From Self-Publishing Collective to Multinational Corporation: The Publishing History of In Other Words–Writing as a Feminist

Abstract

This case study investigates how books and journals arising from a political movement can be repackaged and commodified for the benefit of a multinational corporation¹. In Other Words was published in 1987 in Hutchinson Education's ‘Explorations in Feminism’ series, after Hutchinson took over the series from the publications collective of the Women's Research and Resources Centre (which later changed its name to the Feminist Library, which still exists today). By the time In Other Words sold out its print run in the mid-90s, the book had passed through five publishing houses, before coming to rest with Routledge. It was out of print until 2011, when Routledge contacted the editors to say they were reissuing In Other Words as a facsimile edition in hardback, paperback, and e-book. The book was based on papers produced for a conference on feminism and writing that was held in Edinburgh in 1983, organized by Gail Chester, the author of the present article, Sigrid Nielsen, who co-edited In Other Words with Gail, and Ellie Siegel, who would have been a co-editor had she not returned to the USA. There were 130 participants at the conference, and it was organized as part of the prevailing WLM collective ethic/practice, which was to bring feminist writers together to learn from and encourage each other. While focusing on Routledge's publishing policies, the article locates these within the policies of academic book and journal publishing more widely. It reflects on the market for printing and reprinting of feminist books and journals, and the conundrums of the interface between commercial publishing and radical political projects.

Keywords:

• publishing
• self-publishing
• collective
• women
• commodification
• feminism

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the copyright holders of the illustrations for permission to reproduce them: the Feminist Library, Taylor and Francis, and Kate Charlesworth, and thanks to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on this article. My special thanks to Sigrid Nielsen for her usual great insights and for remaining a good friend down all these years.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the ‘Women in Print’ conference, Birmingham, September 2018 and at the ‘Purpose, Power and Profit: Feminist Ethical Enterprise and Cultural Industries’ Symposium, University of Cambridge, 12 July 2019.

2 Diana Leonard's article (Leonard 1979) also gives an interesting but partisan account of the other feminist academic journals which started round the same time as Feminist Review: M/F and Women's Studies International Quarterly. Some of the trenchant criticisms she makes of styles of (feminist) academic writing are even more relevant today, and resonate with many of the themes in this present article.

3 It began, 'Disclaimer: Opinions and views expressed in this article are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor and Francis’, and continued in a similar vein for another 150 words.

4 A full account of all this can be found on Prometheus’ website, along with a list of the extensive media coverage of the journal's struggles with Taylor and Francis, http://www.prometheusjournal.co.uk.

5 REF, or the Research Excellence Framework, is a periodic Government assessment of university research on which future funding is based.

6 Personal communication from Caroline Morrell, the author.

7 Neither Sigrid nor I have ever had academic jobs, so we took on editing In Other Words as a political act, rather than expecting much in the way of royalties. There was never any question that contributors to the book would be paid for the reissue, as our initial agreement was that each contributor was paid a modest one-off payment for the use of their article, which probably added up to much more per hour than Sigrid and I have ever earned.

8 Quotation from letter from Routledge editor, 2011.

9 There is no space here to go into the problems with e-books – practical, environmental, and ideological, but see, for example, Mobbs (2020); Bryson and Wexler (2020).

10 Personal communications from the authors.

11 FLA: the Feminist and Women's Libraries and Archives Network, https://fla-network.com/.

12 Several books have been published analysing the relationship between the new feminist movement and neoliberal values, for example, Zeisler (2016) and Rottenberg (2018).

13 In 2019 Women in Publishing completed the recording of its own history, conducting a series of oral history interviews with past members (which are lodged in the British Library), and publishing an accompanying booklet.

14 Lavender Menace Queer Books Archive, https://lavendermenace.org.uk/archive-mission-statement.

15 Alliance of Radical Booksellers, http://www.radicalbooksellers.co.uk/.

16 The Feminist Library collection of second-wave pamphlets, in the Bishopsgate Institute in London, contains nearly 4000 items.

17 Chester and Nielsen (1987, p. 15).