New Feature. Toylit Taste: A Refreshing Drink From the Porcelain Throne

Enemies of distaste, rejoice, for Brad Neely (more likely his operatives) has reactivated Creased Comics.

Why should you be excited by such a hive of villany and brain-shoes? Because Kenny Winker knows how to cook.



Because you can burn your house, it's okay to go crazy.


Because being aggressive separates fail from win.



Would you like to know more about Cat People? Brain Fucklers? Secret Wizards? Loving Dead Women? Need to understand America now?

So there. Go fuck your head up and then come back here for refreshments when you're done. I'll see how long I can keep you folks entertained this evening (we'll see if I can cook up another News Poem today).

Warning: Rated Arr!



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You and Google Are My Publishers Now

I see the web-hits and I know that many of you have discovered Toylit through random circumstance. I also know that many of you have subscribed to all the news that's shit, in print. I am trying to be braver here: so for now, so long as you incredibly hip people support me, I will give you as many freebies as I can. In exchange for this, I would like to see some appreciation once in a while. Comments on threads give me better page-impression $ rates. Likewise, any crap you'd ordinarily buy on Amazon, I request you do here (the salesman who recites poetry to close the deal, ha!). And if you have any idle curiosity whatsoever and a moment to spare before navigating away from this page, please check out some of my (gag) fine advertisers on Google. I have faced the facts: Google will destroy the publishing industry as surely as it destroyed the recording and newspaper industries. I anticipate this and as a result, have committed to web-publishing most of my material. Please reciprocate the faith I have in you. Many of you like Toylit enough to subscribe, which means I think you approve of the culture-jamming and general shit-stirring I'm doing. If you all just took the seven or eight minutes to promote Toylit to all your lit-loving friends, well, I'd show my appreciation by writing more verse for here.

Thanks for reading this open-letter.

Your faithful servant,

-KW



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The Nazis Won [Today's News Poem, Feb 12, 2010]

The Nazis Won [Today's News Poem, Feb 12, 2010]
Khakjaan Wessington

“For the second time in less than five weeks, China’s central bank has moved to limit lending to consumers and businesses by ordering big commercial banks to park a larger share of their deposits at the central bank. The step, announced late Friday, came earlier than most economists had expected and was aimed at forestalling a rekindling of inflation by controlling a rapid expansion in bank loans. Families, real estate developers and industrial companies have been borrowing heavily and have started paying more for everything from food to apartments.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/business/global/13yuan.html

The dictionary's buttressed—scholars, publishers,
And interests determine how its read, applied
And otherwise abused—despite how language-roots
Grow deep within the common use. These thought-fissures
We see in words like 'Fascism:' it's oft denied
In case right here. America has tax jackboots

And threats of killer debts because the contractors
Can cover loans by governmental guarantee
Of pay: they borrow all the cash—we can't compete.
Who risks on tiny business? Nuclear-reactors
Will generate a yield for sure, the bourgeoisie
Are safer allocations unlike most main-streets.

Main Street: a flow of cars—of bars, electric wires.
To squash the meats without a shell; to keep the thieves
Away from Mine, to burn the birds to death: with tires
Or current, desperation sells: it hurts, it weaves

The means to close the deal: the cars will sell,
And suicide's against the law, so profits swell
At burger joints that own this land: don't call it hell.

Okay, I'm sorry for not posting the News Poem the other day, here's a freebie

Today's News Poems are free for download on lulu. I'll do the same for Amazon later.



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The Tourist From Syracuse Has Friends [Bonus News Poem, Feb 12, 2010]

The Tourist From Syracuse Has Friends [Bonus News Poem, Feb 12, 2010]

“Her article said that President Obama's budget amounted to a backdoor tax increase for middle-income and even lower-income people, based largely on the scheduled expiration of income tax cuts passed in 2001. But the president had actually proposed keeping those cuts in place for all but high-income families... some prominent conservatives had seized on the article, and a few — notably Rush Limbaugh— insisted that the retraction meant simply that the media were protecting the president. ”
--Richard Pérez-Peña

For those we can't corrupt nor stymie nor coerce:
We fool. A hint of yearning smells to us like chum.
We'll file her taxes, clean his house—be babe's wetnurse—
To close the spaces keeping us apart and numb.

Apartments filled with books and chess can serve as well—
A confidant or friend can sway as well as threats.
For meatheads, take your pick: you've Rush's glottal yell—
Opinion pages full of spies absolve regrets

For middlebrow elites; for bread and circus freaks
Deranged beyond repair, we sell them fantasy:
A porno wife, a football team, and once a week
A lotto game, or games of war: an ecstasy

For every rube or brain, who thinks s/he rules
But can't control the poll or power's tools.



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Posted wrong story, here's the correct one from Carrion Call:

No Succor in Teaneck



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Pick up the phone, it's for you

You're just pre-carrion and you know it. R_Toady (of CL litfo fame) shows that even the border patrol can't keep a good monster out of America.

Read: Watch Us As We Streak Across the Sky



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War By Wires and Liars [Today's News Poem, Feb 11, 2010]

War By Wires and Liars [Today's News Poem, Feb 11, 2010]

“Germany's ruling coalition is considering using state-owned development bank KfW to buy Greek government bonds to ease Greece's financing problems...”

--Matthias Sobolewski and Patricia Uhlig, Thu Feb 11, 2010 8:21am EST

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBAT00511520100211

“The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency, was quick to dismiss Iran's claim Thursday that it has produced higher-enriched uranium, calling it nothing more than "speechifying." But the record shows a series of intelligence reports spanning almost 20 years that have warned of a nuclear Iran. ”

--Greg Palkot and the Associated Press

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/02/11/iran-nuclear-weapons-history-predictions/

“President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. ”

http://projects.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/

"we recommend that the Secretary [of Defense] task both the Under Secretaries of Defense for Policy and Intelligence, and the Joint Staff, working with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, to create a tiger team to lay out courses of action and a way ahead for establishing a standing strategic surprise/deception entity. Once the initial work has been completed, all parts of the interagency should be brought into this effort."

http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/2010-10-Capability_Suprise_Vol_2.pdf

No, atoms aren't the only building block
Requiring nuclear-force to bind what seeks
To free itself. Take enterprise and stock:
Those rogues—like particles— need wise techniques
To bind what otherwise would break—subvert—
Conjoined alliance. Murder's still a crime
So bind them tight with lies and let covert
And able agents sway the greedy slime:
So war becomes a suicide. And wealth?
That war by other means. With trade, the way
To kill is starve the foreigner by stealth,
And take his land, her kids: they're simply prey—
A profit center needs the casualties.
Without the gore—no war PTSDs.



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Due to unavoidable circumstances

... I lacked time to do Feb 10, 2010's News Poem. It's true, I wasted one and a half hours today and I probably could have managed my time better, but I think I spent my day well. I don't take the commitment to do the Daily News Poems lightly, therefore, I promise to catch you up on yesterday's news (at the speed of newspaper), as well as the day's news. If possible, I will try to generate a third poem, for negative conditioning's sake, so I don't waste even a moment until the Day's News Poem has been completed. Until twoish tomorrow then...



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Apologia to Earth [Today's News Poem, Feb 9, 2010]

Apologia to Earth [Today's News Poem, Feb 9, 2010]

“The extent of agricultural waste could prove a more intractable problem than the many factories dumping effluent into China’s rivers and lakes.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/world/asia/10pollute.html?hp

We're flattered, why aren't you flattered
By farms of fish, of beasts—our grain?
We live! Extinction has battered
Our cousins not us. It's our brain
That raised us here: now death cannot
Usurp our rule, as once before.
We've claimed the soil—what we allot
Are gleanings. Otherwise, ignore

Our flaming rivers, filth-soaked bays
Of condoms, diapers: residue
Of hardy reproductive ways.
Don't mind the current trash we spew,
We're bound for better lands than here.
We're reaching star-ward—we'll be gone
And trade our colonies of fear
On earth for the Olympus Mons.



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News Poems coming... here's an explanation in verse

Though poetry's a thoughtful craft
The pay it brings comes from the aft
Of horse-like fiends called editors--
Most spared the wrath of creditors
Because they sought their pay by book
(Like diners who pretend they cook).
They scorn the man who lives by trade,
Preferring loot obtained by raid
Of funds, endowments: lucre's fount.
The rider? No. They're money's mount.



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If a Man Puts Out the Eye of an Equal, His Eye Shall Be Put Out [Feb 8, 2010 Today's News Poem]

If a Man Puts Out the Eye of an Equal, His Eye Shall Be Put Out [Feb 8, 2010 Today's News Poem]

“The "evil" killer of an East Palo Alto police officer showed no mercy or remorse as he stood over the fallen man and fired a final shot into his head, the officer's family said today in court before a judge sentenced the convicted murderer to death.”
--Henry K. Lee, San Francisco Chronicle, Feb 8, 2010

I knew a woman online
Who wanted to be a writer.
And because she seemed so blithe
To an activity I thought of as seppuku, as mortal combat—
An activity I value more than its practitioners—
I told her to quit.
I wanted to scare her from the page—
To chase her to the other paper—
The kind that most people love.

She died.
Age 33, so a year younger than me.
The life I tried to scare her from,
The one our thirties assures
Will wait for us with crochet needle,
And grandchild on lap
Didn't happen for her.

I have been mourning my whole life,
Which means the things that were
Matter more to me than the things that are
Or will be.

I didn't want her to be sad like me,
But I also didn't want her to be bitter like me.
I thought if she hated me, but lived well
And raised her son well,
It wouldn't matter what I said.

Everybody mourns something
And carries this sorrow like an infant—
Or more accurately, a tumor.
They say don't take it personally,
Don't take life personally,
You will go mad that way.
It's true. I'm there.

I've seen more ebbing than flowing in this life.
Change isn't an enemy, even if enemies are cast in that role.
Does my singleminded fury against the inhumanity of this world
Make me too inhuman to live in it?
I think I'm still human because I mourn,
But perhaps mourning isn't a noble emotion.
Maybe it's the justification
To see every cop as the one who did you or did someone you know—
Or someone who could have been you—wrong.
So that every cop becomes the cop
Someone should have shot.
So that every muse is a siren,
A devil, a prosecutor
Who should be ignored,
Lest death overtake one.
To see the affront to everything,
In everything.
And in mourning, becoming the affront,
Another thing that hates and should be hated
In a world we're insane to love.
In a world we have no right to mourn.
Whatever we were, we've killed it.



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Your Problem Is Not Too Much War, But Too Little [Today's News Poem, Feb 7, 2010]

Your Problem Is Not Too Much War, But Too Little [Today's News Poem, Feb 7, 2010]

“The Dollar is our currency, but your problem”
-John Connolly, 1971

“If the United States is to achieve its export goal...it will need strong global economic growth to boost demand. It will also need a weaker U.S. dollar -- or stronger Chinese yuan -- to make its goods more competitively priced.”
--Emily Kaiser

“Commodity markets have good antennae and have already smelled a depletion in Indian buffer stocks as the government tries to cool prices by releasing subsidised foodgrains... Check the futures on wheat — they are indicating more upsides in prices over the long term.”
--Vijay L Bhambwani

“President Bush increased government spending more than any of the six presidents preceding him, including LBJ.  In his last term in office, President Bush increased discretionary outlays by an estimated 48.6 percent. “
--Veronique de Rugy

"“Palin recently endorsed Rand Paul, the son of Texas Rep. Ron Paul, in the GOP primary for U.S. Senate in Kentucky. She said she was attracted to his limited government platform...”
--Judson Berger

“What they're working on today there in Congress and the White House, it needs to die."
-Sarah Palin

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/02/07/palin-willing-obama/

Your problem: war is not disaster. War
Is not exclusive. Trade without a bound
Impoverishes: death becomes a score
In decimals, a margin that once crowned
The British Empire ruler of the slaves.
So Sarah Palin lacks the intellect
To match her venal ways? She won't make waves.
She's not a threat to merchants who direct
A raid and plunder policy at home,
Abroad as well. We buy our books online:
The poor buy grain that way as well. By foam
It's shipped. Gone too, their wealth, by ocean tine;
To vaults unknown, but ruled from city spires—
By keyboard, hand and phone—by Bloomberg wires.



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Newspapers are dying. This is the time for independent writers

To generate the content that bloggers are getting income by stealing. By copyrighting your works online and posting them on your own site, instead of on a forum, you not only increase the control you have over your writing--you create the option for other websites to buy your content for syndication. Journalists should be doing this. So should writers of all kinds. The people who shouldn't be blogging are the idiots we hear about all the time--careerist dolts who think of writing as a trade, not a passion--or a way of life. They run out of ideas. Real writers, real journalists never run out of ideas. Take control of your intellectual property and let Google be your publisher.

That's all for tonight.



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Support Toylit: express halfhearted interest in the wares for sale

On the page. Enough of that and I might drop the price of the day's News Poems down to $2.50.

Update: Hell, if I get enough clicks, I'll give download copies of revised news poems away for free. Show me where my profit center is and I'll go there.

Quoth Bartles unto James: "Thanks for your support."



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Achtung! CombatVerse is online!

CombatVerse! is a game I developed. A way of dueling with verse. It uses audience participation, but it also uses formal rules. Play with it and develop the artform. I think it's the page-equivalent of the dozens.



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CombatProse! is operational

Not decided yet, but I think month's winner gets a cash prize if it's legal and feasible. Go here for rules. I'm not sure if it needs moderation right now, so try it. If it does, I'll just have to make up some rule, like calling when the next update happens. I do believe you should be able to post and fight it out without my authorization with a google account and I believe you need to have one. Try it. I'll listen to complaints.



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Added links to other original writing

Strawberry Press is Toylit's New York City doppleganger. I do poetry--he does prose. Both were distributed by hand through their respective cities. I respect this guy and think he's a great writer.

WoundedScavengers is a showcase for an astonishing talent. Maybe twenty hours worth of writing is on there to read: you can spend the whole week reading it while you're pretending to work.

Onyxsupersonics is someone I've known online for a while. A theme there is developing, but I know the guy can write.

So when you're done with the news poems, these sites ought to have regularly updated material for you to read. That's all for now.

I added some more links, but I'm not going to call them all out. Just poke around.

--Subcommander Wessington



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Why Every Master Should Have a Memory Hole [Today's News Poem Feb 6, 2010]

Why Every Master Should Have a Memory Hole, Feb 6, 2010

“Conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart, who gave an electric speech Saturday morning vilifying the "mainstream media," ACORN and the liberal elite, afterward described the "birthers" as a fringe, saying the bulk of the convention participants did not come to discuss Obama's citizenship.”
- Judson Berger, FOXNews.com, February 06, 2010
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/02/06/tea-partiers-urge-unity-rifts-movement/

“What hasn’t been reported until now is evidence linking Santelli’s “tea party” rant with some very familiar names in the Republican rightwing machine, from PR operatives who specialize in imitation-grassroots PR campaigns (called “astroturfing”) to bigwig politicians and notorious billionaire funders... Within hours of Santelli’s rant, a website called ChicagoTeaParty.com sprang to life. Essentially inactive until that day, it now featured a YouTube video of Santelli’s “tea party” rant and billed itself as the official home of the Chicago Tea Party. The domain was registered in August, 2008 by Zack Christenson, ”
-Yasha Levine and Mark Ames, 2.27.2009, exiledonline

http://exiledonline.com/exposing-the-familiar-rightwing-pr-machine-is-cnbcs-rick-santelli-sucking-koch/

A pyre could blot the past as well fallout could.
I've read, that Alexandria once boasted tomes
Secured with splendor; surely made of simple wood—
It burned! And all around the world that fire still roams:

It scorched the Mayan books of lore, the Papal Bull—
A censor's tool. An Emperor's decree concealed
The past to say that history was done and full:
The fire or law another tool for him to wield.

Today the rulers think the same, but methods change
To fit the times. The Nazis tried revising bounds
On maps. It worked a while. Ideas are only strange
At first, before the uniforms and rifle rounds

Convince us otherwise. The rage that comes from class
Resentments isn't crushed these days. Instead a squirt
Of gasoline will fan the blaze of angry, mass-
Revolt and aim it true at roots for change. Subvert

Rebellion, not by burning books: to do it right
One must ensure the blaze consumes the fuel for hope
Of revolution; else no arms, nor other might
Will stem a savage lust for blood. A prince can't cope

With hate like this, so drive it mad and burn it out—
Or else they'll flay you live and mock your dying shouts.



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Open Mic Part 2

I hope to have operational by the end of the day my two new blogs: combatverse.blogspot.com and combatprose.blogspot.com

After taking care of some irl, Today's News Poem and today's upgrade of Toylit, I will make those sites operational, with rules and scoring and everything. Consider it the page-equivalent of a poetry slam--with the higher standards that implies.



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Open-Mic at the Shit-Mag

Consider this your stage or if you prefer, a kumate arena. Anyone can post on this thread, SO LONG AS THE WRITING IS LITERARY! Verse, prose, etc. Any topic. If I like any of the posts, I'll ask the author to give me permission to put it up on a separate thread, under its own post-heading. So consider it open-mic at a lit-mag.

It will be interesting to see what the time constraints do to any of the participants.

Suggestion: if you go first and nobody wants to go after you, just revise and post it again--the faster the better. We like time-lapse photography. Seeing a composition come to life is another type of time-lapse photograph.



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After much thought...

I'm going to publish daily editions of Toylit electronically and will publish the print editions every two weeks. That way, I don't diminish the value of the print editions that have already been purchased. So there will still be a daily edition of Toylit, but I will make it available for download only.

To differentiate between the daily edition and the periodic compilations, I'll either generate lots of unique content for the end of Feb edition, else I'll have some guest contributors make a deposit in the toylit. Either way, I'm trying to figure out a reasonable model for what I see as an exploitable niche--the literary periodical.

So, sorry about playing with the prices of editions. Anyone who has a complaint can e-mail me and I'll see what I can do.



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Some additional info on Lit-Anarchism

Zinetips

The above guide will give you the basics on how-to, w/ print. An important skill. Cross-training will get your blog traffic. I circulated 50 editions of Toylit through San Francisco and over the next two days, I had a surge of impressions. This experiment bears out that supplementing the online version with a print version will buttress your site. Only literary types can do this, as most blogs should be printed on actual toilet paper.

My guide below will take you from in the box writing, to polished revision; with a complete artistic narrative. At the same time, it is a method for constantly protecting your rights as you post your original works online, as lulu is the entity that gets an ISBN for the book and will copyright it (my understanding at least). This allows for public experimentation.



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The Literary-Anarchist's Cookbook

Literary writers are at a disadvantage compared to other writers. Serious writing isn't considered performance art. Writing that fails is jeered at for having bathos and unintentional farce. This, as Horkheimer and Adorno say, is the genesis of stupidity. Just as the snail's horn retracts upon a touch, so too does the literary writer retract from the stage, for fear of heckling. Writers then obsess over details, fearful that the next time they show a piece, the writer will be mocked again. This stifles creativity and pulls the author out of the timestream of current events. This is why I advocate same-day publishing on relevant topics. Bad prose is ephemeral; great writing is perennial. If the audience can see the evolution of a composition, they can better appreciate the process of composition. In one of my Norton Anthologies, there's a section with the early drafts of famous poems. We instinctively know that those are valuable, prima facie. But when it comes to our own compositions, we believe it is arrogant to trot out our b sides. Well, is that for us to determine? Should the market decide that? If someone loves a specific composition I've written (like Haitian Fright Song) in its final form, wouldn't he or she be interested to see what it used to look like? I am interested in Blake's drafts of The Tyger, whether he might think I would be or not. In an era where we are going paperless, it's important that drafts are not disintegrated—dropped down the memory hole. In an era of performance, with a vehicle like the web and the infrastructure of blogs already established, I think there is the possibility to add enough time-pressure for there to be a performance quality to online posts. I think that there are idiots who write like shit out there who make six figures or more a year off their shit writing on their blog. Weedy species colonize a space first, but then hardier species follow. Literary writers are the hardier species. But the big names won't move to self-publishing because of the stigma attached to the endeavor. However, a talented nobody has nothing to lose. This brings me to my next point: the institutional disconnect between publishers and writers is vaster than ever. They pay us shit, they tell us to fuck off most of the time, and in the end, all they are is a marketing company that distributes books and serves as a middleman. Who needs them? Why, exactly are they good for my reputation? I can sell 1/10 the books they can to make the same amount of money.

Oh, they have marketing. Exactly my friends. Which is why this needs to be a movement. Turn blogs to literary stages, as we have already done on craigslist. Make the performance live. The finished product will be like all finished products that have ever been: but there will also be performance and that is an added vector of excitement for an audience—as we've seen on craigslist. So an added component: this idea germinated on craigslist and I'm sure many of the regs and oldtimers there will participate in this project (especially to attach their names to the first major literary development since post-modernism). I know from personal business experience the power of affinity marketing. A good reputation travels quickly. Therefore, a webring will increase the number of hits on favorite participating sites. I know that with five other people, this could work. The web presence would be deep and we could become the huffingtonpost of literature. Best of all, it's not like we can be circumvented. I am so happy to know that anyone trying to rip-off Toylit is in violation of my registered copyright thanks to the steps I mentioned below. We can tap into those media profits ourselves and distribute ourselves and quit wasting our lives trying to please some poodle-walking shit from New York. There has always been a war between the author and the publisher: with market forces at one pole and at best, a Promethean vision at the other. While nothing tactically is new in this guide, I believe its strategic vision IS new. I believe that creating a cadre of solid writers will make our own clique and equivalent of a litmag. With enough time and talent, there might even be a real income-stream from this. Wouldn't that be interesting?

1)Go to any blog site. Toylit uses blogspot, but I suppose any will do.
1.You should have a Google account (all hail Google) as it will make subsequent steps easier.
2)Register your blog and format it to taste.
3)Set up an adsense account. It's simple. Follow directions. Then you can track impressions which will help you see whether people like what you're doing, or not.
4)Set up a feedburner account. This is critical, because otherwise your blog will be isolated from news feeds.
5)Stream your blog to your feed. After much thought, I've decided it's better to let newsreaders scan the entire post, because you will be securing your copyright every day if you follow my method.
6)Set up a lulu account.
7)Format your print edition before you begin to write so that the time lapse between your original post and that day's edition is minimized.
8)Write your composition and post it—warts and all.
1.At first, this step is painful, because there's bad writing out there in public. Over time, the revisions will make early versions look interesting. I absolutely think that the revised Toylit is a fine and complete book of poetry, made more interesting by the fact that I wrote one poem a day, while also revising prior comps.
9)Publish on lulu, with or without ISBN. I think you shouldn't let them market for you on Amazon, because then they're just raping your profits. Lulu is fine for magazines. Once purchase volume increases enough, you'll want to just pay your own printer for special runs of complete and revised compositions.
1.Readership, by witnessing your process of creation, will read the same composition twice, because they will be interested in how you fixed the problems in your earlier drafts.
10)The idea is to pool litfo's affinity networks together through cross-linking and so forth—but really, anyone can do it with any clique of friends. This will also raise everyone's prominence in page-rankings. Within a week, I think given everybody's affinity networks, we'll have at least 1k readers between us. That's the equivalent of a small start-up lit mag. And it will only grow as we achieve page-dominance in our various search fields. Of course, I happen to think that the best talents on litfo are critical for this venture to fly, so not just any monkey can do this. Otherwise they'd be doing it.
11)So at first there will be stigma attached to this, but soon, everybody will do it. Publishers don't add enough value and take away too much control. This removes the middleman and lets producers and consumers contact each other directly. It will also make you slackers some bread. Instead of Kinko's, do just-in-time delivery and use lulu.



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