Local independent publisher McSweeneys, which has grown out of David Eggers work, has hit some hard times with their distributor going bankrupt.

As you may know, it’s been tough going for many independent publishers, McSweeney’s included, since our distributor filed for bankruptcy last December 29. We lost about $130,000—actual earnings that were simply erased. Due to the intricacies of the settlement, the real hurt didn’t hit right away, but it’s hitting now. Like most small publishers, our business is basically a break-even proposition in the best of times, so there’s really no way to absorb a loss that big.

…

Over the next week or so, we’ll be holding an inventory sell-off and rare-item auction, which we hope will make a dent in the losses we sustained. A few years ago, the indispensable comics publisher Fantagraphics, in similarly dire straits, held a similar sale, and it helped them greatly. We’re hoping to do the same.

They’re having a sale to raise some cash and I’m going to buy some stuff.

Music related stuff on the cheap:

• Music Bundle including two Believer (McSweeney’s magazine) music issues, that come with CDs and the Future Dictionary of America which comes with the Future Soundtrack of America CD (with Elliott Smith, Long Winters, David Byrne, and a ton of others on it). All this for the low low price of cheap.
• David Byrne book The New Sins. Yup, the same David Byrne.
• A book named after the Polyphonic Spree (it’s a book by Nick Hornby about other books, but, hey, it’s named after the Polyphonic Spree)

There are also some things I can recommend, namely, all of Dave Eggers book: his amazing latest semi-fictional memoir/ novel What is the What, his very good short story collection, How We Are Hungry, and his very good first novel, You Shall Know Our Velocity!.

There are lots of books, magazines, combo packages, and even some goofy T-shirts (”Impossible you say? Nothing is impossible when you work for the circus”).

One more time: the link to their store, where you can find all these things and more.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 12th, 2007 at 3:27 pm Posted by adrian in SF bay area, books. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.