It’s Saturday night in Portland. I’m sitting at a small table decorated with garlands of marigolds and small tea cups. Sweet incense mixes with the last breath of a candle. A wash of red light covers the room. Around a rectangular table, eight other people I have never met sit listening as once-local author Nick Jaina alternates between reading from his book Spektrum and winding melodies through the room with his guitar and voice.

I breathe in deeply. In fact, through the experience that is almost solely what I do. I breathe and I experience. This is no traditional author reading. Jaina has created an environment that welcomes and absorbs the listener so completely. His reading, or performance, blends the senses and art forms in a way I have never experienced before. As a lover of all methods of storytelling, my mind is blown.

Nick Jaina calls his performances “tea services.” He limits the number of attendees to eight or nine total and often travels to do them in lesser known cities. His goal with these performances is to create a space for meaningful connection between listeners. At the heart of this experience is the book itself, a collection of second person scenarios titled by (and influenced by) color. Its form and content were inspired by an art installation of a similar nature.  Each tea service is unique, as the listeners choose a color from a card which determines both the lighting and the section Jaina will read from his book. A conversation with Jaina after the performance leads to a key discovery: his book is self-published.

This fact is not obvious from the book’s appearance. The cover is a fine wine red with a gold foil title and a pleasing texture. The inner text is formatted in an enjoyable and readable way. Despite knowing the lesser status that self-published books are often given, Nick Jaina chose this fate for his creation. In fact, Jaina says self-publishing was paramount to achieving the creative fluidity he desired for the book and for the readings. The choices he made for the formatting, for example, such as including the copyright page in the center of the book and starting and ending the text on the covers, would likely not have been accepted by a trade publisher. “And then we get to the tea services, which I think would have made most publishers roll their eyes. ‘Why would you limit the number of people who can come to your readings? And why would you go to tiny towns in New Mexico and not New York and Los Angeles?'” Jaina says, “But for me, a reader is a reader. If they read a book and it means something to them, isn’t that the whole point of this endeavor?”

Nick Jaina is not alone in his decision to self-publish for the purpose of creative freedom. According to Publisher’s Weekly, the number of self-published books passed one million in 2017. Of course, the trade off for complete creative liberty and ownership is the loss of wider readership and greater financial responsibility for the production itself. With traditional publishing, an author doesn’t need to find their own editors, marketing team or designers—all of which can be costly. For some authors, the added stress of being responsible for all aspects of a book’s creation is not something they want to add to their plate. In the end, all authors must decide what path will lead their book to the best version it can be. To Jaina, the best path was self-publishing. His choice manifested a unique and memorable mixed media event that was a great reminder of the connecting power of creativity.

Written by Mara Palmieri.