Printers Ball and Capitalism

"Please stress that there is no fee to show, but nothing may be sold"

"magazines please have 500 copies to give out for free"

parameters for the Printers Ball in Chicago

Why is it that unlike every other artform literary pursuits of merit feel that it is unseemly to charge for their products?


Jen Hofer said once at an event before her reading that people should go and buy the poet's work to support the art and the poet's livelihood, someone said to me how pushy!

But I say pushy is what we need to do. No more give aways and no more free lunches because we are afraid that no one will buy the work.

Can you imagine a painter being forced to give away his or her work for free?