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In an interview a journalist recently asked how we got into this 'crazy publishing business.' I'd never really contemplated such a question, but I'm glad he asked. This needed to be put into words, but where to start?
Eight or nine years ago, I met Mel Mathews at a C.G. Jung society meeting in Monterey, CA, when he was still selling tractors for John Deere, before he was even a writer... well, I suppose he was always a writer, but at the time, he didn't know it and he was trapped in an old myth, a dream that no longer served him. About a year. . . maybe two years after we met, Mel left the old dream behind and set off for Europe. We stayed in contact, an occasional email, and at some point, he began to share his work with me. That's when I began to realize that I'd been allowed into a sacred place to witness a transformation that was taking place in Mel as a writer, but also as a human being. His writing, his process, had a profound impact on my own way of seeing and relating to myself, and the world around me.
Mel had self-published his first novel LeRoi with iUniverse and had become very disillusioned with the process when he realized that he stood little chance of getting his work out into bookstores because of the Print-on-Demand practices and the small percentage of trade discounts that are offered to wholesalers and booksellers in this industry. I hated to see this as I felt strongly about his work. I also didn't want him to lose interest in writing because of having to jump through all the conventional hoops of finding an agent and eventually a publisher. In other words, I wanted him to stay with his writing process and the evolution of soul.
I had no experience in the publishing business whatsoever, but I decided, or 'something' decided for me, that his work needed to be published and made available to the public. It wasn't about economics; it wasn't a pragmatic, logical decision. I simply felt it had to be, so, this was done, and in the processes, a network of business relationships has been set into place with graphic designers, editors, proof readers, marketing associations, wholesale book distributors, advertisers. . . I guess you could say we got into this business a little bit backwards, and here we are, but more importantly, what and whom I believe in, is now in print. And now we'd like to find other writers with their own unique voice and style, writers who have the ability to reintroduce the eternal, the archetypal energies and patterns, into this new age and infuse society with new modern day myths on which to take hold.
Jackson Fisher
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