Blank Books is a set of sixteen books produced during Danny Snelson’s 2017 class “Print on Demand Poetry: Making Books after the Internet” at Northwestern University. Each book consists of 200 blank pages in pocket book format, shifting the only way for expression and semantic charging to the paratext, which is used in various ways by the students, ranging from calling the publication a notebook for doodles to more conceptual approaches like 100 reasons why the author loves milk. The series is a demonstration of how to utilize print-on-demand for an exploratory pedagogy in the studies of literature and media. As a virtuous presentation of paratextual play it also shows how in the age of book distribution platforms, digital paratext becomes an integral part of framing and handling books today—as it is usually the first encounter we have with a book even before we are able to get a glimpse of the paratext of the physical book object.
The cover, back cover, and spine of this publication are completely black except for the title and a barcode added by Lulu on the back. The blurb on the platform frames this blank book as a potential diary, promising that with a purchase one could start anew by “writing it all down.” This allows the book to be categorized as “personal growth.” The platform paratext also gives credit to the author, which is otherwise completely absent from the printed version.
...... is a radical reduction of platform paratext while still providing the minimum amount of information necessary to upload a book to Lulu. Thus, title and author are both six dots with the metadata being a repetition of these six dots until the necessary character count is reached. The attempt to give a minimum of paratextual information on the platform also expresses itself on the book’s spine, which is left blank/white on an otherwise black wrapping. This is broken up by the classification of the book in the “fiction” category.
