Plans for 2016
Young people say what they do, old people say what they have done, and fools say what they want to do.
After 18 years and 63 published books (some of which have taken a decade to finish), it is time to catch our breath and look at the view. This is what people do when they climb a mountain, and it cannot be any different from climbing a mountain of books.
While we make our way up, what do we see? On the sunny side, the good news: we are pleased that the project is still going on after 18 years, that we publish what we wish and that we have some loyal and even stubborn readers. However, on the dark side, the landscape presents a vastly different picture: after 18 years, everything is as hard as the first day; we cannot publish everything we would like nor effectively promote our catalogue. This is what we see while climbing up the mountain, always being careful where we place our feet. What will we see when we finally stop and look up from the ground? Smoke signals on the horizon? A beautiful sunset? An endless desert, consequence of deforestation? A dense layer of clouds blocking the view?
In order to reply to these and some other questions, in 2016 and 2017 Media Vaca will not publish any new titles. Only those we have committed to and which are in a very advanced stage of the production process. Our goal is to exclusively devote our time towards promoting our catalogue, and also attempt to empty a warehouse in which there is no space left, not even for miniature books. We will visit bookshops and libraries to greet those who decided to display our books and made an effort to introduce them to others. We will gather with readers to talk about everything and nothing. We will travel to remote places (not only to visit friends who write books, or who illustrate books, or who sell books, or who publish books). We will sleep like babies (not only so we can dream about what font is best to use on a certain text). We will dedicate our time, finally, to organise the books in our library, and if the moment arises, we might even read one or two.
During this time of rest it is most likely we will continue to work on new projects, but it will be without the pressure of imminent publications and the tasks they require. We will continue to receive projects from new and not-so-new authors, and perhaps we will even have time to reply. We will reprint some titles which are currently out of stock (which would not be possible to do in other circumstances), and we will also organise book workshops for children and grown ups where we can all learn something new while having a good time.
These are our plans and the resolutions for this year and the next. With a bit of luck, they will come true. Although there is always the possibility that, not even two minutes into this new life, we could get hit by lightning and turn to ash, as it happens in some novels and in most children’s comic books.
Image: Detail of a photographic montage by Georges Tairraz (1910-1915).