Publishing Electronic Literature

If publishing is the set of activities which achieves the dissemination of literature, then what can publishers offer work which can quite readily attend to its own dissemination? The creators of electronic literature often act as artist, producer, and distributor, removing the relationship between writer and publisher which has persisted since the earliest days of the literary market. Those who wish to find readers for their writing have long relied on publishers as “useful middlemen". Informed by my own experiences running a publishing house which publishes born-digital electronic literature, this short chapter explores the extent to which electronic literature needs such middlemen, whether electronic literature has any need for publishers in the traditional sense. As just noted, why seek a publisher for something which publishes itself?