Steve Almond's self-publishing adventure - Los Angeles Times
Advertisement

Steve Almond’s self-publishing adventure

Share via

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Steve Almond can write memoir (‘Candyfreak’) and he can write short stories (‘My Life in Heavy Metal’). He can teach, he can essay, he can read with a performer’s flair. But until December, he’d never thought he’d publish a book all by himself.

In our Off the Shelf column, Almond writes about his experience bringing a tiny run of ‘This Won’t Take But a Minute, Honey’ to life: Read one way, it’s a collection of short-short stories. Flip it over and it’s a collection of short-short essays about writing.

Advertisement

I stood mesmerized before the Harvard Bookstore’s Espresso Book Machine, watching the pages of my book being scanned with a red laser, sprayed with ink and cut. It only took minutes for the inaugural copy of ‘This Won’t Take but a Minute, Honey’ to slide down a small chute. Not only was my copy warm, the cover was still sticky. I nearly wept. For my debut reading at the Harvard Bookstore, I convinced Brian to design two new covers and offered readers their choice. The books were printed while I read. I sold 84 copies that night, about 75 more than I tend to sell at a reading.... I also love the idea that books will be evolving, rather than static, entities. This is why I add new material to every edition of ‘This Won’t Take but a Minute, Honey.’

The book is available, for now, from the Harvard Book Store. His next book -- ‘Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life’ -- will be published by Random House in April.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Images courtesy Steve Almond

Advertisement
Advertisement