[Imc-communication] IMC Book Project

[Anna]

hi,

nice idea!
i noticed that the book project is using a gmail-account - have you
considered changing that to something like nyc-bookproject at indymedia.org
(i think you are aware that there have been other book projects before?
e.g. http://www.hedonistpress.com/indymedia/index.html, the most
controversial one, i believe ;) ).

gmail seems to have some serious issues with privacy and so i personally
wouldn't feel all that comfortable sending email to a gmail-address:

=> http://www.gmail-is-too-creepy.com/



i saw that you posted the call for contributions in english on the imc
germany website - while the indymedia translations project has been
pretty sleepy lately it's still worth it to try to find people to do
translations: http://translations.indymedia.org/


hope this didn't sound too negative. i do think it's a good idea, and
just wanted to mention these two aspects.

good luck!
Anna

Susan Chenelle wrote:
> The following can also be found in English, Spanish and French (an
> hopefully more languages soon) at www.indybook.org.
> 
> Susan
> 
> 
> Hello everyone,
> 
> In winter of 2005, at the U.S. IMC conference in Austin, members of the
> NYC IMC print team spoke about conversations that they had been having
> with a left-wing indie publisher in New York called Disinfo about putting
> together a book on Indymedia. There were a number of concerns mentioned
> about the project as it had been conceived at that point. After months
> more of discussion and reflection we've come up with a plan.
> 
> The purpose of this letter is to:
> 
>     * Inform members of Indymedia about the project;
>     * Put out an initial call for submissions.
> 
> In our proposal to Disinfo we wrote: "This book would not attempt to be
> the definitive statement on Indymedia. Rather, it would be an overview of
> some of the triumphs and struggles of the network over the past
> five-and-a-half years. Its entries would range from dramatic,
> stream-of-thought, first-person pieces to more analytic chapters on the
> meaning of Indymedia. The book, while thoughtful, would avoid being overly
> academic and would be graphic/picture heavy."
> 
> We are excited at the prospect of being able to help the network begin to
> tell its amazing story to the world. The vast majority of the book will be
> original pieces written by IMC participants and friends of Indymedia with
> excerpted material from IMC newswires. While the book will be written in
> English, we want it to reflect the entire network, and so we will be
> soliciting submissions of material from all IMCs. In the coming weeks, we
> will also be sending out a questionnaire to all IMCs to find out a little
> about each IMC's history, current status, what issues you tend to cover,
> frequency of publishing, etc.
> 
> The book collective working on this project consists mostly of members of
> the NYC IMC print team, which also publishes The Indypendent
> (indypendent.org). Our research team will be seeking out material
> published on the newswires and other IMC publications during key moments
> in IMC history, but we're going to need help! Guidance on where to find
> great material will be much appreciated.
> 
> We want to make clear that this book will have an open submission process;
> everyone reading this can and should contribute something about Indymedia
> if they feel so inspired and should pass this on to others who may also be
> interested. Please see below for submission guidelines, a general outline
> of the book, and details on the finance and distribution plan, as well as
> on the rights and permissions practices for the book. Please contact us if
> you can help with translating this document into other languages.
> 
> After reviewing the following information, please send any questions,
> suggestions or submissions to indybook at gmail.com.
> 
> Thanks for your time and consideration,
> 
> The Indy Book Collective
> 
> Outline for the Indy Book Project
> 
>     * Introduction
>     * History
>     * Strengths, Weaknesses and Challenges
>     * Case Studies
>     * Multimedia & Technology
>     * How-To (DIY)
> 
> NOTE: The following chapter descriptions are subject to change as people
> send in queries and suggestions. Submissions can tackle one or more
> aspects of a chapter's topic or attempt to deal with the entire subject in
> one comprehensive essay. Please see below for full submission guidelines.
> 
> Prologue: Excerpt from Subcomandante Marcos's 1997 statement on the need
> for a new intercontinental media network that enables ordinary people who
> resist from below to share their stories.
> http://www.tmcrew.org/chiapas/e_media1.htm
> 
> I. Introduction
> An opening essay that touches on the significance of the Indymedia
> movement and places it in the larger social and political milieu of the
> early 21st century.
> 
> II. History
> 
>    1. Roots of Indymedia
>       A look at how Indymedia's emergence was rooted in a wide arrary of
> alternative media projects that developed over many years and across
> several continents.
> 
>    2. Seattle
>       A look at the pre-WTO organizing that went on in Seattle, what
> people were hoping to accomplish, how it all came together, what it was
> like during the week of WTO and what lessons were learned from the
> experience.
>       Supplemental material: Posts and photos from during the WTO.
> 
>    3. Exploding Growth
>       A look at how the IMC rapidly became a worldwide movement in the
> aftermath of Seattle.
>       Supplemental material: Indymedia timeline, photos of early IMC
> websites, publications, meetings, etc.
> 
>    4. IMC and social movements
>       The IMC and the Global Justice movement both burst into the popular
> consciousness at the same time. How did the two movements grow
> together, inform and influence each other? How has IMC's
> relationship to social movements evolved over the years?
> 
>    5. IMC and the Cyberleft
>       Explore the strengths and the weaknesses of the post-industrial
> Left, the rise of decentralized, Internet-based organizing, where
> Indymedia fits in this milieu and what it needs to do to avoid some of the
> pitfalls of other contemporary movements on the Cyberleft.
> 
>    6. Indymedia and the Anarchist Tradition
>       A look at how Indymedia's organizational is heavily influenced by
> DIY anarchist culture.
> 
> III. Strengths, Weaknesses and Challenges
> 
>    1. Who Makes Up Indymedia?
>       Demographics and geography: Why Indymedia tends to be made up of
> certain kinds of people (white, male, with access to relatively high level
> of resources), self-selecting filters; more narrowly focused IMCs versus
> those integrated into local communities.
> 
>    2. IMC and race/gender/class
>       How have issues of race, class and gender been addressed at
> Indymedia? Have advances been made toward creating a more inclusive and
> empowering culture for all inside the network? If so, where? And how? If
> not, why not?
> 
>    3. Who's Reading Indymedia?
>       An examination of what fragmentary records exist to develop an
> estimate of how many people use Indymedia (both on normal days and when
> there are big protests happening) and how much impact the
> network may have. Also look at the challenges of moving from
> crisis-driven coverage toward consistent, daily activity.
>       Supplemental materials: Solicit responses from local IMCs throughout
> the network about how they've become more rooted in their
> communities and on what people consider to be the greatest obstacles or
> challenges they've faced in their work with an IMC.
> 
>    4. IMC and the participatory journalism movement
>       Traditional journalism is facing unprecedented challenges from
> ordinary citizens seeking to "be the media" This chapter will
> consider the forces driving this, compare and contrast Indymedia
> with other citizen journalism initiatives and explore the unique
> contributions that Indymedia has made to the citizen-journalism
> movements around the world.
>       Supplemental Materials: Solicit responses from local IMCs throughout
> the network about what they see as their greatest achievements to
> date; stories they covered that made an impact in their community or
> country, initiatives they took to empower people to "become the
> media," etc.
> 
>    5. IMC and State Repression
>       In 2005, British law enforcement officials seized the UK Indymedia
> server (which housed 20 other IMC websites) at the behest of the
> FBI...Indymedia has been targeted repeatedly by law enforcement
> since its inception with IMC journalists being beaten, tear-gassed and
> arrested while trying to cover demonstrations...IMC has also
> been subpoenaed for its weblogs by police looking to track the
> origins of specific posts...Seattle IMC in April 2001...NYC
> investigated by NYPD and Secret Service in 2004...Look at how IMC
> has responded to legal threats and how it radically decentralized
> its activities and decided to stop logging IP addresses.
> 
> IV. Indymedia in Action: Potential Case Studies
> 
>    1. Genoa G8 Protests
> 
>    2. Indymedia in the Global South
> 
>    3. Argentina Uprising
> 
>    4. People Power in Bolivia
> 
>    5. The Birth of Venezuela IMC
> 
>    6. IMC in Africa
> 
>    7. Chiapas: Indymedia Takes Root in the Home of the Zapatistas
> 
>    8. IMC in the Middle East
> 
>    9. From UK to United Kollectives: Decentralization in Britain
> 
>   10. IMC in Europe
> 
>   11. IMC in Asia and Oceania
> 
>   12. Responding to 9/11: NYC-IMC
> 
>   13. Responding to Hurricane Katrina
> 
>   14. US Indymedia in the Bush Era
> 
>   15. UC IMC Buys the Post Office
> 
> V. Multimedia and Technology
> 
>    1. Reflections on IMC Audio Projects
>       How have IMC radio projects both blended into and made unique
> contributions to the larger movement to free the airwaves from
> corporate and/or government-dominated broadcasting...Look at both
> ongoing projects and special projects around convergences.
> 
>    2. Reflections on IMC Video Projects
>       Cable access shows...Vblogging...Video IMCistas have also
> collaborated to produce more than a dozen feature-length
> documentaries... Documentaries preserve a part of the movement's
> collective history, but what has been their overall
> impact?...Challenges of building distribution networks...a short
> history of IMC Newsreel, etc.
> 
>    3. Reflections on IMC Tech
>       The creation of Active code and the open publishing newswire...What
> was novel about IMC in 1999? What was it doing on the Web that had never
> been done before?...Has Indymedia ossified or has it been able to keep up
> with a rapidly evolving web environment?...Evolution of IMC source codes:
> SF Active, Dada, Mir, Drupal, etc...Tech's early role in the network and
> the effort to move to a more transparent,
> democratic decision-making process...the challenge of
> archiving...Transferring computer equipment to the Global South.
> 
>    4. How active is the IMC network?
>       Review the number of center column features being posted on local
> IMCs and use the http://lists.indymedia.org database to review local
> listserve activity at different IMCs over the past year, in addition to
> contacting local IMCs, to gauge how actively people are
> participating and how often meetings are being held (if they are
> being held).
>       Supplemental materials: charts, infoboxes
> 
> VI. DIY
> 
>    1. How to start an IMC
> 
>    2. Different IMC models
> 
>    3. The philosophy and practice of open publishing / moderation /
> dealing with trolls
> 
>    4. How to build a radical paper
> 
>    5. The challenge of distribution
>       Distribution is critical to IMC's impact ... a look at what
> alternative distribution channels are available, creating
> distribution networks, getting indexed by Google, etc.
> 
>    6. How to acquire space, importance & implications
>       Indymedia started on the Internet and in many ways was shaped by the
> decentralizing logic of the Web. Yet, for many local IMC chapters, the
> need for an actual physical space to meet and work from is the most
> pressing dilemma they face. The solutions to this problem have varied
> widely.
> 
>    7. Consensus and Meeting Facilitation
> 
>    8. Living With and Managing Money
> 
>    9. How to run a media convergence space (for big events)
> 
>   10. Independent journalism tools and tips
> 
>   11. How to avoid burnout / cultivating a healthy media collective /
> building long-term sustainability
> 
> CONCLUSION
> 
> GLOSSARY
> 
> RECOMMENDED READING / RESOURCES
> 
> INDEX
> 
> SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
> We are soliciting a lot of different kinds of material for this project,
> so the style and content of submissions will vary greatly. Please follow
> the guidelines of each type of content submission. Ideas/pitches for all
> of the chapters outlined above are welcomed. With all submissions, please
> include a short introduction about yourself and your work with Indymedia.
> Submissions in English are easiest for us to handle, but we do have
> Spanish and French translation capacity at this point and we should be
> able to translate from more languages as we get the word out about the
> project.
> 
> SUBMISSIONS ARE DUE: SEPT. 1, 2006
> 
> Original Article or Sidebar
> If you are interested in writing something on an idea or issue mentioned
> in the above outline, or on something that you think should be included in
> one of the chapters listed above as an article or sidebar, but is missing
> from our description or list of ideas for that chapter, please submit a
> query to indybook at gmail.com before sending us a fully-written article. The
> query should include the basic idea of the piece, a short explanation of
> why it's important, and the approximate length you think the finished
> piece would be. Queries should be under 750 words. If you are planning to
> submit something in a language other than English, it is especially
> important that you submit a query (in English, if possible) first.
> Finished articles will range from 500-5,000 words, and should be fully
> researched and written in an engaging, straightforward style, i.e., not
> too jargon-heavy, either activist- or academic-wise. We are also exploring
> various Twiki-style technologies that make it possible for interested
> readers to comment on drafts of articles as they go through the editing
> process.
> 
> Newswire Material
> If you have written/posted or know of material from an IMC newswire that
> you think we should excerpt for one of the chapters outlined above, please
> send us a sample of the text (no more than 250 words), a brief explanation
> (250 words) of the context of the post and why this particular post is a
> strong reflection of that event/issue, and the URL for the newswire
> article, if it's still online. If you are not the author of this material,
> please include any contact info you have for the writer.
> 
> BUSINESS MODEL
> The book's target retail price is $14.95. We can buy the books (and return
> any unsold copies) for $7.50. We will set up a website for the book and
> ask local IMCs to put a button or some sort of permanent link to it on
> their home pages.
> 
> We would sell the book through our website for $12 plus $3 for shipping
> and handling. All the profit, i.e., $4.50 per book, would go to Global,
> preferably to assist underfunded IMCs in the Global South. If we sell
> 5,000 books over time, that would mean $22,500 for Global. Any royalties
> made from the publisher's sales would also go to Global.
> 
> The publisher of the book will be Disinfo (disinfo.com), a lefty,
> for-profit publisher based in New York that has put out titles like: Why
> Do People Hate America? The Vigil: 26 Days in Crawford, Texas and
> Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. We've approached non-profits like
> South End Press and New Press, but they've shown little interest. It's
> also been suggested that we self-publish, but upon reflection, we realized
> that the quality of the product would be compromised, the size of the
> print run greatly reduced and we would have to create our own book
> distribution networks from scratch.
> 
> Disinfo has offered a $12,000 advance to be paid in three installments:
> $4,000 upon signing the contract, $4,000 upon delivery of a completed
> manuscript and $4,000 upon the book going to print. Five percent, or $600,
> will go to our fiscal sponsor, UC-IMC, for processing. No one will be paid
> for any work. Photographers in the Global North will be asked to
> contribute their work. The only exception we are considering is paying
> photographers from the Global South a modest fee, recognizing they are in
> a unique position of having high expenses in a developing economy.
> 
> Written contributions will not be paid, but will include the author's
> byline. Members of the book's editorial collective will be working on an
> unpaid, volunteer basis. The rest of the money would go to the NYC-IMC
> print team to help cover ongoing media-making expenses, particularly for
> newspapers and poster projects.
> 
> One question, of course, is why the initial funds go to the NYC-IMC print
> team. The project represents an enormous burden upon our limited
> resources. Two of our most experienced editors and coordinators, Susan
> Chenelle and John Tarleton, will be devoting the next year to the project.
> We will need to solicit unpaid design and production work from our
> volunteer staff. The same goes for the content editing, copy editing,
> proofreading and fact checking phases. Then we need to build a website,
> set up a merchant account and handle all of the order processing -- all of
> which is also unpaid. Finally, the fulfillment aspect will be an enormous
> burden. Packaging, addressing and shipping thousands of books will require
> a huge commitment of work hours from everyone at the project. Again, no
> one will be paid for this work. The funds will go directly to other
> media-making only.
> 
> RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS
> We will secure the permission for use of written material where possible,
> and will very much appreciate assistance from IMCistas in contacting
> writers of material we would like to excerpt from the newswires. Where
> explicit permission cannot be obtained, we will excerpt or quote a minimum
> amount that would fall under US "fair use" provisions. We will be
> approaching photographers directly to secure permission from them to use
> their photos. No photos will be used without permission.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> IMC-communication mailing list
> IMC-communication at lists.indymedia.org
> http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-communication
> 
> 


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