Nearly three months after its release in Quebec, the dissemination of the
Anarchist Children's Dictionary, self-produced and passed on entirelyindependently (without commerce), is already greater than that of the twoprevious works by the Collectif Emma Goldman: Radio X: The Hatemongers (2013) andFighting the Far Right and Populism (Spring 2020). A French anarchist publisher,the Atelier de création libertaire, will bring out the Anarchist Dictionary ofChildren in Europe in mid-November, but I still wanted, on a personal basis, toshare a few notes about the world of books and publishing and the possibilitiesthat have been revealed through self-production in our experience. First of all,it should be remembered that of these three works, only Combattre l'extremedroite et le populisme had so far been published by a publisher (M Éditeur) andsold in bookstores, but even in this case we have even distributed by our ownmeans a considerable part of the copies produced (in the midst of a pandemicsituation). These three books were intended as tools for activists and theactivities related to their promotion were above all opportunities for us togather, potentially bringing networking and new ideas and initiatives. Obviously,the circulation of works is important so that people from all walks of life canhave access to them. Nevertheless, there is reason to wonder if the scope of theideas and of a tool is the same when a book is bought in the commercial circuitsversus when a form of contact must be made with an activist group (for examplemove to the Anarchist Bookfair, a Collective action or a launch or perhaps evensimply contact the Collective directly by email) to access it. And even if wereduced dissemination to a quantitative definition, our own means proved to bemore effective - we have to thank our comrades in the anarchist movement inQuebec who form an incredible network of solidarity.In short, at the present time, it seems to me that self-production andself-distribution outside commercial circuits is the best way to keep our booksalive, that is to say that they have some impact even if it's for a limited time.Conversely, a book that becomes a trinket in a salon or a simple consumer good instores and online turns into a commodity - the book is dead, the project losesits relevance for its authors and even more so for a collective. activist. On thefinancial level, the funds obtained by the diffusion by our own means allowed usto pay the invoices of many activities and displacements. It is not the meagerroyalties paid to authors and authors from the publishers who circulate the booksin the commercial circuits that would have allowed us this - and we see thatthere are sometimes no royalties (0%) paid to authors and authors. Even if wegive a lot, we must remember that an anarchist collective entirely self-financesits commitment to the struggles through the contributions of its members. Thedistribution by our own means also allowed us to give free gifts of aconsiderable quantity of our books to groups who did not have the means to obtainthem. In our self-dissemination of the Anarchist Children's Dictionary, voluntarycontributions have so far enabled us to send it free of charge for people to usein various militant resources in: Bonaventure, Chicoutimi, Dunkirk (France),Exarcheia (Greece), Gaspé, Joliette, Lac-Mégantic, Mashteuiatsh, Moncton (NewBrunswick), Montreal, Quebec, Rimouski, Rivière-Trois-Pistoles, Sherbrooke,Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, Saint-Jean-de-Matha, Saint-Junien (France),Ste-Anne-des-monts, Sept-Îles, Stoke, Ville-Marie (Témiscamingue) and evenWhitehorse (Yukon). It is a very beautiful illustration of 100% autonomoussolidarity made possible by the support of libertarian comrades from thedifferent regions of Quebec, supporters who also helped us to go on a tour totalk about the book in Chicoutimi, Saint-Valérien, Quebec, Sherbrooke,Saint-Fulgence and soon several other towns and villages.We ourselves asked the Libertarian Creation Workshop for the distribution of theAnarchist Dictionary of Children in Europe. Several difficulties, includingmailing costs, limited our ability to distribute it overseas and it must be saidthat few European militant groups responded to our emails. The book should becommercially available in Europe in mid-November. For people in Quebec andCanada, it seems more interesting to us that you go through the collective (viaemail to cegsaglahttp://ucl-saguenay.blogspot.com/2022/11/vie-et-mort-dun-livre-pistes-de.html_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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