Thinking about Loompanics going out of business

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Wed, 18 Jan 2006 14:06:56 GMT  <== Politics ==> 

Claire Wolfe - commentary on the announcement by Mike Hoy that Loompanics is shutting their doors. [claire]

I'm still trying to process that information. On one hand, I've got my writer thoughts: Why the hell didn't they tell me? What will happen to my four books in print with them? Oh, how I'll miss Gia Cosindas, the best of the three wonderful author liaisons I've worked with in these 10 years. One less market for articles!

But then I also have my Loompanics book buyer thoughts and those are simpler. As Elias Alias put it on TCF: Damn.

That's all there is to say. Damn.

Loompanics has long called its book catalog the best in the world. And in a weird way, it is. It's certainly been the bravest and most eclectic book catalog. If you wanted to know how to change your identity, build a meth lab, cook with cannabis, or find kinky sex in Thailand, Loompanics would sell you a book about it. (Some of these books were of dubious reliability, while others were the real deal; but that was part of the fun. Caveat emptor. Freedom doesn't come with guarantees.) Loompanics would also sell you books on living off the grid, homesteading on a budget, or protecting your privacy. Truly useful stuff. And then there were the books that simply seemed to reflect Mike Hoy's own wide-ranging interests. Books of little-known facts, religious controversies, political conspiracies, and historical oddities.

The Loompanics catalog itself was often as fun to read as the books it offered.

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