What was the quantity of your print run(s) + how much did it work out per book?
The print run was 1,000 and it sold out pretty fast. I don’t know the exact figures on cost, because the Buddy System did all the leg-work, but I think it ended up being about $3-4 a book.

If it doesn't say on the book, what did you sell your book for?
$10

How can people get your book now?
At the moment it’s out of print, but the second printing should be done by the end of February. You can order it from the Buddy System, 302 Bedford Ave No. 284, Brooklyn, NY 11211.

What inspired you to make a book?
I was inspired initially to do a zine by the horrifying recognition of my own mortality and a deep desire to make my mark on this earth and leave a legacy of my thoughts and insights behind. To this end I manufactured and distributed thousands of copies of the burn collector magazine, almost all of which ended up on the water tank of people’s toilets. "Hey, dude, I was reading your shit while I was on the john," people would say, "man, that’s some of the highest quality bathroom reading I’ve seen." Clearly I was falling short of literary heavyweight status, but I persevered, until the day a housemate of mine confessed that once, in a moment of dire need, she’d used an old copy of burn collector #5 as toilet tissue. It was at this low moment in my career that the Owens brothers of New York City stepped in, whispering sweet nothings which sounded suspiciously like "acid-free archival quality paper," "ISBN number" and "Library of Congress, dude." A perfect-bound book, I realized, is, due to its size and dimension, almost impossible to wipe your rear with.

What did you do to promote it?
I didn’t do anything to promote it initially. "Let the products sell themselves," as the Minutemen once said. Well, they did, but now I want to sell more. So, for the second printing I am teaming up with my friend Andrew who made a film entitled Good Grief, and we are doing a joint film/book tour around the US. "We’ll make a million when we go on tour," as Minor Threat once said.

What would you do differently, and why?
I’ve corrected a few minor formatting errors for the second printing, but overall, I’m pretty happy with the book, with the response to the book, and with the people who put it out.

Why aren't there any women self-publishing books?
Well, that’s somewhat a sub-question to the broader question of "Why are women generally uninterested in anything which I find validating and/or fulfilling?"

Theory #1) Writing, like music, art and most anything non-household-cleanser-related, is traditionally a male-dominated activity. One of the great forward moves for civilization in the 20th century was the recognition that this was not the natural ordering of things; however, changing the arrangement is not so simple. As an analogy, I’ve played in punk bands for years, and I’m always excited when women get involved in that, and I try to be encouraging to whatever extent I can. Nonetheless, the fact remains that, no matter what my intentions, at some level I’m just another white dude playing rock and by the nature of my very existence a part of this gigantic cultural wall of homogeneity which I imagine looks very intimidating from the outside. I think the natural reaction is to think, "Fuck that, I’m not going to play according to these rules if I just feel intimidated and alienated." As with music, so it goes with writing, self-publishing, independent film-making, running record labels, and so on. Even in hip "alternative" minded circles you always seem to find women doing the unglamorous end of things -- organizing the food co-op while the guys play in the band or put together the magazine. It’s the replication of very deeply ingrained gender roles even on supposedly forward-thinking people, going to show that these things are a lot more deeply socially programmed into us than we like to admit.

Theory #2) Women are capable of making children and thus feel less spastically driven to prove that their existence has meaning through the production of consumer goods.