Self publications

I mentioned having done a self-published booklet. (It hasn't yet come out of the press. I'll let you know when that happens.) Now, there seems to be kind of controversy surrounding self-publications (just check Lee Goldberg's blog). In the US, there are many publishing houses that make their fortune out of poor writers' backs by selling their own books back to them once they are out. This happens also in Finland, with Pilot-kustannus (formerly MC-Pilot) and Avoin Kirja. These are the so-called vanity presses (even though people at Pilot like to be called "a publication service"). There are many things that sound like scams - Pilot for example announces that they even get the ISBN code for the book so that the writer doesn't have to bother. It takes only two or three minutes via the Helsinki University Library webpage! Don't pay for that!

But there's still the other kind of self-publication. It's the high-literary, experimental, give-it-away-free-at-galleries type of kind. I do exactly that. I don't aim for the fast publicity with my self-publications. The print runs are usually something from 20 to 50. I give the books away free or sell them for one euro or something like that. Some I've managed to sell to the libraries, some I haven't even bothered to offer. Some have the ISBN code, some don't.

I thought that maybe I should do a bibliography of my self-published items. Here goes. Any corrections are welcome. Copy this and keep it safe, you might need it someday, as these will be real collector's items!

Blinkity Blank:

20 issues of poetry mag Blinkity Blank, 1987-1997. (Usually my poems, but occasionally other poets too. Very slim volumes, A5 and usually 12 to 16 pages. The logo was different every time.)

10-20 surprise issues of same. (Smaller or larger, with lesser print runs, usually around a theme - dadaist poems, my worst poems etc.).

The Abraxas books (Abraxas is an imprint of mine and I have been using it on and off for almost a decade now):

23 - Duchamp, Baudelaire, Barthes (ja Wilson). Abraxas 1996. (A party book for my 23th birthday party. Contains writings and parodies by friends.)

Joe Novak pinteessä ja muita novelleja. Abraxas 1997. (Short crime parodies, essential for anyone who searches the beginnings of my pulp writing career. See http://www.phinnweb.org/livingroom/joenovak.html)

Nummelin on Nummelin. Abraxas 1997. Two editions, the later one corrected. (About the home movies I've made.)

Tseh, Zeh. Ed. by Juri Nummelin. Abraxas 1997. (My friend Arttu made his own self-published comic books and had some unpublished. He gave those to me and I made a small pamphlet out of them. Arttu wasn't actually satisfied, for reasons I didn't quite gather.)

Muisto kääpiökuninkaasta. Lisälehtia pro gradu -tutkielmaan. 1997. (A small essay on a children's book I read when I was four or five. Relates to my graduate thesis.)

Plaid Runner – manttelinperijät. Abraxas 1998. (Actually a novelization. (I've written a tie-in!!!) We made a film called Plaid Runner in the late eighties. This is the prose version of all the plans we had. Some parts made it to the film, some didn't.)

Corporation Near Class. Spam Poetry. Abraxas 2004.

All Data Will Be Destroyed! Spam Poetry. Abraxas 2004. (The former has the ISBN code, the latter doesn't. Its print run was only 11, if I remember correctly. I made the poems from spam I received.)

Banalologioita. Esseitä mitättömästä. Abraxas 2005.

(Abraxas also did three poetry collections with three or four poems with the print run of one. I gave them to my friend Simo, but alas, I don't have the titles here.)

Other books and ephemera:

Riemuvuoden basuuna. 2005. (A gift book for Kauto's first birthday. Will be published annually. So, is it a magazine after all?)

Isämme, valokuvaaja. 2005. (Actually published by my brother and me. About photos my dad took of us when we were kids.)

Lotta (heart) Risto 13.9.2003. (A wedding book for our mutual friends. Contains old photos of Risto's childhood band, an old short story by Lotta who works now at the big publishing house, and memoirs by several people and a cartoon collage I made. This was a joint publication of Elina and me.)

Elina ja Juri 60 vuotta. 2003. (A gift book for Elina's 29th and my 31st birthday. Contains writings and drawing by friends. I edited this under the pseudonym Mikael Ylinen.)

Bibliografia Teerijokiensis. 2002. (The bibliography of Elina's family and relatives. Very prolific grandfather she had!)

Ihmeen tuntua. 2000. (About the pulp SF stories published in Finland in mags Seikkailujen Maailma and Isku.)

Books I edited and published:

Elina Teerijoki: Hulluimmat päivät. Pusukustannus 2004. (A gift book for Elina's 30th birthday. Contains Elina's columns for the weekly mag Vihreä Lanka.)

Elina Teerijoki: Iltasatu. Nimetön. Nimetön. 2002. (A Christmas book for Elina. Contains her short stories from the university student magazines.)

A book about me:

30 - mies kuin unelma. Ed. by Elina Teerijoki. 2002. (A gift book for my 30th birthday. Contains writings and drawings by friends. Rare items by Mikko Lehtonen, Tapani Bagge and Ilkka Pesämaa. Vesa's parody of my pulp research is still thrilling! Tero's and Jukka's personal memoirs are touching.)

(And then there are Isku and Pulp, but as they are magazines, I won't list them here.)