Breaking through the barriers of Standardization. Part I – The Facts.

Yesterday I went to see the movie ‘The Theory of Everything’. I was intrigued days before as I watched unusual amounts of advertising on TV. Then the movie was first shown in theaters far from the center of town movie houses. It was and is of course an art film trying to fight the odds of getting sufficient viewership to make a profit. Without money and support, art in whichever form, cannot survive. This one will make it - an excellent movie, great marketing. It also, like many works of art, had a long run-up time.

What intrigues me the most is of course the similar obstacles faced by Indie Movies and by Independent Presses. During America’s great literary past, success depended on the cooperation of publisher, editor and writer, plus small enthusiastic bookstores. All of them were passionate literati. They were willing to take risks, and they did, and they were successful.

Since then, publishing was taken over by corporations. Agents became their gatekeepers. The main goal was follow the market, diminish risk as much as possible, bookstores turned into chains. It leaves the artistic writer facing an impenetrable wall with no visible traditional doors. The author has to go it alone, looking for new ways, and if he has no money to spend he is basically stranded.

That was the reality when I finished my novel Dosha, flight of the Russian Gypsies, a novel with a strong message and insight into one of the most persecuted Western minorities, I looked at the market place and decided I must find a different route.