don’t have any directors). We don’t have offices in a skyscraper (we do have offices but we just have an upstairs and a downstairs). And we don’t have a PR department full of bright young things called Hyacinth and Jacoranda. (We don’t have a PR department at all). But we have one enormous advantage over the conglomerates. We care passionately about books.
They have marketing departments which decide which books will sell. They then commission books that the sales force think they will be able to flog. They won’t even consider a book until they’ve done a marketing feasibility study.
We publish books we believe in. We then try to sell them. Naturally, we try to make a profit. If we didn’t we wouldn’t last long. We have to pay the printing bills, the electricity bills, the phone bills, the rates, the insurance and so on.
But we’ve been publishing for 15 years. In that time, we’ve sold over two million books. Our books have been translated into 22 languages and are sold by other publishers (including some big ones) in over 50 countries.
The conglomerates insist that every book should make a profit.
We don’t. Some of our books make more money than others. But that’s fine with us. We don’t mind if the better sellers sometimes subsidise the other books. We don’t mind if a book is a little slow to sell. Like good parents we love all our children equally – however successful, or unsuccessful, they might be.
Despite all the talk about the need for each book to stand on its own two feet many big publishers make an overall loss. They are kept alive – effectively as vanity publishers – by other parts of the conglomerate. So, for example, the TV division or the magazine division may help to subsidise the book publishing division. We believe that book publishing can, and should, be allowed to stand alone. We believe that small publishers are now the only REAL publishers alive.
The big publishers often accept sponsorship from outside companies. We never do. We rely on the sale of books to earn our living and pay our bills. None of our books are sponsored or carry any advertising. We believe this helps us to remain truly independent. We publish books which international conglomerates wouldn’t dare touch.
Big publishers have lost touch with people’s needs. They are slow and unwieldy. It can take them two years to turn a typescript into a finished book! (We can, if pushed, get a book out within a month – while the material is still topical.)
They are too market orientated and derivative. They produce more of what other publishers did well with last year. We look forwards not backwards.
They pay huge amounts as advances to film stars, politicians and young hot shot authors. Much of the time they don’t earn back those advances. They don’t care because the books are just seen as ‘tools’ to help other parts of the empire. For example, a conglomerate will publish a politician’s dull biography as a way of putting money into the politician’s pocket.
Despite their huge marketing departments they are often out of touch with people’s needs. If we published as many ‘turkeys’ as they do we’d be out of business.
They worry enormously about upsetting powerful politicians and other corporations. The big conglomerates need to co-operate with the establishment because they are part of the establishment. We stand outside the establishment. They don’t like us much at all. They often do their best to shut us down.
But we don’t give a fig for what politicians or corporate bosses might (or might not) think of us. We’re only interested in publishing books that inform and entertain. When they try to shut us down we fight back.
At big publishers there are loads of men and women in suits who slow things down and interfere with the artistic process. Literary originality and integrity have been replaced by marketing convenience.
We have no men or women in suits to tell us what to do. We do what we believe is right. We publish books the old fashioned way. We’re a small, independent publishing house. We publish books we believe in; books we want to publish and which we hope that our readers will want to read.
That’s what we think publishing is all about.
Visit the website if you’re looking for inspiration. I would only do one thing differently from Dr Coleman, if and when I become as successful. I would employ bright young things with names like Hyacinth and Jacoranda. I’m sure I could find them something to do.
Everyone in the literary world appears to agree these days that publishers will only consider book proposals put forward to them by literary agents. For male writers, especially those writing books with a male perspective, that can pose a problem. DH Lawrence wouldn’t have had a hope of attracting an agent in the modern era. Why? The vast majority of literary agents are female. It should come as no surprise that major publishers take on few new authors writing books sympathetic to male perspectives.
But I believe – all right, I hope – that the pendulum will swing back again. How much more thin ‘chick lit’ can the book-buying public consume? I think there will be an increasing appetite for sometimes challenging books which have reasoned arguments at their core. I hope so, anyway – before we all drown in a tidal wave of books on astrology, the healing power of crystals, and dead children who reappear to friends, parents, and grandparents as angels. My blood boils at the cynicism of authors who dupe their readers for personal gain.
Literary agents and publishers are looking for ‘marketable’ authors, we are told. Often this appears to mean authors who are young, female, attractive, and able to speak fluently about their work, dropping terms such as zeitgeist, schadenfreude, hubris, and post-modern into their conversation. For those of us who fall into few or (in my case) none of the categories deemed desirable for new authors, self-publishing is the way forward. We end the chapter with an interesting story – my thanks to AuthorHouse:
In 1982 Olympic Coach Tom McNab topped the Times Bestseller list with his first novel, Flanagan’s Run. Translated into 16 languages, the book occupied the top spot in both the UK and Europe, selling hundreds of thousands of copies worldwide. But when Tom approached his publisher to release a new edition in 2009 he was refused. Despite the new generation of readers yet to be introduced to the novel, and the imminent release of a Miramax film adaptation, the publishing house was not interested.
Undeterred, Tom approached AuthorHouse to enable him to re-publish the best-selling novel himself. During an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Open Book programme in May 2010, he explained the rationale behind his decision:
‘My attitude was that if Flanagan’s Run was good enough to be read by hundreds of thousands of people all over the world in 1982, then there must be another group of people equally capable of enjoying it… I read about self-publishing in a newspaper, it told me AuthorHouse was one of the best companies, so I simply found them on the web and wrote to them – that was it.’
Published to widespread critical acclaim, Flanagan’s Run tells the epic story of a 3,000 mile marathon across the United States. Set in the depression-era, the book follows 2,000 hopefuls as they begin the gruelling race from New York to Los Angeles; a race ultimately beset by danger as the American sports establishment try to scupper the event.
Praised for both its well drawn cast, which includes such disparate characters as an ex-miner from Scotland, a Mexican trying to save his famine-struck village, a feisty showgirl from New York, a bare-knuckle boxer and a team of Young Nazis, and its vivid descriptions of the race, Flanagan’s Run captures the pain, motivation, commitment, and satisfaction of running, while offering an enduring look at human experience and ambition.
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