upon young computer users. Many schoolchildren in Britain have been discerned as suffering from an intellectual malnutrition in their poor learning performances.
The high-tech entertainment industry which now floods computer markets is a multi-faceted distraction offsetting the educational potential of the web. Drawbacks to that potential have included the notorious factor of American business concerns utilising deceptive “black hat” techniques to boost their rankings with Google. Marketing plans can cause confusion and bad habits.
There is furthermore the vexed matter of the blog world, which is viewed with caution by many academics. Respectable bloggers do exist in some numbers, but there are also relatively anonymous entities who have earned this form of media a bad name. Some of these web presences are said to use tricks of negative SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) to rank against rivals with more repute. Certainly, Google safeguards are considered to be inadequate by some computer experts. For internet drawbacks, see also my web article On Computers (2008).
There is considerable scope for disagreement about educational priorities even within some universities, and this extends to the American trend to favour psychedelic transpersonalism, a problem primarily associated with Stanislav Grof. The MAPS website is one of the factors arousing critical discussion. See Grof Therapy and MAPS on this website. Arguments against drug validation recently reached a peak in Britain over the cannabis issue, and the facts about skunk cannabis are grim. See further my Opposing the dangers of drug use (2008).
Kevin R. D. Shepherd
September 2009 (slightly modified November 2011)