Tariq Goddard, the co-founder and publisher of Zero and Repeater books is stepping down from both titles today (July 17), it has been announced.
Goddard, an author and tQ contributor, founded Zero in 2009 with Mark Fisher to combat “anti-intellectualism” in modern culture and went on to publish key works by Eugene Thacker and Owen Hatherly, as well as the groundbreaking Capitalist Realism by Fisher himself.
The pair left Zero in 2014 to co-found Repeater with Watkins Media alongside Al Niven and Tam Shlaim, where they published more notable work by the likes of Dawn Foster, Robert Barry and David Stubbs. In 2021, Watkins bought Zero, bringing it back under the same ownership as Repeater.
In a statement released via Watkins this morning, Goddard says: “Repeater and Zero Books are publishing imprints that have become a culture. That culture will endure longer than the individuals that helped bring it about, and although I will be leaving the imprints, it is impossible to leave what they have created. Success in business is easily measured in sales and exposure, but influencing a block of time, registers in a more general and less personal way.
“The strength and influence of Repeater and Zero Books is felt as much in the publishing ether, and in the creation of our own community and niche, as it is in market share or famous names. Both imprints followed the simple brief of trying to discover what was happening, and create it if it could not be found. After seventeen years, I go with the deepest gratitude to the friends that contributed to that process, who worked for us and with me, and to all of you that supported our titles in numbers we hardly dreamed of in 2007/8.
“As a writer I have never thought of our, or any authors, as exalted beings, despite sharing the motivation to try and and attain such heights in print, but I believe I have understood them better than I do other people, and I will miss them all, certainly more than some of them I have crossed swords with might suppose. It is always surprising when different types of author have recourse to use exactly the same phrase, especially when it is not a particularly writerly one, and in the last few weeks that has been to thank me for ‘taking a chance on’ them.
“I want to thank them all for taking a chance on me, and to you, our readership, for taking a chance on us. Goodnight and joy be with you all.”
