Bicho Raro already has a website, a name, and a phrase that works as a doorway:
books outside the usual species.
That is not a bad place to begin.
A publishing imprint should not be born by announcing that it has come to produce “content.” Nor should it begin by promising to change the history of the book, save culture, defeat platforms, or start a revolution from a spreadsheet with a logo. There is already too much solemnity available and too little concrete infrastructure.
Bicho Raro begins somewhere else: smaller, more visible, harder to administer.
It begins inside a real bookshop, Tremendos Libros, in San Carlos. It begins after many conversations about book prices, independent bookshops, invisible authors, used books, preorders, AI, distribution, catalogues, margins, readers and that strange zone where love for books often lives beside underpaid work, blurred agreements and exploited enthusiasm.
In “Reproduce without depoliticizing” I tried to organize the theoretical part of the problem: technique is never neutral because it organizes relations. Who produces, who reproduces, who mediates, who charges, who decides, who is left outside. A publishing house assisted by AI is not defined by the fact that it uses new tools. It is defined by the apparatus it builds around those tools.
This text is less theoretical.
It is a statement of intent.
And a way of writing down what we want Bicho Raro to be before habit, urgency or daily cash flow begin deciding for us.
An imprint does not begin only with a logo. It begins with a way of arranging the table.
Publish less, answer for more
Publishing less is not shrinking. It is accepting that each book asks for a form, a time and a responsibility.
Bicho Raro is not being born to compete in volume.
We are not interested in filling a release calendar just to prove that we are active. We do not want to publish many merely acceptable books. We do not want every manuscript to become a product that must come out because it already entered the pipeline. We do not want a catalogue to behave like a conveyor belt where the new covers the previous before it had time to find readers.
The first commitment is to publish less.
And to answer for more.
That means reading seriously. Editing seriously. Saying no when no has to be said. Not offering an author an expectation we cannot sustain. Not accepting a book only because a preorder looks possible. Not using rarity as an excuse to publish anything careless. Not confusing deviation with negligence.
“Outside the usual species” does not mean without form.
It means there are texts that do not fit comfortably into the usual boxes: literature that bends, essays that do not ask academic permission, poetry that refuses its niche, diaries, fragments, archives, odd voices, books that a large publisher may see as too small and a platform logic may see as too slow.
But if a book is strange, it needs more care, not less.
A small publisher cannot hide behind fragility in order to work badly. Precisely because we are small, every decision is more visible. Every contract matters. Every cover matters. Every settlement error matters. Every delivery promise matters. Every bookshop that trusts us matters. Every reader who buys in advance matters.
Size does not absolve us.
It obliges us.
The economics must be visible
Economic transparency does not kill desire. It prevents desire from always paying the bill.
The world of books speaks a great deal about culture and very little about money with clarity.
That produces a familiar scene: everybody loves books, everybody works for love, everybody understands that the market is difficult, everybody knows distribution costs money, everybody suspects that someone is keeping a large part of the chain, but almost nobody sees the whole chain.
Bicho Raro wants to do something else.
Each book should have, at minimum, an economic sheet the author can understand:
- budget for editing, proofreading, design, layout, proofs, printing, shipping and administration;
- expected print run and unit cost;
- sale price and break-even point;
- copies intended for direct sale, bookshops, press, courtesy copies and archive;
- margin on direct sales;
- margin on bookshop sales;
- available stock;
- copies delivered on consignment;
- copies sold, collected, pending and returned;
- reserve for reprint when appropriate;
- periodic settlement.
Not because literature has to become accounting.
Because when accounting is not visible, somebody pays for literature with invisible work.
That somebody is often the author. Or the proofreader. Or the designer. Or the bookseller who recommends without anyone restocking. Or the reader who pays into a badly organized preorder. Or the publisher itself, romanticizing itself until it goes broke.
A visible economy does not eliminate conflict. There may be disagreement about percentages, prices, print runs, discounts, costs or priorities. But adult disagreement begins when the parties are looking at the same table.
If a book does not cover its costs, that has to be said.
If a book covers its costs and begins to leave a surplus, that too.
If a preorder reduces risk, that fact has to change the distribution.
If a bookshop provides real mediation, that work has to be treated as work, not as a favor.
If someone designs, corrects, lays out, illustrates, transports, invoices, photographs, edits or communicates, that work must be budgeted from the beginning or explicitly assumed as a contribution, not hidden under the word “project.”
Transparency does not make a chain just by itself.
But without transparency, justice becomes a pose.
The author is not a content provider
An author does not deliver raw material. An author enters a relation of reading, editing, agreement and responsibility.
An author who arrives at Bicho Raro should not enter as raw material.
They do not bring “content” so the publisher can package it.
They bring a work, a voice, a risk, an expectation and a piece of their life. Sometimes they also bring a previous community, possible readers, archives, ties, trajectory, prestige, fragility, anxiety, economic urgency or some mixture of all of that. None of it can be treated as one more field in a form.
The author must have a clear place:
- an understandable contract;
- delimited rights;
- defined deadlines;
- reversion conditions;
- royalties or percentages in writing;
- access to basic sales and stock information;
- conversation about cover, price, print run and circulation;
- honest editorial feedback;
- a realistic calendar;
- settlements that do not look like a mystery.
That does not mean the author decides everything.
A publisher that does not edit, select or argue is not necessarily more just. It may be only a printer with a friendly discourse. Bicho Raro has to have editorial direction. It has to be able to say: this book yes, this one no, this one not yet, this one needs work, this one asks for another form, this one does not belong in our catalogue.
Equality is not in erasing roles.
It is in preventing those roles from becoming abuse.
The author writes. The publisher edits, produces, circulates, administers and answers. A healthy relation does not remove tension. It makes tension discussable before it becomes harm.
The bookshop is not a channel
A bookshop does not only move copies. It also moves trust.
Bicho Raro begins inside a bookshop, so we cannot allow ourselves to talk about bookshops as if they were sales tubes.
A bookshop is not only a pickup point.
It is not a free showroom.
It is not a postal address where eternal consignments are left to die.
It is not a slow platform.
An independent bookshop can do something no button can do: place a book inside a conversation. Recommend it to the right person. Hold it for a week. Put it next to another book that illuminates it. Invite an author. Sustain a title after the launch. Say no. Say “this is not for you, take this other one.” Build trust with readers who come back because someone listened to them.
That work has value.
So the relation with bookshops has to be concrete:
- clear margin;
- clear consignment or clear direct purchase;
- fast restocking;
- stock withdrawal when the book does not move and the bookshop requests it;
- complete metadata and information sheets;
- coherent sale price across channels;
- no direct-sale discount that humiliates the bookshop;
- information about campaigns, authors, availability and reprints;
- possible events without turning the bookshop into an unpaid producer.
Direct sale will matter.
Tremendos Libros will be a natural house for the catalogue.
But Bicho Raro cannot use other bookshops as decoration for independence. If a bookshop accompanies a book, it has to be cared for seriously.
The preorder is not begging
A fair preorder does not ask for blind faith: it shows what it sustains, what risk it covers and how it changes the chain.
The Bicho Raro website speaks of transparent preorders. It is worth defining that from the beginning.
A preorder is not cultural begging.
Nor is it a financial investment in disguise.
It is not “help us fulfill a dream” repeated until it becomes exhausting.
A preorder is a way of testing community before printing. It allows us to know whether there are concrete readers, allied bookshops, real interest, available money, delivery time and energy to sustain circulation. Used well, it reduces risk and prevents blind printing. Used badly, it transfers improvisation to the reader and turns precarity into epic.
Bicho Raro should use preorders with simple rules:
- say what is being financed;
- show the production goal;
- explain what happens if the goal is reached;
- explain what happens if it is not reached;
- set prudent delivery deadlines;
- avoid impossible rewards;
- reserve part of the budget for contingencies;
- report progress without turning every delay into a mystery;
- settle differently if the community covered a meaningful part of the initial risk.
The most important point is the last one.
If readers and bookshops make a book possible before it is printed, the economics of that book cannot behave as if the publisher alone had assumed the entire risk. The publisher must cover work, administration, investment, continuity and reserve. But the author should participate better when the risk has already been covered by a community.
A fair preorder does not only say “buy early.”
It says: if you sustain this book from the start, the chain becomes more visible and the distribution has to recognize that.
AI assists, it does not govern
The tool can arrange the table. It should not sit at the head of it.
Bicho Raro will use AI.
There is no point hiding it.
There is also no point turning it into a show.
AI can help a small publisher a great deal: organize manuscripts, detect repetitions, prepare timelines, review inconsistencies, compare versions, build information sheets, organize metadata, project print-run scenarios, calculate break-even points, prepare stock reports, draft campaign materials, summarize meetings, correct tables, anticipate frequent questions, improve accessibility and reduce bureaucracy.
That does not make it an editor.
It does not decide whether a book matters.
It does not sign contracts.
It does not invent sources.
It does not replace human reading.
It does not speak on behalf of an author without review.
It does not define a cover by statistical average.
It does not turn a fluent output into a criterion.
The rule comes from the previous essay and is worth repeating as an operating principle:
AI may assist.
The publisher signs.
If a tool intervenes substantially in a process that affects the trust of authors, readers or bookshops, that intervention will have to be made transparent when appropriate. Not as penance. So it is understood who did what and who answers for the result.
The problem is not using technique.
The problem is abdicating.
Being fair also means seeing the work around the book
Around a book there is a chain of trades. If it is not named, it becomes invisible.
When people speak of editorial justice, the author, reader, bookshop and publisher usually appear.
Someone is missing.
Proofreaders. Designers. Layout artists. Illustrators. Photographers. Printers. Bookbinders. Communicators. Press workers. Accountants. Lawyers. People who prepare parcels, load stock, answer messages, move books, review payments, issue invoices, arrange tables and solve problems that never appear in the launch photograph.
Bicho Raro cannot promise to pay everything as it should be paid in an ideal world. That would be false. An imprint that is beginning will have limits, barter, mixed agreements, project work, favors, tests and collaboration.
But it can promise something more basic:
not to disguise work as visibility.
If there is no budget, that has to be said.
If someone charges less than their work is worth because they decide to bet on the project, that gesture has to be recognized and not naturalized.
If a task is essential, it must have an owner.
If a person assumes responsibility, they cannot later appear as “help.”
Precarity is not overcome with noble language.
It is administered honestly or it becomes abuse.
What we will not promise
Saying what is not promised is also a form of contract.
We will not promise that every book will be profitable.
We will not promise that every author will earn more than in any other model.
We will not promise that every preorder will work.
We will not promise that AI will make everything cheaper without cultural cost.
We will not promise instant national distribution.
We will not promise that a small publisher can do the work of a large structure without fatigue, error or delay.
We will not promise purity.
We promise something else:
to show the chain.
To say what we know and what we do not know.
To write rules before we need them.
Not to treat the author as content.
Not to treat the reader as an emotional wallet.
Not to treat the bookshop as a disposable channel.
Not to treat AI as authority.
Not to treat cultural work as air.
Not to pretend that love for books pays every bill.
What we want to build
A small imprint can be strange and legible at the same time: few books, a visible table and rules that can be argued with.
We want to build a small, strange and legible imprint.
A catalogue where every book has a reason to be there.
An economy where the author can understand what happened.
A relation with bookshops that is not decorative.
A reading community that is not a marketing word.
A way of using technology without surrendering judgment.
A preorder that finances books without turning enthusiasm into blackmail.
A publisher that can make mistakes without hiding.
A home for books that do not enter easily anywhere, but that for precisely that reason deserve a more exact way of entering the world.
Bicho Raro will not resolve the contradictions of independent publishing.
It will live inside them.
Market and culture.
Desire and spreadsheet.
Authorship and editing.
Bookshop and direct sale.
AI and human judgment.
Community and cash flow.
Rarity and craft.
The intention is not to cover those tensions with a pretty mark.
The intention is to publish with the chain visible.
Martín Álvarez
Tremendos Libros
@unfalsoguru