More and more that's something I'm hearing writers say - their ms has been accepted by an exciting new small press. They're not asking money up front like a vanity publisher. So this is fantastic! Isn't it?
We are at a time when the publishing industry is catching up much of the rest of the world in realising that aggregation and merger are outmoded business models, and small, independent and flexible are the way forward. This is creating fantastic opportunities for new small presses. But, like all booms and bubbles, 95% of these new presses will fail, and do so quickly - through plain natural selection (in many cases, where they have not thought out a new business model that isn't successful/lucky, the issue will simply be - as always - undercapitalisation).
The future failure of so many new presses creates a very real problem that writers need to be aware of - when the business goes bust, their book (or the rights thereto) will be one of that business' assets - the chances of the author getting their rights back in a hurry are minimal (and the assurances of the lovely people who run the press are irrelevant - once they're wound up it's not up to them, it's up to the banks)
It's so early that we really don't know who the charlatans and incompetents are, and who will emerge victorious, so all we can do if considering a new small press is be as savvy as we possibly can. I would recommend considering the following checklist of questions:
1. There are many many more books than shelf slots. You may have experienced rejection after rejection. If someone approaches you it's flattering, but PLEAS, be self-aware enough to ask why. Have they really spotted what everyone else missed? Quite possiblyso, but almost certainly not.
2. Following on, if I were approached, i would want to a. make sure the contract protected my rights so they reverted to me in certain timeframes/scenarios and b. look at their business plan. You should, of course, discuss the publisher's business plan before signing even if they're HC, but in cases like this I'd want forecasts and figures, and if I didn't feel confident analysing them, and didn't have a manager/accountant to do it for me, I'd walk away.
3. Remember that submission followed by instant acceptance can amount to the same thing as being approached directly - like a cynical, jaded lover ask yourself, and them "why so keen?"
4. Always always always go to sites like Writer Beware and Absolute Write. DO remember that negative feedback can be as unreliable as positive, but consider any comments.
5. Use google - for two reasons - to find out what people are saying about them that may affect your decision, and to see just how wide their web footprint is
6. Consider approaching a reputable independent editor like Maria Schneider or Nicola Morgan. Ask them if they consider your book shelf-worthy, and if they say no, think carefully.
7. It's hard in a global age, but meet these people if you possibly can. This is a people business, and as a writer your instincts about people aer probably fairly good.
8. This should be obvious, but it may not be - ask to see the other books they're publishing. For new presses there may not be any on the shelves - ask to see the mss. Consider the following factors - 1. Does your book fit alongside these? It would be pointless, for example, for me to have The Man Who Painted Agnieszka's Shoes published by DIIArts - it just doesn't fit with their other books, and would get lost amongst them. It would fit very nicely in the portfolio of To Hell With Publishing, though - if a press is REALLY new, you need to talk serious turkey with them on this - it may be too early to tell what the feel of the press is (their website's "look" will tell you a lot, though - take a look at www.moxiemezcal.com for example - I KNOW my book would fit there) 2. Are the books any good? I would never really feel comfortable joining a group where I wasn't the weakest member (at Year Zero, I've got very lucky - because I do the tech donkeywork they let me hang out and put my writing up), but I do have a Groucho Marx approach - if they're right for me because it's such a strong portfolio, why would they think I'm right for them.
9. If you still like the idea, ask yourself: could I do what they're doing myself and would I want to? That doesn't mean, for example, "could you edit your own book?" You couldn't. It means "could you find an editor suitable and work with them?"
For me, number 9 is the one that clinched it. I know I can do as good a job as anyone I've come across for my particular brand of weirded out underbelly scuzz. And I love doing it. I REALLY love it.
Showing posts with label small press. Show all posts
Showing posts with label small press. Show all posts
Monday, 5 April 2010
Sunday, 20 December 2009
Magical hours in London Part II: when Dan met To Hell With Books
A week or so ago I found, courtesy of MarshaWrites on twitter, a wonderful competition asking people to say what they would do with one hour in London. I was instantly cast back to one of the very favourite posts I've ever written, detailing one such hour I spent in the company of the wonderful Sabina England. It occurred to me how odd it was to PLAN a magical hour in London. True magic never happens through planning. It is spontaneous...
As I found myself musing last week during a second such hour, spent in the company of the lovely people at To Hell With Books, about whom I wrote a week or so ago. We were lounging in a wonderful basement space, on a decrepit button-back sofa, books strewn across a concrete floor, laptops akimbo amid piles of beer bottles, limited edition photographs and an Andy Warhol poster to die for on the walls. Lucy, one of the brains behind To Hell With Publishing, the fantastic venture that spawned To Hell With Books, was reminiscing over an impromptu poetry reading in the upstairs room of some seedy bar or other.
I'd come to London to arrange the Year Zero Live gig in Brick Lane, and wanted to take the opportunity to check out To Hell With Books. Sadly, I was diverted to Cecil Court, and the sister shop, Amuti 23. It seems there was a problem with the shelving supplier. From my days running luxury flooring showrooms I can sympathise.
I was expecting to walk into one of the myriad stuffy rare print shops that line Cecil Court where you daren't put your nose to the window unless you're wearing tailored tweeds. When I stuck my head inside the door to be greeted with a mix of concrete and chaos and unspeakably cool prints and artefacts (one of the Stone Roses' paint-splattered hats from THAT photoshoot), I had to double-take.
There was a staircase into the shell of a bunker-space, where two chilled-out people with laptops were surfing around.
They both looked up and flashed warm, possibly slightly hungover smiles.
"Is one of you Emma?" I asked.
"Hey," said Emma. "You must be Dan."
By the time I was downstairs Lucy had cleared a slew of books from the sofa to make a lovely comfy snug, and we spent the next hour burbling about pretty much anything and everything to do with books and writing, and the arts, and what was right and what was wrong and what was hot and what was cool; and occasionally Laurence - a lovely chap (lovely being the generic term for well-framed men with beards :p) with a penchant for insightful, sardonic one-liners - would come off the phone long enough to move the enthusing in some unexpecetd, anecdotal direction.
We talked about the amazing special ed of Kevin Cummins' book of Manchester photos that comes in a box held together with glue used in Formula One Cars; we talked about Andy Warhol; we talked about how to represent performance poetry on the page and crossovers betweenm literature and other arts; we talked about new writing and DBC Pierre.
And we talked about their fantastic To Hell With First Novels imprint, whose first book, Grant Gillespie's The Cuckoo Boy, is out next Spring. Sounding like something John Updike or David Lynch might do if the got their hands on the Wasp Factory, it goes top of my "to be bought in 2010" list. There are lots of things I like about the imprint - that it takes submissions direct; that it's for first novels of literary fiction (if I'd known about them before Year Zero, I may have been tempted to chance my arm); that its cover design philosophy sounds bang on what mine would be. But what I like best is that it's a one book deal. The aim is to bring brilliant writers to the wider public, not to tie them into long deals that will stultify their style and leave them in literary pre-pubescence.
Like all the best hours with strangers (well, the ones that don't involve hotels that charge day-only rates, anyway), it felt like I'd spent a whole day with people I'd known all my life. I wondered when I read about To Hell With Books whether the reality would live up to the hype. As Emma and I swapped e-mails my fears subsided and my expectations grew. Meeting her and Lucy and Laurence, I very much get the sense the reality is better than the hype.
I look forward to going back in the New Year and finally seeing the new shop. And, everything crossed, arranging a Year Zero Live gig with them.
And I'll leave you with a thought, an observation. The literary internet is full of people who moan about the current state of affairs, of writers who bewail the lack of openings, of publishers who fear for the future, of agents who live in fear of zero-advance deals. It's full of people who scaremonger lots and talk more. The more I getout into the actual world of independent arts, and hang out with people like these guys, like Sabina, like Nikesh and Nikki Loy, and everyone at Year Zero, the more I realise there's a whole world of people out there who don't bother complaining about the gloomy future - they're too busy creating a bright one for themselves.
As I found myself musing last week during a second such hour, spent in the company of the lovely people at To Hell With Books, about whom I wrote a week or so ago. We were lounging in a wonderful basement space, on a decrepit button-back sofa, books strewn across a concrete floor, laptops akimbo amid piles of beer bottles, limited edition photographs and an Andy Warhol poster to die for on the walls. Lucy, one of the brains behind To Hell With Publishing, the fantastic venture that spawned To Hell With Books, was reminiscing over an impromptu poetry reading in the upstairs room of some seedy bar or other.
I'd come to London to arrange the Year Zero Live gig in Brick Lane, and wanted to take the opportunity to check out To Hell With Books. Sadly, I was diverted to Cecil Court, and the sister shop, Amuti 23. It seems there was a problem with the shelving supplier. From my days running luxury flooring showrooms I can sympathise.
I was expecting to walk into one of the myriad stuffy rare print shops that line Cecil Court where you daren't put your nose to the window unless you're wearing tailored tweeds. When I stuck my head inside the door to be greeted with a mix of concrete and chaos and unspeakably cool prints and artefacts (one of the Stone Roses' paint-splattered hats from THAT photoshoot), I had to double-take.
There was a staircase into the shell of a bunker-space, where two chilled-out people with laptops were surfing around.
They both looked up and flashed warm, possibly slightly hungover smiles.
"Is one of you Emma?" I asked.
"Hey," said Emma. "You must be Dan."
By the time I was downstairs Lucy had cleared a slew of books from the sofa to make a lovely comfy snug, and we spent the next hour burbling about pretty much anything and everything to do with books and writing, and the arts, and what was right and what was wrong and what was hot and what was cool; and occasionally Laurence - a lovely chap (lovely being the generic term for well-framed men with beards :p) with a penchant for insightful, sardonic one-liners - would come off the phone long enough to move the enthusing in some unexpecetd, anecdotal direction.
We talked about the amazing special ed of Kevin Cummins' book of Manchester photos that comes in a box held together with glue used in Formula One Cars; we talked about Andy Warhol; we talked about how to represent performance poetry on the page and crossovers betweenm literature and other arts; we talked about new writing and DBC Pierre.
And we talked about their fantastic To Hell With First Novels imprint, whose first book, Grant Gillespie's The Cuckoo Boy, is out next Spring. Sounding like something John Updike or David Lynch might do if the got their hands on the Wasp Factory, it goes top of my "to be bought in 2010" list. There are lots of things I like about the imprint - that it takes submissions direct; that it's for first novels of literary fiction (if I'd known about them before Year Zero, I may have been tempted to chance my arm); that its cover design philosophy sounds bang on what mine would be. But what I like best is that it's a one book deal. The aim is to bring brilliant writers to the wider public, not to tie them into long deals that will stultify their style and leave them in literary pre-pubescence.
Like all the best hours with strangers (well, the ones that don't involve hotels that charge day-only rates, anyway), it felt like I'd spent a whole day with people I'd known all my life. I wondered when I read about To Hell With Books whether the reality would live up to the hype. As Emma and I swapped e-mails my fears subsided and my expectations grew. Meeting her and Lucy and Laurence, I very much get the sense the reality is better than the hype.
I look forward to going back in the New Year and finally seeing the new shop. And, everything crossed, arranging a Year Zero Live gig with them.
And I'll leave you with a thought, an observation. The literary internet is full of people who moan about the current state of affairs, of writers who bewail the lack of openings, of publishers who fear for the future, of agents who live in fear of zero-advance deals. It's full of people who scaremonger lots and talk more. The more I getout into the actual world of independent arts, and hang out with people like these guys, like Sabina, like Nikesh and Nikki Loy, and everyone at Year Zero, the more I realise there's a whole world of people out there who don't bother complaining about the gloomy future - they're too busy creating a bright one for themselves.
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