21st Century FuckNuggets!

Part II

See Sharp Press

Interview by Rhonda Baughman

In the second part of my fuck you farewell to 2009 series, I felt the need to interview and subsequently slightly suggest texts from the See Sharp Press founder and lead writer, Chaz Bufe. I will be honest: I loved his name, then I fell in love with his words: direct, poignant, conscientious, and relevant are a few of the terms which come to mind. I sincerely doubt the name/letter connection reminiscent of the recently deceased Chas Balun (1948-2009), whose words also moved me, is no coincidence, either. The world needs more of these tried and true text tapestry titans. Less of my consonance, I suppose.

Many of the See Sharp texts are available online, but I still retain the exciting tingle of actually picking up a book or pamphlet – so might you. Either way, many of these titles are absolute necessary reading for the 21st century liberated mind. Or you know, just any mind looking to briefly expand, engage in germane critical thinking, or snap out of the increasing funk and fog of controlled, cannibalistic, capitalistic, capitulating channels of information. I haven’t read a bad book by this press yet – and I really am cranky and hard to impress. Let me now see what 2010 ushers in …. Hopefully only great things and more time to read See Sharp materials – I feel like I am actually in my graduate school program again – you know, the program where I actually learned something, before entering that lower-tiered doctoral degree program. Yeeeaaahhhh … that one. Bufe is the professor I always wanted: quite possibly in all connotations.

RB: I understand SeeSharp has been around since '85 - how long have
you been a writer?

CB: I started writing for publication in 1971 for "New Times Weekly" in Phoenix.

RB: What began your interest in publishing?

CB: I decided I should put my music degree to some use (getting it wasn't
the smartest career move I could have made), so I wrote and
self-published "An Understandable Guide to Music Theory: The Most
Useful Aspects of Theory for Rock, Jazz and Blues Musicians" in 1984.
It's still in print and has sold somewhere in excess of 10,000 copies
over the years.

RB: Do you still enjoy it?

CB: Of course.

RB: Do you hold any other positions?

CB: I'll resist the temptation to run with that. . . . And the serious
answer is no.

RB: Do you have any favorite contemporary authors ....?
CB: NONFICTION: Malcolm Gladwell, Matt Taibbi, Christopher Hitchens,
Richard Dawkins … FICTION: Richard K. Morgan, Alastair Reynolds, Michael Chabon

RB: If I were in Tucson, would I see a storefront?

CB: No. I've made enough mistakes in life. Opening a bookstore isn't one of them.

RB: Have you found that a regular group of individuals submits to you?
CB: Yes. But just as often I'll suggest topics to them and they'll write what I suggest -- that virtually always turns out well.

RB: In turn, how many queries are you fielding per day?

CB: About 150 to 200 per year, with at least 50% of them being either
totally inappropriate or obvious multiple submissions, which I ignore.
On average, I accept one submission per year from authors I don't
already know.

RB: What are you working on right now?

CB: I'm translating "Venezuela: Revolution as Spectacle," by Rafael
Izcategui, into English; finishing my science fiction novel (will
probably finish the final revision tonight--after six years of work);
and am preparing to edit the long-delayed "Albert Ellis: American
Revolutionary."

RB: Is there anything particularly irritating you right now?
CB: Where do I start? The names Obama and Lieberman immediately come to mind. Publishing wise, probably the most irritating thing is that it's become extremely difficult to get newspaper and magazine reviews, and to book talk-show interviews for authors, in recent years.

As an example, in 1991 I did over 50 radio interviews, one national TV interview, and got 10 or so daily-paper reviews and another half-dozen or so magazine reviews of "Alcoholics Anonymous: Cult or Cure?" In contrast, the four books See Sharp published this year garnered a total of three reviews in national book-review journals, one review in a national magazine, one feature article in one of the authors' home-town daily paper, and six interviews on local radio talk shows. And I sent out dozens of advance reading copies for two of the books, and sent out 600 review copies (about 200 each for three of them).

There are several reasons for this: 1) the number of books published in the U.S. has more than tripled, more than likely quadrupled, over the last 20 years (the last figures I saw were for 2005); 2) the number of newspapers and magazines has been nosediving, especially over the last few years; 3) of those that have survived, most(especially among the newspapers) have either eliminated book reviews, drastically cut back the space devoted to them, and/or are only carrying syndicated reviews; 4) the number of locally produced talk shows has also plummeted; 5) the national talk shows will often only deal with established publicists, who are too expensive for most small presses to hire.
To sum up, the number of books published has skyrocketed, the number of reviews published has nosedived, there are relatively few local talk shows left, and unless you're well-financed and well-connected it's really tough to get interviews on the national talk shows.

Visit:

http://www.seesharppress.com/index.html

Baughman’s See Sharp Press recommendations:

1. Anarchism: What It Is & What It Isn’t

2. The Revolutionary Pleasure of Thinking for Yourself

3. 20 Reasons to Abandon Christianity

4. What God Has Revealed to Man: The Genuine Word of God as revealed by the world’s Holy Men and the world’s Holy Books