Walk along the east side of Broadway toward the end of the afternoon on Fridays and you'll likely find a man sitting by a table outside Steve's Broadway News. Upon closer inspection you might notice a stash of leather-bound books lined with velvet. If you stop and chat you'll probably get handed a short poem on the back of a business card.
The man behind the table is local writer Brett McGibbon. The books are his, both in content and production And he has a lofty goal:
"I seek liberty from the corporate publisher," he said. "And I can't be stopped. The corporate idea that keeps us from our works, our product, is unnecessary. There don't need to be these barriers, and this is a very good thing for writers."
And if sitting on a sidewalk selling your own books may seem to some to be a self-indulgent exercise, McGibbon's efforts are more than an idle boast. He's has sold more than 5,500 copies of his first two self-published books and has been able to live off his writing for nearly four years. He may have, as he describes, a somewhat Spartan existence. But apart from materials all the money obtained from book sales are his - no publisher to pay, no middle man to accommodate, no agents and no contracts.
Armed with a computer, a few printers, tanned leather hides purchased in the International District and the tools to cut them, McGibbon makes between 25 and 50 books a week in his Capitol Hill apartment. There are hard- and soft-cover editions, as well as vegan versions (with no leather) for those so inclined.
No real overstock, either. McGibbon makes his books in batches when demand requires there be more copies. As such it's an efficient enterprise.
He described his first two books, "Dawn of Mourning for Fallen Night" and "Fight, Flight, Surrender" as journal novels that reflect and are inspired by his many trips across the country, as well as the time he lived in Alaska. The books are a varied mixture of prose and poems; he sees his work as a logical extension of a line that began with Proust and continued through Kerouac.
McGibbon was born and raised in upstate New York near the Adirondacks. The literary bug was secondary, at first, to baseball. A pitcher, he was scouted by the Toronto Blue Jays in high school and played college ball at Cortland College near Ithica, N. Y.
Alas, a baseball career was not to be: "I didn't get as big as I thought I might."
After graduating from college, McGibbon wondered what to do next. The open road beckoned. Armed with a newly-minted philosophy degree, he and a girlfriend set out in the Spring of 1995 on a lengthy road trip that brought them all the way to Alaska. While there he supported himself as a commercial fisherman - Alaska proved to be something of a home for several years - and started work on what would become his first book.
That road trip was the first of many. By his count, McGibbon has traveled across the United States eight times.
In 1999, alone in his cabin in Fairbanks, McGibbon determined that he had to commit himself to writing. Economics led to the decision to hand-craft his books himself - "I didn't want to be beholden to anyone. And Alaska is a place of self sufficiency, where you do things by yourself." He bought a used $20 computer a $15 printer from a surplus store in Juneau and began life as his own publisher. A friend helped him learn how to bind books with leather covers. The first leather source was an old coat found at a thrift store. The process proved a liberating experience.
But he needed to live in a place he felt would be more receptive to his work, a larger potential audience and a more dynamic artistic and literary climate. He moved to Seattle, a city he had passed through on several occasions, in 2001, living first in a houseboat on Lake Union.
"I was able to sell books from a dinghy on the lake," he said. "So I guess my first impressions of life here were pretty positive. I sold about 1,200 books that first summer."
McGibbon said he can sell roughly 10 books a day during the summer and five or so in the winter. He has not tried to pursue publishing his books through traditional sources.
"Seattle has kept me going - if no one bought anything I couldn't keep doing this. The response has been truly wonderful," he said. "People seem to like what I'm doing and that's really gratifying."
He laughs at the notion that having lived in Seattle for four years he's becoming settled. But, now 31, McGibbon has lived in what he called his first real apartment for 18 months and he has no specific plans to pull up stakes and leave. Besides, his third book is coming out this spring. As for living on the Hill, he smiles when he says that "this is where all the open minds are!"
In addition to his Friday book signings at Steve's Broadway News, McGibbon does regular stints in the Pike Place Market, in Pioneer Square and downtown.
Two new books are underway as well. One is a collection of short stories and poems. The other is a novel called "Lucifer's Redemption," which involves much of his life on Capitol Hill and is a more straight-forward novel in terms of narrative form and structure.
McGibbon's goal is to merge his life with his literary art. He considers them essentially one in the same.
"My challenge is to live in a real and honest way, and to write in a real and honest way," he said. "Modest goals. Like explaining the difference between the heart and the mind. I'm serious here. We're going to figure it out."
Brett McGibbon's Web site is www.differentfish.com.
Doug Schwartz is the editor of the Capitol Hill Times. He can be reached at editor@capitolhilltimes.com of 461-1308.
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