As my nifty little wireless Brother laser printer churns out pages behind me, in preparation for a video I’m making on making my own books (stay tuned), and the massive hurricane Sandy makes its way up the coast to turn off my power, knock down my neighbors’ trees, wreak celestial havoc, and generally maybe just eat the East Coast, I just wanted to get in a post on great new stuff from Poets & Writers magazine, where, back in the days when I was working in publishing, I once applied for a job, and which, also many years ago, ran a piece of mine on simultaneous submissions.

(For my money, P&W mag, even in the old days when I first subscribed to the magazine called Coda, has the most news writers can use. Some right thinking philanthropist needs to help P&W get their whole magazine on line, for electronic subscription. Seriously. P&W, how much would it cost?)

Talk about your serendipity. In the new edition, which arrived in my mailbox on Friday, there’s a substantial piece on independent publishing, featuring the family affairs that are Two Dollar Radio, Ig, and Small Beer Press, which publishes the awesome Elizabeth Hand.

The piece, written by contributing editor Michael Bourne, centers on family outfits, but there is a whole lot of information there that anyone who wants an inside view of just what a totally nuts kind of thing it is to do to start your own publishing company—and how they did it and still have their sanity. You can read about how an indie publisher might have, say, a million in annual revenues, but still not be able to afford to pay one of its founders an actual, full-time salary.

There’s also other good stuff, but this piece is worth reading from either side of the fence.

Now I’m going to go flip those pages over to print the odd pages. And tie some more crap down in my back yard.

Stay tuned for the video. And stay dry.