I love publishing, but it has such a terrible reputation. Alongside the many grudges we all hold against most academic publishers– too big, too extractive, too rigid, too much gatekeeping etc.– I have a very personal one. They give publishers a bad name.

Publishing is cool. It's communication! It's important! It's creative! It's fun! Or at least, it can be. If we remove the word from our vocabulary temporarily, how would you respond to someone saying to you:

"Oh wow, that thing you're doing is really cool! Oh, you want to share it with other people? Awesome, let's do it. I know a bunch of ways we can do that. Then the people you share it with can learn from and respond to you, and when they build on build on it, and I can help them share the stuff they create, too."

Now, that straightforward premise is not some reflection of publishers past. There has always been gatekeeping (think fancy Latin manuscripts reproduced in monasteries) and commercial tensions (think OG publisher Aldus Manutius selling more popular titles to fund the publication of rare Greek editions). But there has always been something pretty revolutionary about publishing, too. From the crucial role it has played in multiple actual revolutions (French, American, MENA), to its role in connecting and protecting threatened communities (queer, Black, disabled), to independent media (zine culture, anti-capitalist publishers, critical tech journalism)... Publishing is powerful.

And yet, as these things have often gone over the past few centuries, that radical potential has been pushed to the margins, with the center now claimed by the publishing industrial complex.

Lines have been drawn.

Lines around what is "good" and what is not. Around what is "known" and what is not. Lines around what "matters" and what doesn't. Even around what is "published" and what is not. (You can see where I'm going with this.)

To put it bluntly, screw the lines and the people who drew them. They don't speak for me. They don't speak for the people I've worked alongside for almost a decade to make access to knowledge more equitable and just. Because that's what's at stake, here. What we know, how we know it, and what we can do with it.

That's what Outside the Lines is here for. It is a place for people who reject those lines, even as they have to navigate them. It's a place for us to interrogate the lines, and imagine differently. To publish differently.

The radical, revolutionary kind of publishing has never gone away. Anyone who has picked up a zine made with a marker and a photocopier recently knows that for sure. The tools are there for us to use for our own purpose. The world is rich with things that are known and that can be learned from, and a publisher should be the conduit for that knowledge to be shared in ways that are meaningful for its creators, stewards and beneficiaries. And that hopefully make the world a better place to live in.

That's the kind of publisher I strive to be.

(Wondering how? See Part 2: The Action Plan)