THIS FUTURE SUCKS

FIXER OPTIONAL is Abi and Jed’s micropress. We’re Abi & Jed.

We wrote a book and had a couple of brushes with agents. It became abundantly clear to us that normie publishers aren’t buying what we’re selling, at least not without compromises we weren’t willing to make. We got sick of corporate feedback, so we decided to start our own press instead. 

We co-authored a novel called I Need Better Dreams. Abi has also written a short called Virtua Pop and a novel called Scrapers. You’ll be able to read these soon, be sure to check back here every first and third Wednesday of the month to see updates on our catalogue re: release dates, art drops etc. You should also sign up for the mailing list, if you want more frequent/less structured updates, along with occasional freebies and WIP chat.

So why do a micropress instead of just selfpub like normal punks? For one, it psychologically separates writing and publishing, but then beyond that as our projects expand, as our work and network expands, assuming (hoping) our readership expands, Fixer Optional will be capable of doing shit that Jed or Abi can’t. It’s also to signify that we’re a collective, that you could be onboarded into if you so choose. You too may one day decide that the fixer is optional. 

See? It’s not just a catchy name.

It’s also in the grand punk tradition of starting your own record label. Sure, Bad Religion could have just released their own records but almost 50 years down the line Epitaph remains a bastion of alternative music almost as a separate entity to BR at this point, which is something we’re interested in building for literature. It all feeds back into a recurring idea between us: writers don’t actually write alone. Whether they want to admit it or not, the vast majority of writers who get anywhere will have a crew in some form or other. 

It also has the added bonus of having a built-in identity so we don’t have to do any of the abyssal dancing monkey shit we see other authors having to suffer through online. Booktok? Trawling social media for engagement like the office brown-noser fishing for the boss’ approval? No, thanks.

And let’s close this off with a short list of things we fucking despise. Our six pillars of shit, if you will:

1. Having to act like an influencer on social media (we’re in our 30s and half-respect ourselves)
2. Amazon (if it ain’t released on Itch, it ain’t from us. Fuck off Bezos)
3. Farming your creativity out to tech that makes your artistry vestigial (Fixer Optional will never use generative AI or work with genAI users. Do not look them in the eye. Do not shake their hands.)
4. Reducing art to content, content to commodity (“the title ‘Content Provider’ implies that the relationship between the artist and the art is kind of like the relationship between pig lips and sausages” – Alan Moore)
5. Agents, suits and red tape (for obvious reasons) 
6. Ernest Cline (this was gonna say Neil Gaiman but now hating Gaiman is more of a civic duty than a personal opinion. We still hate his ass, but it’s fuck Cline too baybee)

So now you’ve got some idea of who we are, what we’re about, and maybe whether or not you want to join us on this journey. We’d love to have you if you’re cool, and if you’re not cool… eh, you can learn. 

Until next time, get fucked

Abi & Jed