best book launch idea ever?

I am kicking myself that I won’t be in town for this decadent vegan sugar extravaganza - at least, that’s how I imagine it will be… I also picture judge-bribing and sneaky underhand winning tactics - at least, that’s what I’d be doing if I was around to enter my super chocolate cake of amazingness:

Genius.

I’m loving the poster too, it was done by Jason Lingard who you will know (if you’ve been paying attention!) is the design guy behind The Sex Mook and, oh, pretty much everything Vignette Press does.

L.

industry view

I was interested to read Beverley Hadgraft’s Can I Have That In Writing in the weekend’s Sunday, which I annoyingly can’t find on Herald Sun’s crappy site.

Anyway, it was a kind of overview of the publishing industry, focussing on the many, many people who write and their pathways (or not) to publication. It was kind of looking at the industry from an outsiders perspective which was fascinating. It opened a little predictably by talking about Jane Austen’s famous rejections, then goes on to mention Louise Thutell’s Friday Pitch before talking about the likelihood of getting a publisher, using an agent and advances. Like I said, quite interesting in itself. However. Agent Fiona Inglis of Curtis Brown makes this rather unusual statement:

“Sometimes we receive manuscripts that should never see the light of day,” Inglis says. “It’s very personal, or it’s poetry - there are only three or four books of poetry published in Australia a year.”

Now, I don’t know a lot about poetry but I do know that John Leonard Press alone is putting out at least that many titles… is Fiona Inglis on crack? Or - more likely, maybe - is she only counting books by ‘real’ publishers? Sigh.

The article ended up with a bit of info about print on demand. It looks at using the services of BookPal, citing:

The cost of printing your own A5, 150-page book wil be around $6000 for 1000 copies. If you want proof-reading, cover design, layout, marketing and distribution you can double that cost.

That just seems really expensive to me, more expensive than simply finding a printer to do the job for you. Anyway, if I were talking to someone who wanted to self-publish, I’d recommend to them spending a bit of money on editing and design yourself, then using Lulu, Blurb or one of the other internet-based POD publishers to create a book, which minimises the risk of having 900 copies of a book sitting in your garage until the end of your days.

L.

lip mook

Yes, there’s a new mook on the block! Lip magazine is a fantastic publication aimed at being a glossy mag alternative to rags like Dolly. In fact, it’s for ‘girls who think, feel, create, speak out, live’.

They’ve just relaunched as a mook, using print on demand technology, which is a great idea. And using POD means they’re able to be ad-free.

“As an independent publication run by volunteers, we don’t have the resources to print thousands of magazines, only to have them sit in my garage waiting for someone to buy a copy,” says Rachel Longhurst, Editor and co-publisher of lip.

Using a print-on-demand service means just that — a copy of the magazine is only printed once an order
is received. No excess inventory = no waste.

lip’s ad-free format, its unique voice and high production values lends itself to being described as a new
hybrid publication called a “mook”.

“lip still acts like a magazine — published in a series on a quarterly basis — but looks more like a book you want to hang on to or share with your best friends.”

I obviously think this is cool… and I know that lip were struggling with doing full-scale print distribution as a volunteer-based mag. So this is a fantastic way to keep the mag alive for its fans (and future fans!).

L.

new haven review

Paper Cuts reports on the New Haven Review, an interesting journal based around a small community. The editor’s hand-deliver editions to New Haven residents, and they post a book review of a ‘great book nobody’s heard of’ on the NHR website weekly.

The Huffington Post talks about how the local, small scale of the review journal can be a fantastic idea for promoting books on a smaller scale than national newspapers and journals:

Wouldn’t it be cool if other small- and medium-sized towns — Austin, Des Moines, Albany, etc. — decided they wanted local book reviews, too? Maybe such reviews would feature local writers doing the reviewing, the way ours does, or maybe they would feature reviews of books by local authors. Either way, they would be reminders that major urban publications do not have to be the sole instruments for book reviewing.

Those comments remind me of Bit o’Lit, and I still think it’s a fabulous idea.

L.

history and future of zines

… according to Tim W Brown, the internet has done gone and replaced zine culture. Via Galley Cat:

By the mid-1990s creative types began wondering why they should mess around with printing and its capital requirements when a free publishing model was available. Zinesters and their younger cohorts began toying with a new medium, the Internet. Content found previously in zines appeared online via the bulletin board and its successor technologies, listservs and newsgroups. When web browsers were developed, these online publications morphed into e-zines.

Originally static web pages, e-zines swiftly got more sophisticated until the arrival of the Web 2.0 paradigm, which has now made publishing a two-way street. The blog scene was born, and bloggers largely carry the flag of self-expression despite the continued presence of e-zines. Not every zine was the product of one mind; many operated like popular magazines, publishing work by several writers along with expansive letters-to-the-editor sections wherein huge ideological battles were fought. But nothing from the original print zine scene compares to the real-time reader response possible with today’s lowest-tech blogs.

L.

why publishers should blog

As said by Booksquare.

f there’s one thing we know about today’s online market, it is that, collectively, they do not respond well to packaged marketing pitches or the absurdly inauthentic public relations voice. So many publishers treat the copy on their websites like it exists in a sterile environment…where is the enthusiasm about books?

Just as authors need to better market themselves and their books, so do publishers. While the audience for a publisher website is diverse — authors, booksellers, journalists, agents, readers, and more — talking about books on your website the same way you talk about books in your catalog simply isn’t cutting it. In printed material, you have various constraints. On the web, you have the ability to do something special: tell the world what excites you, the publisher, about a particular book.

So true.

L.

reviews & sales

The Short Review is asking a pertinent question on their blog: should they use the Amazon store function to sell the books they review on their site?

For those that have not heard of it, any blogger can set up an Amazon store with books or products of their choosing. When people click through from their blog or site and buy something, the blogger gets a few cents out of the sale.

I generally think it’s a cool idea. It’s not invasive or overly salesy. Printfetish are a blog that I think are perfect to use the tool. They are a known/loved site that are recognised for being cool/knowledgeable and are using that position to say ‘hey, here’s what we like, if you like it too and are going to buy it anyway why not buy it from us to support our website?’ In my eyes, it’s much better than, say, having a paypal ‘donate to me’ button. And they make it work by having interesting/quirky stuff in their store, the kind of stuff I visit their site to find out about.

The issue that The Short Review are grappling with is whether having sales and reviews side by side is a no-no:

If the Short Review was to link directly to Amazon, then we would get some percentage of books sold. Does this affect the “objectivity” of the site, if it appears that we are attempting to push a book so that you buy it? Our reviewers are supported in whatever opinion they take of the book they are reviewing. Would this be affected?

I don’t think it necessarily does in this case, using the Amazon application, if it were displayed discreetly (for example, not having a BUY link at the end of every review…).

What do you think? The Short Review are running a poll, so you can anonymously have your say - or leave a comment on their blog if you’re compelled to make a longer response!

L.

bit o’lit

There’s a new book marketing initiative in Washington called Bit o’Lit. Basically, it’s a fortnightly street press mag about books that is handed out to commuters to read on the way home. The main content of the mags is excerpts.

Bit o’ Lit is a booklet-sized magazine that is handed out for free to commuters in Washington, DC as they board the bus or train on Monday evenings. The booklet’s primary contents are book excerpts, paid for by publishers, which passengers read on their ride home.

We believe that while readers support the idea of reading new books, in practice, they are hesitant to risk their time and money on untested books or authors. This is undeniably why there were no new authors among the thirty bestselling books last year.

Reading their website, it seems very focussed on keeping things as local as possible; they are offering a fairly specific target market to advertisers (publishers) and encouraging them to advertise books by people from the area or who will be visiting on tour. I think keeping the focus small (local) is a great idea because it will make it relevant to the people reading it, making it a good advertising choice for the right kinds of books/authors.

They publish the magazine online as well, though unfortunately don’t have a picture of the print mag itself. Described as ‘booklet-sized’ I think it may be Mini Shots size or similar, which of course makes it instantly appealing (to me, at least).

I guess my main concern with this as a publisher would be what the strike rate of interested people would be. The fact that it’s promoting ‘literature’ might turn a lot of general book readers off; the l-word is hated by a lot of people I know who are actually quite heavy readers. But I love the idea of a kind of trouble or (the former print) aduki for books in Melbourne - especially if it’s promoting small and independent press in particular. It seems like a good fit with this indie, literary city.

L.

anti-small press sentiment

I was annoyed to read this post on The Rejecter this week - The Grumpy Dragon Vs The Rejecter. The post itself wasn’t annoying really, in fact she made some valid points about the way the publisher in question runs its press.

No, it was the comments about independent publishing that got me riled (my emphasis):

Agents don’t like small presses. Their advances are minuscule or non-existent, and their profits are in the crazy land of “don’t check the mail for a check anytime soon.” Agents don’t make money because authors don’t make money. Also your book doesn’t get a lot of distribution, meaning it has next to no chance of earning back the non-advance on royalties or becoming a bestseller. Ultimately, it’s better for your career and your wallet to be with a major press.

On the other hand, maybe what you’ve written is very experimental, or isn’t so great, or is great in a way no one can appreciate (meaning it’s very experimental), or you just want to get published, damnit, and you don’t want to self-publish. And small presses are legitimate courses to take at this point if you’ve failed to get an agent. It will count on your publication record more than a POD book. It’s not the best of stepping stones but it is one.

Oh right, it’s that whole thing about small press and independent publishing being the refuge of the unpublishable. I think you know what I’m going to say to that - bullshit. This issue was mentioned at the Emerging Writers Festival pitching session a while back, how many authors try with the big publishing houses and then start submitting to independent publishers; the implication being, of course, that the indies are second best.

Of course it’s true that publishing with small press means you’ll probably get smaller distribution and less money (though there are a lot of authors with corporate publishers who aren’t seeing the money, either; not everyone is a bestseller). But independent publishers are far from being crappy copies of the big players. For me, even comparing small and big press (tee hee) is just not comparing apples with apples. Independent publishing is so many things - it’s subcultural, experimental, innovative, niche and not always driven by the bottom line. No, it’s not mainstream publishing, but in most cases it doesn’t want or try to be.

L.

PS In a previous post The Rejecter has stated that she doesn’t recycle because the energy it takes to recycle outstrips the energy it takes to produce new paper; that makes me so mad I could scream.

publishing in the media

I’ve been meaning to blog about these things for ages but haven’t found time to create a critical response. But I think it would be remiss for any more time to pass without at least mentioning them:

Overland have had a nice discussion on independent publishing going on in their last two issues in particular. Issue 190 has culture vulture Mark Davis looking at the problems and prospects for independent publishing in Literature, small publishers and the market in culture. Also in that edition are two good (and related) features:Share and share alike by Emmy Hennings, looking at modes of digital reading; and The trouble with books by Jenny Lee, looking at changing book culture, in particular its how it might or might not become digitalised. Both those articles are available to read in full online.

Issue 191 of Overland has Nathan Hollier talking some more about the state of independent publishing; (from the website) he ‘traces the intersection of post-modernism and the free market in contemporary literary culture’. (I haven’t read this one yet!)

In the current issue of Meanjin there is an essay, The Other Way, by Wayne Macauley on Australian fiction publishing. In particular he looks at modes of publishing (small press, self-publishing), funding, and the culture of creating books.

In the Introduction of the current issue of Wet Ink there is what I consider to be a bit of a call to arms for publishers, particularly the independents. I’ll definitely blog about this in more detail (and hopefully the others too) at a later date.

In non-published news, I’ve read two excellent essays on independent publishing in the past two weeks. It’s gratifying to see that people outside of the sector (by which I mean not necessarily working in it) are noticing and taking interest in what’s happening in small press publishing in this country.

L.