riskingit

New Year pick me up

2012-01-26T12:49:00.002+01:00

Last night I went to a talk given by Salley Vickers, and she read a few lines from a short story, about taking a bus to from Penzance to St Ives to see the Barbara Hepworth exhibition. She and her friend were alarmed at the speed the driver went at and arrived in a quivering state. She used this experience in a short story, but had a lone man take the bus and use the turns of the run away bus to lurch towards the body of a girl seated next to him, who then accepted a drink from him at his hotel - at which point Salley Vickers stopped her reading.

This brought back good memories of Thessaloniki, Greece. I was on a mission to introduce Greek writers to UK publishers, which resulted in our publishing Vangelis Hatzyiannidis' books, Stolen Time and Four Walls. We had a spare hour between seminars and meeetings so I went into the hotel spa pool for a swim in salt water (it was a tiny pool but the spa was warm, the water salty and very good for mind and soul). I emerged, and a well known female scout invited me to the top floor panoramic bar for a drink. We took our seats at a table with bar stools, and were surrounded on four sides by glass, a view of the port and city, and then there was an almighty thunderstorm with lightning. The skies went dark, then lit up, and opened with torrents of rain. Next, a waiter came over with two tall glasses of white wine, which we had not ordered, and a man on the other side of the bar nodded at us. We could not work out which of us he had decided to honour with a free drink... A highlight, so to speak, of our trip, and a definite pick me up.

2012-01-15T22:36:00.002+01:00

I've been wondering about the self-publishing route, as this weekend the press (Guardian Money section, for one) has had a few stories of individual success stories. If you can publish directly to Kindle, do you feel like an author? Having readers definitely would bring a warm glow, and if you find that you are earning directly from your work, that would feel good.

But what happened to that warm glow of having your finished book in your hands? And what of the publisher's knowledge of how to gain publicity, and how do literary festivals and radio programmes contact the author if they do not have a publisher's office ready and waiting? I think if I was a prospective author, I'd want both - and so I would have to commit some of those Kindle earnings to having my work put in print.

All in all, very interesting times. And I think that people will be encouraged to write more, not less, now that these new routes to readers, let alone markets, are opening up.

Happy Christmas, world

2011-12-22T17:58:00.004+01:00

A Very Happy Christmas to all readers of this blog, our authors, and distributors. We'll be having a rest over the holidays but still thinking about new ventures and titles for 2012.

In the meantime, enjoy the gingerbread house and its marzipan and icing inhabitants who were created this morning - eat your heart out, Tim Parks.

Are chick lit book covers a feminist issue?

2011-09-16T11:01:00.003+02:00

In today's Guardian, 16th September, there is an article about a Harper Collins author, Polly Courtney, ditching her publisher at her book launch, after three years of pent-up frustration over how her books were marketed. Her latest novel, It's a Man's World, has a picture of women's legs, perched on a desk - a woman with no head. Polly Courtney will now self-publish.

I can see that if you are writing a book that makes serious points about careers, and you are an investment banker who quit her job for whatever reasons - stress, trying to make it in a man's world, sexism at work, long hours and the inability to lead a balanced life, you would be very frustrated at having sexual stereotypes displayed on your book by your publisher.

So, what is my reaction. Firstly, as a publisher, I know that the cover is a piece of marketing, and it's aim is to get the book picked up and looked at by a potential reader. And readers of new fiction have choice -so much choice it is unbelievable.

So, you want Waterstone's and WH Smith to display your book. And, here's the rub, as Shakespeare said, the retailer's buyers have the power. They can make publishers change covers when you want the order. And you only have one time window to get said order, for new books. So you, the publisher, whether Harper Collins or a small independent, like Marion Boyars, have little power.

Now, it is refeshing not to have to bow to the pressure of other people's agendas. And authors are self-employed, of course. They choose to write, and they hopefully enjoy the process of meeting readers, being entertaining, and writing.

When we published Maureen Freely's novel, Enlightenment, in 2007, we designed covers with passports, Istanbul minarets, and menacing birds in the sky. The buyer at Waterstone's did not place an order. Then we changed it to represent the main character's feet in sling back black shoes - yes, disembodied sexist, women's feet, against a plainish grey floor. We used the moon and sickle emblem from the Turkish flag to signal that this was a political novel. We got the order from Waterstone's and Maureen Freely got the right reviews, describing the book as a 'gripping novel' and 'a powerful fictional version of the argument that Turkey does not yet subscribe to the levels of democracy and human rights required if EU membership is to mean more than a passport with economic improvement.' The Guardian.

Of course we did not interfere editorially with the plot, the 'inside' of the book. But we had to interfere with the 'packaging', in order to make sense of the years that Maureen Freely had spent writing her book. So Polly Courtney, try to find a middle way and a publishing team who will listen to your frustration, but still give you packaging that means your books sell. And I will look out for It's a Man's World - as will many women who have read the article in The Guardian today.

Working on new editions

2011-06-01T15:29:00.004+02:00

The benefit of working on new editions with familiar books, from the Marion Boyars backlist, is that you find you do not argue with yourself. Nice cover image, you say to yourself. Don't mind if I use that one, then, yes, you agree with yourself.

And when the weather is good, a few rays in the garden can be caught up with.

Working away to the sound of Peter Jefferson being interviewed on Radio London this lunch time was another bonus - I put together his rather wonderful memoir AND NOW THE SHIPPING FORECAST, published not by myself but by Niall Mansfield at UIT Cambridge. It has just had a whole round of PR including an interview in the Daily Mail by Harry Mount, and an extract in the Daily Express. And his first invite to a literary festival was to the rather wonderfully named Wigtown, in Scotland. Better make sure yours is packed if you're attending!

Campaign call

2011-02-19T12:53:00.004+01:00

I had an eventful day yesterday.

Early evening, I went to my local library in Barnes to pick up an inter library loan. The book, Snowdrops by A.D Miller (a snowdrop in this case is not a pretty flower - it is a corpse hidden by Russian snow over the winter that comes to light in Spring...).

The librarian asked me to sign the campaign against library closures. "But I have already signed it," I remonstrated. "Please sign it again," she insisted.

I took a deep breath. I'm not one of nature's criminals and doing something twice goes against the grain. But this is important.

So, I signed. And wrote my comment.

'Shame on you David Cameron. Closing libraries is far from the act of a 'Big Society' - it's the act of a 'Small minded Society'. It's worse than Thatcher Milk Snatcher, because you can get milk anywhere for children - but if you close the libraries, they will not come back. Shame on you David Cameron, with three small children to bring up to be educated, curious, achieving and socially minded citizens.'

I signed it as publisher, Marion Boyars - I have never told the librarians what I do as it's not relevant.

"Precisely," said the librarian, "It's all the more shocking as he is a father and knows how important books are to young children. We have a homework club here, internet access for all, we help the unemployed fill out job applications, we have a scheme where books are taken to the elderly, and collected, we are the only free resource left in London. Manchester has already lost its libraries, and only the very new flagship libraries will remain. We do not know if we will survive and we will most likely lose this wonderful place. Please start a campaign."

I took another deep breath. I know how to reach journalists. I could get free press ads with the rubric, "SHAME ON YOU DAVID CAMERON, closing libraries makes your Big Society a Small Minded Society", and I just might manage to reach the man's morals. He has already decided not to sell off our forests.

Should I do it? Will you lot out there - other publishers, editors and translators, and authors, journalists, broadcasters, newspaper proprietors, join?

Campaigning on the streets for libraries is not easy. Most book readers would rather be curled up in a chair reading, especially when it is foggy and raining like yesterday. But I think I should start.

Libraries are more than the books (ever so cheap, as we known us publishers, nothing like the cost of making them), and staff, (people will always want to work with books for modest wages), but it's the buildings, the computer systems, now working so well. My loaned copy of 'Snowdrops' came from Tower Hamlets Library, brand new. It was transported right across London, just for me to read, and then I shall give it back. Like me, a librarian there reads the new fiction reviews, and takes action, so a book gains readers.

Earlier in my eventful day, I was invited to Books for Cooks, 4 Blenheim Crescent, Notting Hill Gate, to a demonstration by an Italian Jewish cook, Sylvia Nacamulli, through my good friend Anne Wilk. It was a chance to see Books for Cooks for myself, as although several of our authors have done events there, the redoubtable Clothilde Dusoulier of Chocolate & Zucchini fame, book and blog, and Victoria Cator and Lucinda Bruce of Victoria & Lucinda's Flavour of the Month, I did not go to either event as I did not wish to take up a place which a paying guest would have taken.

Sylvia Nacamulli is looking for a cookery book publisher. She has given demonstrations since 2003, and has a wealth of experience. I look forward to fnding salted capers in Sicily this summer, to make her Caponata (aubergine with capers, and many other fine ingredients). It was fun and I came home and prepared her spinach with pine nuts and sweet white onion. But the real event of the day was my visit to the library.

2011 and our wonderful Christmas bestseller

2011-01-02T14:56:00.005+01:00

Happy 2011 everyone!

Marion Boyars Publishers had a Christmas bestseller. Rage Against the Machine followers from 2009 chose Cage Against the Machine for their 2010 campaign against manufactured Christmas songs, and 4'33", otherwise known as SILENCE by John Cage is the track. Letters to The Guardian in praise of SILENCE are continuing into 2011.

As are our height defying sales of SILENCE by John Cage. Mushroom omelette anyone?

2010-06-22T13:31:00.004+02:00

I thought I would post a little about this company, now that we have reached the middle of the year.

Last year, when Borders and Books Etc in the UK shut up shop, I felt that a small independent press would not be able to hold its own, and gain fiction orders on new books, at the one brilliant remaining chain, Waterstone's.

So we stopped doing new books, and 38 titles were chosen by Penguin UK. I prepared to see this list slow down.

But sales all the way through this year have been very high. It's not just amazon, we have had great orders from Urban Outfitters, HMV and many books are on courses and selling well. We have reprinted at least 6 titles, including Spike Bucklow's The Alchemy of Paint, which is selling in the Uffizi Gallery Florence and in the Metropolitan Museum of Art - all over the world.

I am doing consultancy for a Cambridge publisher, and enjoying less pressure and fewer bills. I have done yoga and pilates, and tennis, and this year has just been more relaxed. But Marion Boyars Publishers appears to be a survivor, in every sense. So if you see me at awards and book events, don't be surprised - any more than I am, anyway!

Election 2010

2010-05-07T09:47:00.003+02:00

We had an author standing for election, in Hampstead & Kilburn. Tamsin Omond stood as an independent candidate - her main issues were green politics, climate change and law and order. Well, she polled 132 votes - and Glenda Jackson held the seat for Labour. Apparently Glenda appeared only 6 times last year to vote and is one of the most apathetic MP's. Tamsin in only 25 and I hope she will continue her energetic campaigns on climate change, green issues, gay rights and so much more. If I ever feel a little down, I just think about how much Tamsin has achieved in the two years since she left university. A low poll in a British election has no bearing on her future as a political force for the good.

At home, Richmond took the lead from the Liberal Democrats. The young professional Tory vote counted. Maybe we should move to Brighton...

Rosy Barnes - the scrummiest script writer

2010-03-23T16:09:00.005+01:00

Great news - Rosy Barnes, the author of SADOMASOCHISM FOR ACCOUNTANTS which we published last year at a launch complete with bowler hatted male strippers and whips, in a London club, (OK - a cafe with literary leanings which may prefer to remain anonymous right now) has been chosen to work up her book into a film script as part of the only programme in the UK which exists to nurture the talents of female script writers.

We all know how hard it is to break into the film industry, and it seems that there are very few female script writers - plenty of actors and plenty of female parts (no double entendre intended). But only 12 per cent of movies have women writers.

She Writes 2010 have chosen ten writers who will benefit from a residential retreat, attend film workshops, and work with professionals associated with the Birds Eye View Film Festival.

Rosy Barnes is delighted:

'This is my dream opportunity. I want to develop insightful wicked comedy, with strong, funny, different women characters that make people snort out loud in public places. What Birds Eye View is doing in terms of encouraging women's viewpoints and characters is just the sort of thing I want to be part of.'

For more information, go to:
www.birds-eye-view.co.uk
www.scriptfactory.co.uk/go/News/

Charlie Gillet

2010-03-18T13:30:00.003+01:00

I'm working away - all kinds of things including preparing copy for the English Pen Writers in Translation 5 year celebratory compilation (we were lucky enough to have two books and authors supported by the programme in the past few years - TOUBA AND THE MEANING OF NIGHT by Shahrnush Parsipur, and last year, SEE HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU by Luis Leante).

But today started with the very sad news that Charlie Gillet has passed away. I met Charlie when a group of us used to go to African concerts all over London, and one Keith Jeffries imported vinyl records and ran a very small business - (I think he is now deputy governor of the Bank of Botswana). So Charlie was interested in which musicians Keith had found and we all had a few beers together.

All the way through having children - those years when going out on a Saturday is all but impossible - we listened to Charlie on GLR 94.9. I took Samuel Charters on to his programme when we published THE DAY IS SO LONG & THE WAGES SO SMALL. I was incredibly sad when ill health meant that Charlie stopped his programme on Saturday evenings, although by then going out was again the norm, staying in with Charlie was always a good option.

So, listen in to Robert Elms on 94.9 as he is doing a tribute to Charlie. And hope his programmes have been recorded and will pop up on the schedules for ever more.

Crikey

2010-02-11T16:31:00.003+01:00

At lunch time today, an email came in from a consultancy who offer to set you a questionnaire for personnel so you can judge their mood swings and ability to cope under pressure.

Well, I assessed my morning's work which was paying royalties, and decided that the normal annoyances of finding envelopes, statements, checking some addresses on the web and countless other small tasks was bound to make one slightly grumpy. But I was coping OK.

Then - the phone rings and a lovely independent bookshop calls to tell me they are selling books for an event that involves one of our authors. They asked for 5 copies on sale or return, which I said fine to. But they did not want to order them because they wanted to return them the very next day - and I apologised but said I was not going to manage to deliver and then return to the shop to collect unsold books the next day - I mean two hours journey twice over for a possible profit of a tenner? And guess what - the bookseller just put the phone down on me!

Golly. I am so glad that lovely words like golly still exist.

2010-02-08T15:57:00.002+01:00

Sustainable Energy – without the hot air Professor David Mackay

OK – two things are definite – we all want our time on this planet to be worthwhile. And we kind of want to have a good conscience about not using up too many of the world’s resources. So a book I am reading is Professor David MacKay’s top selling energy book Sustainable Energy – without the hot air.

But – he is Professor of Physics at Cambridge and so, although I did an O Level in Physics a long time ago, I have to concentrate hard to get his arguments. They involve equations.

I recall my Physics teacher (who played the banjo – remorselessly, and we had to listen to him) telling us that the bicycle was the most inefficient machine known to man.

So how does David MacKay explain the efficiencies of bicycles, which he rates higher than cars?

What is the energy consumption of a bicycle in kWh per 100 km? That’s a long way, to me - I am no Lance Armstrong, but theoretically I am still very interested.

In these equations, Professor MacKay explains, for a car, “4” is used to stand for engine efficiency, p the density of air, d is distance, A is the area of the front of the car, the area A=cdAcar is the effective front area of a car and v is its speed.

Anyway, using lots of equations, but primarily dividing the energy-per-distance of a car by the energy-per-distance of a bike, a cyclist going at 21 km/h consumes 3% of the energy per kilometre of the lone driver on a motorway, about 2.4 kWh per 100 km. So the fuel efficiency (your pumping legs) is 30 times better than a cars. David MacKay thinks the area A of a bike is 4 times less than that of a car, as you can fit 4 bikes in the space of one car on a road. You can, but hardly any cyclists ride side by side as it is too dangerous to slow down the cars behind. But I do think 4 cyclists can easily squeeze up past your car waiting at traffic lights, so I will allow him the dividing by 4. He calls these equations a fun means of scaling the efficiencies of bikes and cars. I think they are primarily about making people feel good about using their bikes rather than cars.

If you want to follow all of the equations, I suggest you get a copy of the book – which is packed full of other equations. What I really like about science is that it can prove beyond doubt what your common sense tells you is right and thus provide fuel to combat human nature. Yes, his book aids will power!

the present

2010-02-05T12:08:00.002+01:00

Well, the most surprising thing to blog about this year, is how strong book sales are from this list, and how enjoyable it is to plan a future mainly in the back shelves of bookshops and on online book selling sites.

So that's my news! My lesson for 2010 is that sometimes in life it's best to do less.

Happy New Year

2010-01-01T17:07:00.002+01:00

Hope the hangovers are lifting now as the sun sets in London - we had a fine New Year with fellow publishing folk at the pub of the year 2009 in Putney, the Bricklayer's Arms. Only draw back was the young ladies who could not hold their drink so les toilettes were not the best - last time we were there, a group of stags were wearing cloth hats which was far a more civilised crowd to have sharing your space in a pub. Stags of the pre marital variety rather than the Richmond Park variety, I hasten to say, although it would have been fun to see animals propping up the bar. One of the best books I did not publish was about a man who fell in love with an elk when his marriage fell apart - yes, a novel from Scandinavia...but I digress. Now someone will tell me it would have been a best seller.

So, what a year in publishing it's been. Amazon and The Book Depository race ahead and poor old Borders and Books Etc is no more. Farewell, lovely buyers at Borders, and I hope the New Year brings new opportunities.

For myself, it'll be a mix of running Marion Boyars while the Penguin rights transfer continues, some literary agenting for a very exciting project - more soon when a You Tube clip is ready, and publishing consultancy. And I hope to bring you cheer as you contemplate what the 20 ten - no, let's stick to two thousand ands or else we'll have 20 eleven, 20 twelve ad ininitatum - what 2010 will bring.

Reviews - good god, about time

2009-11-23T18:17:00.002+01:00

Reviews for SEE HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU by Luis Leante are finally starting as people wake up to this book.

The humanitarian angle is certainly important - this people, the Saharawi's of the Western Sahara, cannot send athletes to the Olympics because they do not have a state.

But more importantly, this is the kind of book, when you read it, that you will look back on from a year's worth of reading and say, yes, that was good - more than good. But don't believe me - read the reviews. They are not biased.

REVIEWS

'With vivid imagery of desperate village life and keen insight into multicultural influences, Leante’s rich, often poetic novel of romance and international politics evokes a sensuous yet savage period in this region’s tumultuous history.' Booklist, USA

'...set against one of those ongoing arenas of conflict that the media chooses to ignore - the struggle for independence of the Saharawi people of the Western Sahara first from the Spanish and later from Moroccan dominance...a necessary context to a painfully compelling story of love and loss.' Morning Star

The Wave - 12pm Grosvenor Square 5th December

2009-11-11T16:39:00.002+01:00

Hmmm - publishing folk tend towards the green, and they definitely tend towards the inpecunious - happily being green and not buying large 4 x 4 Land Rovers or Lexus cars co exist well.

So, Saturday 5th December - make it a date to go in your diary.

Once the Saturday Guardian has been read, get yourself down to Grosvenor Square, wearing BLUE, and join in the march to Paliament Square for 3pm where the intention is to encircle the square. Yes, it does sound a little hippy - and I went on the TREE HUGGER web site today looking for ways to bring RUSH! The Making of a Climate Activist by Tamsin Omond to people's attention, but gave up when I saw that tree huggers regard posting anything as ungreen (and that includes books, which are made of recycled paper fibres). So obviously direct action is a better way to publicize green issues than books in some people's eyes. Personally, I think books are a great way to convey ideas so I'll be there, wearing BLUE, with a copy of RUSH! about my person. I may even wave it in the air. Who knows....

2009-10-26T16:52:00.007+01:00

What do all the books listed below which have been published by Marion Boyars in the past few years have in common?

Requiem for a Dream Hubert Selby Jr
Enlightenment Maureen Freely
The German Momey Lev Raphael
The Flea Palace Elif Shafak
The Gaze Elif Shafak
On a quick walk through the fiction shelves at the Putney Central Library, Wandsworth, these books were on display, and all had no less than eight library stamps in them. Well read, enjoyed, and waiting for the next browser. I just finished Lorrie Moore's excellent A Gate at the Stairs, in which the rather crazy Sarah takes books out of the library for her two year old daughter, and puts them in the microwave to get rid of the germs. I avoid really badly marked library books, since you do not know where they were last, but I love libraries - the possibilities, and the fact that your own house remains a little less cluttered. I did have to admit to myself that our house probably contains more fiction than all the fiction shelves in the Putney library. Oh well. Once I have bought and enjoyed a book, I cannot take it to an Oxfam shop. Too much of a good friend....

Frankfurt Book Fair

2009-10-19T16:40:00.002+02:00

I'm just back from the Frankfurt Book Fair. It was fun, not as busy as the past few years (especially Saturday - very few people in the aisles of Hall 8 and just a few meetings). But one thought I had was this - the stands were full of new books, every subject, shape and author under the sun. I could have browsed for ages and there were a lot of books I would have liked to buy at the end of the Fair if I had space to pack them.

So, the current Kindle vs book discussion - can you imagine an international rights fair where all the books are on Kindle screens - a kind of book electronica. The book fair would be a little like a grey TV shop. Back to black and white on screens.

Just an idea - and I think it proves the book is here to stay. The publishing industry will be further split into massive firms and smaller ones supported by government initiatives or private patronage. This is a shame, and it is why Marion Boyars is finding itself divided in two - one part up for sale, the name and the history, with a large culturally divergent backlist, and the main fiction titles finding new homes at Penguin Modern Classics. It's not really a sad scenario as I know it is the right thing for 2010 and onwards. We had a great boom over the past ten years in retail and in education, but we are now in more digitally challenged times, so change is a coming in.

Luis Leante world tour....SEE HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU

2009-09-16T17:37:00.005+02:00

Yes, he has visited twenty countries since winning the Alfaguera prize in 2007 - and arrived today fresh from two days at the Berlin International Festival. Tomorrow Luis will be reading at the Instituto Cervantes, 102 Eaton Square, from 6.30pm, and then on Monday he will be at the Tabernacle in Powis Square (northern side - closest to the westway, Portobello and all that - just down the road from Westbourne Park tube), from 7pm. Our launch is in tandem with the Sandblast Arts charity, and we will have a guitarist, artefacts, a show of powerful images from the desert Saharawi people.

And you may be tempted to join the run in the Sahara desert next year in February. Apparently it's OK to just do 5 km....or even walk them if you have flat feet like I do! Since when has walking in a desert been a wuss activity anyway?

See you at one of these events, I hope. Wine in London and you'd only want water in the desert...

RUSH! on the move - tour by horse

2009-09-08T12:03:00.002+02:00

Photographer Peter Marshall is with the Climate Rush tour as it progresses from Sipson to Aylesbury, then Oxford where they plan to close down the airport just renamed London Airport (!) on the 12th September, and then on to Bristol if they are not put in prison first.

The above link is to his web site, mylondondiary - nothing to do with the Evening Standard and the famous column of the same name - and I hope lots of people will look at the photographs, and ask for permission to reprint them (as I did).

Last Friday, September 4th, Rebecca and I went and joined the RUSH! at Sipson, held on the land that Greenpeace have bought with 10,000 signatories, to stop the development on the third runway at Heathrow.

Now, in case people think this is a piece of jumping on the bandwagon publishing, let me make it clear that I live and work directly underneath the Heathrow flight path. I can hear aeroplanes now going over the office in Putney. In the summer, it is hard to talk in our garden for the noise of the planes - in fact I was amazed that in Sipson, right up against the perimeter fence of Heathrow, the noise was identical to that in my garden.

In fact, finding Spison was hard. It officially does not exist. It is not on the map. Not at all so no matter how good your map reading skills are, it makes no difference, you just have to guess which is the Northern perimeter of the airport and head towards it. We were taking copies of RUSH! The Making of a Climate Activist, for Tamsin to sign and sell as they progress on the tour.

When you get near to Sipson, there is just one tiny signpost for a left turn, and then you are in the village. In fact, the village has a great pub, but very few shops and no real centre. The camp on the Greepeace land is just behind the King William 1v pub - or as it is affectionately known to the locals - behind the King Willy.

The camp itself was idyllic. September sunshine, gifts of fruit from the locals, the horses gently resting in the background, the tarpaulins of the carts being sewn, tents up, a large fire starting for the evening. The locals were all delighted to see the Climate Rush! suffragettes and to read about themselves in the book. I met many people, and really wanted to stay all evening and join the camp. I nearly ran away with the fairies and never came back. It is all hugely fun and the nicest of times, while being essential to raise awareness of the fragility of nature. Sipson used to be on a site called Heath Row, and it was a huge market garden, which is why it is still full of fruit trees. The houses are small, and loved, though every time you mow the lawn you must think, is it worth it, when will the bulldozers arrive? It reminded me of the beginning of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe, but this is for real, with real people, right up the road.

It will mean that more people will vote for David Cameron next May as he has said he will cancel the third runway. But that was what Gordon Brown said also. Who can trust politicians now? We have enough flights for business and travel to flourish - we do not need more. It's all about moderation - and we should not treat this planet as an endless resource. Because, although the Climate Camp at Sipson was lovely, and people were having a nice time, when it is a runway, they certainly will not. I heard a journalist on the radio last night saying he is done with flying when he goes on holiday - he takes a train or drives. And when you arrive somewhere with cheap flights, it is full of tourists. Finding the 'real' world is hard, because we, in the first world, have fully invaded it. I may sound like an old fashioned reactionary, but it's just about doing with less, and being happy with less, as a way of life. I hope the young see Tamsin and her friends, and decide she is right - it takes a massive change of lifestyle. But I think her example, which you can read about in her book, will have some impact...I hope so.

http://mylondondiary.co.uk

Catheryn

2009-09-01T12:46:00.003+02:00

I'm currently doing the review copy mailing of RUSH! The Making of a Climate Activist by Tamsin Omond.

Well, - the mailing bit will be minimal - most of these copies will be delivered by van - ADT carry parcels between publishers and newspapers and agents within the M25. Those that do need to be posted will go out in envelopes we have purchased from Paperback Recycled Paper Merchants in Bow (http://www.paperback.coop/). I worked for Paperback back in 1991 - as their Product Marketing Executive - which meant I visited designers with samples, set up a dummy service, and co ordinated the launch of Corona, as well I could, as when I took the job I was pregnant with Tessa (now nearly 18) and Ella, who was a toddler. I can remember being seven months pregnant and lugging samples up eight flights of stairs to visit designers, and doing the delivery run with their van driver...it was a fun job but I had to quit a few months later when Tessa was born.

Our review copies are packed thus - couldn't be greener.

Labels affixed to books with a red Post Office rubber band - books packed in cartons (by newspaper) which have come from printers. The book is printed on mechanical waste - pulp with no bleach added. It's a cute book too - 130mm x 160mm - should stand out and really fit in your pocket - which is what paperbacks were designed to do originally...

I hope the editors of the various newspapers appreciate how green this mailing is...

2009-08-14T17:20:00.002+02:00

I am preparing eldest daughter for a six week adventure in Vietnam, Malaysia and perhaps Bali - she leaves this evening. I was asked what I suggested she read on long coach trips, and had to admit my favourite book which I read at 19, when travelling around South America, was Watership Down by Richard Adams. At the time, I also knew that my mother, Marion Boyars, had turned it down - big mistake. I loved it! So today I went to Waterstone's in Putney and bought a copy - it's sold as a children's book, but think it will be good reading for an Anthropology student, as it was for myself, about to read English & Philosophy at Bristol University.

While having a break from the July book keeping, I got the book out. And what do I discover - at 89, Richard Adams is alive and well. He was able to retire in 1974 after the phenomenal success of Watership Down - that's 35 happy years of walking in the natural habitat around his home in Whitchurch, Hampshire. Who said that publishing wasn't a good thing!

2009-07-21T11:54:00.003+02:00

If you happen to be travelling or staycationing this summer, and pick up the August edition of Vogue, you'll find a long article on the new generation of climate activists. Included in them is Tamsin Omond, author of RUSH! The Making of a Climate Activist, which we are preparing for press - October publication.

Many years ago, I was a student at Bristol University. In my third year, I organised the first Schumacher Lectures - in remembrance of the author of Small is Beautiful (a moniker that can be used to describe this publishing house). I asked the student union offficers (one Dave Cohen,now a comedy script writer, was our President) for the use of the whole building on a Saturday, and was given it for free, organised a PA system, designed and got the tickets printed, sold them (it sold out) - so organised close circuit TV in an overflow room, and handed all the money bar one bottle of whisky, over to the Schumacher Society. RD Laing was the main speaker, and we were all thrilled he was coming to the university. The lectures raised over £1500.00 which in 1978 was worth at least £10,000.00. And I'm still organising author events now...

On September 17th, Luis Leante, author of See How Much I Love You, is coming to speak at the Instituto Cervantes in Eaton Square, and on Monday, 21st September, he will be at the Tabernacle Centre in Notting Hill Gate, introducing his book with Danielle Smith, who organises the excellent charity, Sandblast Arts. Sandblast exists to highlight the plight of over 200,000 Saharawi people, who live in the Western Sahara as refugees, thirty years on from the invasion of the territory by Moroccan forces. This is the subject matter of the novel, See How Much I Love You. Sarahawi music plays when the Marion Boyars web site is visited, you may have noticed. Danielle is organising a sonsored run in the Sahara desert in February 2010, which I hope Patrick Kilgarriff will be running in, and maybe I'll do a short run there - although I maintain I have the wrong kind of feet for running - a swim I'd do. More about all these activities soon on our Events page - at the moment, in July, I am just getting all the different people involved in this event organised - no small feat! Then I turn myself into a travel agent to organise the travel...let alone getting the books printed in time....

2009-07-16T12:25:00.004+02:00

I was lucky enough to attend the 14 Juillet celebrations at the French Ambassador's residence in Kensington Palace Gardens this week. A small number of literary independent presses get invited - Dedalus Press, Arcadia Books, Portobello, and us, and some translators, Euan Cameron, Roz Schwartz, and Vivienne Menkes. Gary Pulsifer of Arcadia Books is very good at star spotting, and introduced me to P. D. James - indeed, he addressed her as Phyllis. The book of hers I most loved was An Unsuitable Job for a Woman - something many people have said about publishing, but I think she meant being a murderer.

I also glimpsed Quentin Blake. Sadly, Arsene Wenger was not to be seen, nor Virginia Bottomley or any other Conservative grandees, or Jon Snow - all people I have spotted in the past. But we enjoyed the party, and wonder if we'll be magically on the list to be invited again next year. None of us can work out why we are on it at all.

2009-06-12T12:37:00.004+02:00

We had a book launch. Or was it a party? It felt like a party on the night, and it definitely felt like one the day after. Most noteworthy was the arrival of two genuine hippies. They came in, asked for a book to read, and then sat crossed legged at the foot of the stage, wearing hats, longish hair, beads and ethnic clothing. They were in their seventies, I would hazard a guess, and one of them was John Hoppy Hopkins. He founded International Times, and was a photographer of all poets, writers and literary figures. If you Google him, and find his web site, you will see photographs of many well known figures, including one I happen to be reading at the moment, the lovely Dannie Abse. I am reading his memoir about growing up in Cardiff, Ash on a Young Man's Sleeve. These days there is no ash on anyone's sleeve at a Betsey Trottwood book launch unless they are out on the street, sitting on the benches.

Tim Burrows gave a great speech, and Mike from The Roundhouse not only helped me sell books, but then TOOK OFF HIS SHIRT with the Roundhouse rubric and logo and gave it to Hoppy Hopkins. What more can I say except, buy FROM CBGB TO THE ROUNDHOUSE * and enjoy the nostalgia of past music events yourself - we have lots of brilliant photos in the book taken by Hayley Hatton.
* if you buy the book from The Book Depository, we'll get a small commission. If you buy it from this web site, we'll be happy too! In fact, we really don't mind where you buy it from, so long as you do.

We got to the accountants

2009-06-02T17:39:00.004+02:00

We tried a few accountancy magazines, but they are a shy bunch. Then we cracked it.

2009-06-02T15:35:00.002+02:00

Latest selling email to hit my Inbox...but my mother would have been amazed. I mean, she spun as good as the rest of them (yes, for the first time in my life I am going to vote Green because I seriously do not believe any of the main parties - I've heard it all so many times before), but I did not ask Plimsoll to write this about Marion Boyars Publishers. Which means they have looked at our results at Companies House for themselves. But it's not worth 300 quid - and I recall Plimsoll going bust a few years ago and causing mega angst for many a small publisher. See, memory has its uses for humans as well as elephants..

Catheryn

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Recession?

2009-05-28T17:59:00.002+02:00

Well, there is one, and we've done our utmost to succeed in the task of producing imaginative, different, and exciting books. Looks like up to end September 08 we succeeded.

Another profitable year, our accountant told me today. Turnover good, as high as last year (yes, you'll have to sneak a look at the records at Companies House to find out - it's a really good result for a small company but not the kind of thing that makes the front pages of the financial press). So I hope all you booksellers out there listen up and order more Marion Boyars books - front list AND back list. They are easy to sell - maybe because they are not genre books, and thus are desirable. Go booksellers - to your ordering stations!

Baffled

2009-05-22T13:24:00.002+02:00

I'll admit it, today I am absolutely floored by the value systems used by the mighty in this world. We're supposed to admire Quercus for creating some best sellers, while not being able to pay their authors, and I see mention of them going back to investors for more money while spending huge sums of Stieg Larsson marketing. And incidentally, his partner of many years is not benefitting from his fame either, as his children refuse to acknowledge her needs. And our politicians are busy claiming for duck ponds and moats, and apparently are on suicide watch as their guilt surfaces - a wee bit too late.

One of the good chains is on its knees, and Books Etc in particular has always been good at supporting titles from independent presses, and so we have one large quality chain left. There is no way that all the good books to be published can be promoted in one chain, and yet there is no other way to sell any quantity of books.

We're enjoying fabulous publicity - Daily Mail and Evening Standard books of the week, Lettice Wilkinson of Charity Shopping will be on Robert Elms next week, and yet you try getting books into shops ahead of this publicity. It's not possible to do it. No. Or rather a deafening silence from the over worked key buyers. It's a real shame, and I think my idea of getting the large presses in the UK to buy Borders is not a bad one. At least the publishers would then have an interest in bookshops, and make sure, with sound editorial values, that good books got to be seen by the public, who, luckily, still love books. As we do here.

DAILY MAIL HEALTH BOOK OF THE WEEK!

2009-05-13T13:38:00.002+02:00

Wow - we have a HEALTH BOOK OF THE WEEK in the Daily Mail as of 12th May! The choice and review is by a doctor, no less than Dr Thomas Stuttaford, the former Conservative MP for Norwich South. Maybe he is a friend of Victoria Cator, who is one of the cooking duo Victoria & Lucinda, of Flavour of the Month, published by us last summer, and who also hails from Norwich.

Anyway, here is the glorious review by Dr Stuttaford, who is also pictured in the Mail - he looks like just the kind of chap you would want for your family GP. And no, that's not him on the blog - that's our author Rosy Barnes, who is also in the news at the moment. Although I am sure that Rosy would have made a lovely, symapthetic doctor if she had not developed an interest in experimental drama, art and literature which seems to have rather diverted her career away from medicine or anything else sensible (next thing she will decide she wants to be a publisher - the least sensible thing of all...).

I can affirm that all of us in this office followed the advice of Dr Carole Hungerford, our author of THE GOOD BODY GUIDE, while editing and after. So we snack on fruit and dates in this office, take vitamins and we're actually all pretty healthy. So it works - buy the book on amazon or via our own web site, using secure PayPal which takes all credit cards. It's a bargain of a health book, and you will not regret it.

DAILY MAIL HEALTH BOOK OF THE WEEK
'Orthodox doctors and their patients will have few worries about accepting her general advice on diet. Those who have fallen prey to illness may need the support of wise words of doctors from Harvard, the BMA, or the Royal Society of Medicine. If, however, the reader is keen to keep out of the doctor's surgery and hospital, they could follow this lifestyle plan.' Daily Mail Dr Thomas Stuttaford, former Conservative MP for Norwich South and doctor for over 40 years

And other news - coming up on June 20th - author of Sadomasochism for Accountants will be taking part in an event for debut authors - Borders Book Festival, Melrose, Scotland, Harmony Marquee, Saturday 20th June at 3.30pm. All you Scottish literary types - get yourselves over there and learn how to break into the book shops with your first novel. Sadomasochism for Accountants is presently on sale through WH Smith Travel and I spotted a good pile in Terminal 3, Heathrow, on my way to New York.

Massive fan gets to meet the author

2009-05-11T19:25:00.002+02:00

I am just back from sales conference in New York, which was fun, buzzy and full of interest. After my presentation, I was walking near the village, and saw that Laila Lalami was giving a talk at Barnes and Noble on Avenue of the Americas near Washington Square. I went along, and she read from her first novel, Secret Son, and yes, I did speak to her and got a signed copy. She is Moroccan, and so is interested in reading our July novel, SEE HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU by Luis Leante, about the Sarahawi people, who are still living in the Saraha desert, over 200,000 of them in tents. This is one of the humanitarian overlooked issues in the world, and there is a good chance that the book will bring international attention to the plight of these people, since at the moment the Sandblast charity in London are the only ones who are working on helping these people. (Go to the Sandblast web site, www.sandblast-arts.org - even if it is just to hear the music which is wonderful.)

So, I saw someone whose work I love, got a signed edition, first of course, and also hope she will want to review Luis Leante's prize winning book in due course for its American publication in January 2010. And 2010 feels like it is quite soon now.

New York was at its best - sunny, people in restaurants on the sidewalks, lots of good humour, culture and amazing art galleries and people to talk to at the conference. What could be better - hopefully it will mean better sales for the front list also.

2009-04-29T19:13:00.002+02:00

Tonight we kind of have a 'works outing' - to the Putney Theatre to see Twelfth Night, directed by Ian Higham of Nick Hern books. Rebecca suggested to me that I may like to try for a part, as they have an ad. on their web site.

Now, when push comes to shove and I am on holiday in a lovely French house with twelve people who happen to have brought along twelve photocopied sets of Habeus Corpus by Alan Bennett, I will take a part and do my best not to sound too ridiculous. But to willingly put myself on the stage in front of perfectly well educated, upstanding members of the community is just a step too far. I once worked in a product design consultancy, and was told that my boss, John Boult, liked dressing up in drag for Am Dram. Whenever I came in to work, and saw him at his desk, in my mind he was still wearing a blonde wig with bright red lipstick, not trying his hardest to gain design commissions from serious blue chip companies like Mars or Crapochino plastic coffee capsules. So I think I'll stay off the stage.

2009-04-23T15:04:00.003+02:00

We've spent three days at the London Book Fair, and the talk of our stand was the happy taking on of the Maia Press by Arcadia Books. Jane and Maggie will still continue to find fabulous books, edit and design them, and they had a very fruitful six years working as a partnership.

We were on the Central Books stand this year, and it was good to be with old friends and meet new people there. We were rushed off our feet with meetings, and hopefully the enthusiasm with which our books were greeted by Waterstone's will turn into good orders. We had particularly good feedback for CHARITY SHOPPING by Lettice Wilkinson, which will be stocked in the UK Travel section for all those holidaying in the UK this year, and for ALCHEMY ARTS - a new guide to fashion and home style using recycled materials. I have always re used things in our home, and indeed in this business, although it is quite thrilling to be able to afford to use new envelopes and not to print manuscripts out on the back of old sales sheets.

And I cannot sign off without reference to the small 'International Incident' that occurred on the Central Books stand. The stand furniture is an eclectic mix of coloured tables made of metal that are assembled each year by Central staff with a screwdriver before the fair. A meeting was going on just in front of the stand, and one table was sagging rather alarmingly as the lady leant her behind on it, threatening each second to transfer further weight to a rather unstable surface. A member of one eminent publishing house applied first a gentle massage (not noticed) to her posterior, then a gentle prod with two biros simulatenously on each buttock, (also unheeded) and then he gently began removing the table from beneath said behind. Which eventually registered and moved off the table of its own accord. This happened with an audience of around three, and I admit I had to stifle my hysterics up a whole aisle on my way to the next meeting. I am glad to say I arrived composed.

Being in the same room as writers....

2009-03-16T14:57:00.002+01:00

After ten years of running a publishing house, I have found myself in the same room as many authors I admire. And of course, I have shyly looked across the room and done nothing.

So who are these people? Emma Barnes at Snowbooks has a great blog on Audrey Niffenegger's advance for her second book. The Time Traveller's Wife came into my horizon at the Frankfurt Book Fair. I met her US publisher, David Poindexter, of MacAdam Cage and it was his last appointment of the fair. He had just sold it to Chatto - damn, I said. I love a good time travel story.

Well, I did not have US $ 100,000 for the advance, and I do not have a few million for her second book, but I did spend time in the same room as Audrey Niffenegger. It was at the award ceremony for The Victoria & Albert Illustration Prize - we had won a prize the previous year, but for this one we were invited as one of our children's book was in the running. She won a prize for her illustrations on witches (yes, she is an artist first and foremost, not an author). I can confirm she is a deeply serious, artistic woman, who I would never have dared to go up to. Heigh ho.

Then J. K Rowling was at a Bloomsbury 5th anniversary disco for their paperback list. She was sitting quietly near the bar. Much as I would have loved to get my children's editions, signed, I did not have them on me. And this was before Harry Potter was famous, so she would have signed. That would have paid for their university educations. Heigh ho the second time.

Well, that leaves Hubert Selby Jr, our own author. I can confirm that he was in fine form when he visited London in 2002 for Waiting Period. He signed all my books, which I have kept in a safe place at home. As I was his taxi driver, party provider and publicity person, I think I deserved them!

Catheryn

2009-03-11T17:20:00.002+01:00

We had a pretty good postbag today, with all kinds of publicity. The Evening Standard had CHARITY SHOPPING and the thrift lifestyle as BOOK OF THE WEEK in their Homes & Property section on March 4th. Thanks you, Katie Law! The Scotsman Magazine had an article by Gaby Soutar featuring Lettice Wilkinson's Thrifter address book - our lovely authors favourite shops in Edinburgh. And the Sunday Times are asking for a quote following an announcement in 'the house' by a Scottish minister on thrift. Is it possible that the Scots people are being told NOT to be thrifty - well Lettice will soon tell them that thrift is not only good for your pocket, but it uses up all those excess items, and contributes much needed money to good charities - a thrifty economy.

Then Sadomasochism for Accountants continues to make us smile - Birmingham Life has a great summary - 'This has to be the most unlikely romantic comedy (because that's what it is) but why does that have to be a bad thing.'
Bring it on - Jennifer Anniston as Belinda and Hugh Grant as Luda....

We also have a new book and a new author, Tamsin Omond. Tamsin is writing about her decision to become a full-time climate activist, and her discovery that prison, fear of arrest and the whole notion of sticking your neck out and becoming famous is something that takes a lot of courage.

Bit like running an independent press in a recession.

Bravery takes all forms.

2009-02-10T15:25:00.002+01:00

It's now been a week or more since we said farewell to Kit Maude, who tackled just about every task that publishing contains in his year and a half at Marion Boyars. He is flying to Buenos Aires tomorrow, for a new life in the sun, and in a different economy (a better one than we are currently enjoying) and a different industry. Something tells me that Kit's love of books and publishing is not entirely gone and we will see his name now and again, on various web sites, book blogs and discussions of the finer points of Cortazar. I've spent some of this morning updating Onix and uploading it to various FTP sites, quite fun really. This was one of Kit's tasks here - to put information onto Onix for the entire, comprehensive Marion Boyars back list.

Feel free to sign in and blog here, Kit! We want to know your impressions of the new city. I know it will be better than the Jubilee line!

Catheryn, Rebecca and Alice

The upside of not getting to the office

2009-02-02T12:02:00.003+01:00

We are in the middle of what the BBC4 news just called a 'weather event'.

Last night as I drove Arthur Boyars, 83, home, I found the Fulham Road already full of parked buses - not just a few - around 15! That's one blocked artery. I found a passage through to his house and back, and arrived home around 11.30pm declaring it rather unsettling to realise that even the Germans cannot make brakes that work on tyres covered in snow. It wasn't snowing when I set off.

Today, I am listening to Dave Cohen taking about time management. Dave - would you like to write a book? Dave was president of the Union at Brisl Uni where I was and let me take over the whole union building for the first 'small is beautiful' Schumacher lectures.

And as for work - well, I have found an excellent set of instructions for making e-books from InDesign documents which I am pretty sure I can do.

Dave - hope you obsessively google your own name. Patrick sends his love also.

Stockhausen Immersion Day

2009-01-22T13:07:00.002+01:00

There is a new series of Stockhausen concerts in London and on the radio. The author/compiler of Stockhausen on Music, Robin Maconie, who interviewed Karlheinz Stockhausen over a period of years, will be in conversation with Robin Worby on 'Hear and Now', Radio 3, this Saturday and next, 22.30 to midnight. The BBC Symphony Orchestra performed Inori at the Barbican.

Written in 1973-74, Inori is based on prayer-like gestures interpreted on stage by a mime and a dancer. The expressive movements, performed by the two silent soloists and drawn from a variety of religious practices, are mirrored in the response of two orchestral groups.

For those who like peaceful sounding music with the odd jolt to the senses.

Catheryn

2009-01-12T23:40:00.006+01:00

More photos. The middle one is a gentleman enjoying being a woman with a beard - he works for the World Wildlife Fund as an aviation expert. Then you can see Laetitia Rutherford from literary agency Mulcahy Conway, myself, and senior editor here, Rebecca Gillieron, with her fine hat.

The top one is a lady who also has a fine hat, who was being interviewed by the press. I saw a lot of cameras from the BBC (mainly focusing on the string quartet), and microphones labelled LBC radio, so I hope you have caught the press coverage whereever you are. I was glad to read of Emma Thompson assisting Greenpeace in buying land at Sipson, the village which will no longer exist if the third runway is built. I also dealt with the last remaining aga desire in me reading George Monbiot on the fact they contribute five times more carbon to the atmosphere than a conventional cooker. Perhaps my fifteen year old upright gas cooker with the enamel rubbed off is really going to be considered retro and cool rather than just well used!

Catheryn

2009-01-12T23:22:00.007+01:00

This evening, Rebecca and I went to the Climate Rush peaceful protest at Terminal 1, Heathrow, against the building of the third runway. We emerged from the tube and had to negotiate a cordon of police men and women, some of whom were in good humour. We easily located the demonstration, hearing a string quartet start up. In fact, we followed a girl in a long skirt carrying a violin and a wicker basket from the platform on the Piccadilly line into the Terminal 1 building. She seems to know where she is going, we thought.

The demonstration quickly picked up momentum, with singing, whistles and flags being waved. There were many men with whiskers and top hats, as well as women with red sashes, hats, boots and gloves. There was a lot of cheering, clapping, and general noise making (the elderly couple next to me asked who we were clapping - to which I responded, we're just making ourselves heard.) Trains not planes was one refrain. Tamsin Omond was hoisted onto someones shoulders and we cheered her power of inspiration and organisation.

I took a few photographs - of a World Wide Life man with a beard, who described himself as an aviation expert, John from Greenpeace in the top hat with the whiskers and beard, and a gentleman who told me he was a Christian from Beckenham, Kent, who thought planes were not good for the land which we all shared.

I also asked for a photo to be taken of Rebecca, literary agent Laetitia Rutherford and myself. Hope you like the red flower....I live under the flight path and hope we can all moderate our use of airplanes. I, for one, have never failed to book a flight to a destination I wish to get to and at a price I can afford, and so I do not see the need for more planes in the air - that is my retort to those who say that 65,000 jobs will be created which will further pollute an overcrowded airspace.

Catheryn

2009-01-08T12:09:00.002+01:00

The New Year is thoroughly upon us now. A couple of nights ago I did something which embarrassed me hugely at the time. I felt guilty for not going to a Christmas Eve party next door, as we had family arriving that evening from Switzerland, and as I approached my street, I thought I saw the host in his car returning from work. I wound down my car window and greeted him a Happy New Year - saying I had not seen him yet, very brightly. Then I realised it was the man who lived opposite in the side road, not in my street - and we've never met. Aargh - would he think I was a mad woman - no - he was delighted, and wished me a very good year too! The only memory I have of this man is that when he first moved in a few years ago, he took a cab home most nights. One day, said cab reversed too smartly, and went through the garden gates of the house next door. I rushed over and said, there's a black cab in your garden. There was, dear reader, there was. And a very shocked cabbie, who was fortunately not injured.

May you all get to know your neighbours by whatever means, and have a good New Year.

Catheryn

Turkish theme

2008-12-10T16:00:00.010+01:00

We have received a lovely three page review of the three books by Latife Tekin - what a lot of threes. Hannah Adcock has reviewed them in the Edinburgh Review, in a round up of Turkish literature which includes many of the major authors, of which Latife Tekin is one.

Latife is a well known author in Turkey, but many in the UK have yet to discover her wonderful books which throw a window on a Turkey that the ordinary tourist can only guess at. I spent my honeymoon in Istanbul, and was so impressed with the country, the mosques, the stillness of Istanbul late at night, and the bustle of the day, that it seemed an obvious choice when it came to publishing translations. The fact that I started doing this in 1999 when Orhan Pamuk was relatively unknown was a blessing - my mother had published Berji Kristin, and next in line was Dear Shameless Death, but I was happy to then publish Elif Shafak and Maureen Freely. And I've had a great time doing so. A lot of crazy tours with all three ensued.

We've just received permission to put these lovely reviews up on this site - thank you, Hannah Adcock,and Brian McCabe, editor of the Edinburgh Review.

Et voila! (God knows what that is in Turkish - someone could let me know....)

Catheryn

Dear Shameless Death
Latife Tekin. Translated by Saliha Paker and Mel Kenne. Introduction by
Saliha Paker. Marion Boyars. isbn 9780714530543. £8.99

Berji Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills
Latife Tekin. Translated by Ruth Christie and Saliha Paker. Preface by John
Berger. Introduction by Saliha Paker. Marion Boyars. isbn 0714530115. £7.95

Swords of Ice
Latife Tekin. Translated by Saliha Paker and Mel Kenne. Marion Boyars. isbn
9780714531359. £7.99

Latife Tekin is one of Turkey’s most influential contemporary authors,
appreciated by legions of fans worldwide and distrusted by certain members
of the Turkish bureaucracy. She reputedly said, after having her microphone
turned off at a Turkish arts festival by a bullish town mayor, that ‘writers are
the consciousness of their country, their people.’
She’s obviously a determined woman with a social conscience but she’s also
an original and talented writer. Her subject-matter is the underprivileged on the
margins of Istanbul society. She manages to make these communities central to
her story, rather than depicting them as sociological case-studies or intellectual
sideshows. As John Berger writes about Berji Kristin, ‘A shanty-town becomes
the centre of the world, holding the stage and addressing the sky.’
The novels under review form a trilogy, loosely bound together by
Tekin’s attempts to find a voice to describe underprivileged migrants and
their attempts to integrate successfully into city life. Tekin started writing
Dear Shameless Death, in 1980, a few days after the military coup d’état.
She was twenty-three and wanted it to be ‘a razzle-dazzle novel, a book
full of sound and shimmering light, whichever way you looked at it.’ She
succeeded. It is expansive, full of rural superstitions, myths, fairy tales and
idiosyncratic characters. The first part, set in a small Anatolian village is
particularly fantastic, populated with djinns, a fair-haired and malevolent
witch and ‘donkey boy’, all of whom the child protagonist, Dirmit, believes
in implicitly.
Based on Tekin’s own childhood experiences, it is a fascinating mixture of
extraordinary imaginings fused with the commonplace details of village life.
The narrative gains tension when the action moves to an unidentified city,
clearly based on Istanbul. Dirmit’s family, particularly her parents, struggle
to cope with the demands of this alien place. Her mother repeatedly takes to
her death-bed as a way to ensure that the family does not fly apart. Reality
intrudes as Dirmit participates in a left-wing teachers’ protest and her father,
Huvat, is led into the thick of a violent student demonstration by a blackbearded
hoja. Dialogue is scarce, although often pithy (Dirmit’s mother
does a good line in insults), whilst Tekin develops and then drops narrative
threads with dizzying speed. The novel owes more to oral tradition than
conventional dramatic frameworks, for good reason. After Tekin announced
she was to write a book about ‘the village’, her elder brother arranged a
gathering of villagers, then migrants in Istanbul, so that they could tell their
stories and contribute to this ‘collective novel’. Dirmit provides a muchneeded
focus point. She develops from a creative, confused child to a wild,
poetic adolescent, in conflict with her family but also linked by the chains
of blood and love. Dear Shameless Death is an impressive, imaginative novel.
It is also a gift to Tekin’s family and village neighbours: a remembrance of
their lives.

Berji Kristin, the second part of the trilogy, draws on the testimony of
real-life squatters who crammed into fringe dwellings in the 1960s. Tekin
paints a fictional portrait of the community they establish on a refuse heap,
ironically named Flower Hill. They battle with authorities who demolish
their dwellings, are exploited by factory owners, get caught up in strikes
and see their makeshift homes being colonised by other neighbours keen
on ‘knocking shops’ and ‘hashish’. It is a sketch in miniature of civilisation,
glued together by rumour and always on the brink of collapse.
The novel contains a selection of personalities, often with interesting
foibles. Among them are Güllü Baba, the oldest resident, who is blind and
makes predictions, ‘so mysterious that nobody could understand them’; the
factory owner, Mr Izak, whose ‘reputation grew velvet and creamy [as] his
iron fist began to show’; and Lado, the gambler, who all his life sought the
answer to the question, ‘Who was greater, God, or the man who invented
gambling?’ Tekin draws strong, occasionally subversive, female characters
such as Fidan ‘Of Many Skills’, who teaches women to find pleasure in
lovemaking – although their husbands thwart their desires, because Flower
Hill is a male-dominated society.
The novel has sustained metaphorical depths, great if you like pondering,
but it can be hard work to read. It’s difficult to get emotionally involved when
there’s only a cool, clear authorial voice and no central protagonist. The last
few chapters featuring Lado are high-points, so it’s worth persevering.

Swords of Ice is a story about a would-be entrepreneur called Halihan
Sunteriler who saves a red Volvo from the scrap heap, imagining it to be ‘a
greeting from teknologi, the power that let him control enormous energies
with a tiny movement from his foot and guide vehicles that weighed tons
with the mere touch of a wheel.’ However, Halihan is daydreaming to think
that he can control such forces; the car is shown, ironically, as being very
much ‘in charge’. Instead of magically leading Halihan to successful moneymaking
schemes as he expects, it embroils him in disastrous extra-marital
affairs: ‘About ten nights earlier, when Halihan was on his way home, the
Volvo had suddenly turned into a side street, headed down dark alleys, and
of her own free will parked at the door of a night club called Bella.’
Halihan’s attempts to enlist the support of his friend Gogi and his
brothers Hazmi and Mesut in setting up the Teknojen company (purpose and
products unknown) prove divisive rather than lucrative. Family arguments
and suspicion rupture tentative understandings amongst this ill-assorted
group. Gogi is the most ‘cultured’ man in the neighbourhood and only turns
to business to please his friend; Hazmi has severe anger management issues,
whilst Mesut is dominated by his wife. ‘In great friendships even a hole as
tiny as an atom could spark off magnetic storms that destroy love and flatten
the soul to a silken thickness.’
The novel concludes with a scattering of poetic phrases, desperate and
beautiful. It is a perplexing book that manages to dabble with nihilism,
whilst retaining a delicate sense of humour. As Tekin aptly concludes in a
post-scriptum: ‘Writing! Faithful foe of the poor! I have used you to deepen
even more the enigma of our ragged lives.’

Hannah Adcock

2008-12-02T18:32:00.003+01:00

Any women out there who have taken a career break for children or have been creatively unemployed - have a quick think and ring up the Pensions office in Newcastle. If you need to buy a few pension years, it is apparently cheaper to do this before next April. This may sound like a boring piece of information, but I was curious as my career has taken place in small companies - both publishers and designers (one is this one so I do know that the tax & NI has been paid over the past nine years! I wrote the cheques) and although I paid stamps when self-employed, I had no idea where I was.

To my surprise I found I had 28 years of contributions and I need 30, but I cannot get the state pension until I am 65 - and that's a long way off.

Blimey - 28 years of hard labour and I hardly noticed! Sucker for punishment.

Catheryn

USA USA USA

2008-11-16T14:16:00.004+01:00

Jet lag - it seems to be something not worth fighting over as soon I will be back in the UK. It's
7 am and the coffee machine is heating up water for my oh, so British tea.

So, it's 7am and snowing in Minneapolis and at least I have my New York snow boots with me, and plenty of layers. I met one publisher in the lift yesterday who had come from Carolina, seventy degrees, and had not thought to bring a coat. I hope she found a thrift shop....

Talking of thrift shops, in my presentation yesterday of our front list for the USA, I managed a cat walk in high heeled purple suede shoes, a purple pencil skirt and a black top, total cost for the outfit was $15 / £ 10.75. My whole outfit came from a charity shop in Southwold, where Victoria Cator is a patron and fund raiser, Break (it gives breaks to the parents of disabled children).

Last night we had the sales conference cocktail party in a bar (there are never any cocktails, but a gin and tonic makes a good substitute). I met all our wonderful sales reps, and spoke to the academic marketing manager, Heather Hart, who is in charge of the new web site for academics and course adoptions. In the demonstration, I kept seeing our titles - in these economically strange times, a backlist comes into its own.

Now, back to my proof reading of THE GOOD BODY GUIDE - only 250 pages to go....the nine hour flight was good for the first half of the book. do I sound like an American yet? My joint nationality is also useful for my sales trips, though for the first time the official really did want to know the story of my life!

Catheryn

A trip to the coast

2008-11-14T18:01:00.006+01:00

Last week, after over a year of editing, production, sales, publicity and other miscellaneous work we finally got to meet Rhyll McMaster. Who is lovely. As is her daughter with whom she was travelling. So lovely in fact that we decided that they could not stay in the 'grubby london' of Rhyll's novel a moment longer than she had to and so whisked her off up the coast to Suffolk. Specifically to the Ways with Words Festival in Southwold where Rhyll was to appear alongside Sadie Jones in the curtain raising event.

Southwold, which achieved fame recently as Gordon Brown's chosen location for his summer holiday, is a pleasantly grey seaside town with beach huts, stone houses and its very own brewery. Once there we met the wonderful Kay and Steven Dunbar. They founded and still run the Ways with Words festivals with that mix of easy efficiency, intelligence and genuine warmth that characterises the very best literary events. We also met the equally marvellous Rosemary, manager of the Orwell bookshop in Southwold, who runs the festival bookshop and who will forever have a place in our hearts for declaring our show card the 'best she had ever had.'

After being treated to an amazing dinner the night before, we reconvened the next day at the Tardis-like St Edmund's Hall (the size of the theatre is not at all apparent from the outside) where Rhyll and Sadie (who is also fantastic) gave a talk ably chaired by Kay. The topics included the melancholy fifties, the writing process, feminism, the unpredictability of readers' responses, (especially Austrian ones) humour, the probability that everyone 'knows a Redmond' and much mutual admiration. The audience, which had a pleasing number of people who had read both books, seemed to enjoy it and then asked some excellent questions. And then, far too soon, it was time to go back to grubby london.

But not without asking everything to vote for Feather Man at the Spread the Word competition please, please do!

Kit

Round ups

2008-11-03T18:46:00.004+01:00

I expect that it's true of working in most small offices that one occasionally finds themselves feeling isolated and worried that nothing they're doing is making much of a difference. I think that this is especially true on Monday mornings in small publishers, when one scours the major book reviewing publications hoping that a title with your moniker at the bottom will jump out at you. Preferably with some kind words attached.

It's nice then, at the times when nothing has appeared, to get an email like the one we received today from our American publicist, the excellent Meryl Zegarek (info@mzpr.com):

Marion Boyars

Bold = New as of this report.

Feather Man by Rhyll McMaster – September 2008 (978-0-7145-3148-9)

Literaturechick.com – September 29, 2008 – “An interesting and moving story that is reminiscent of works by Margaret Atwood and Harper Lee.”
Genre Go Round – September 5, 2008
Nashville Is Talking – August 15, 2008
Monsters and Critics.com- “Abuse of any kind is challenging subject to write about yet McMaster manages it with a deft touch.”
Literarily.com- - “McMaster is an amazing writer. Her prose is pitch-perfect- in the whole of this book, there is not an extraneous word. This story has a very substantial feel, due primarily to McMaster's painstaking character development. From the first page, the reader is truly inside Sooky's head, and comes to know her intimately.”
ForeWord Magazine – “…Sooky’s unflinching eye and sense of humor imbue the book with complexity and vitality.”
Medieval Bookworm – “What an interesting character study…I really liked this book.”
Book Room Review-– “if you’re looking for a book with real substance and excellent character development, I think you’ll enjoy Feather Man.”
IndieBound September Indie Next List
ww.chikune.com/blog, and LibraryThing,

The Streets of Babylon by Carina Burman – May 2008 (978-0-7145-3138-0)

Literarly.com – Review and will post an interview with Carina Burman

I Love a Mystery-August/Sept. 2008- “This is a tongue-firmly-in-cheek romp through London …this is the first in a trilogy planned for translation, and I look forward the lady’s return.”
You Are What You Read- Sept. 9^th, 2008 “…the makings of an absolutely delightful ‘who done it’…This book was seamless.”
The Washington Times – rave review, Sunday, August 17^th “Ms. Burman offers a hilarious version of all the wrong things to do in Victorian Londonm and draws the reader into the fun with her carefully proper writing style.”
The Midwest Book Review- July 2008- “The Streets of Babylon is and excellent historical mystery that makes the time and place seem so alive…Carina Burman provides an exhilarating mid-nineteenth century kidnapped thriller..”
Eclectica.com July/August 2008 rev.- “ There is a lot to enjoy in The Streets of Babylon, from the wonderful job Burman does of creating the physical and social atmosphere to the delight of her protagonist…I was quite pleased to discover the work of Carina Burman, with Streets of Babylon and look forward to more books with this wonderful character.”
Medieval Bookworm.com - July 24, 2008 - “…A good time and pure escapism….an entertaining read.”
Library Journal - June review - “…first volume of an engaging new historical trilogy”
Genre Go Round Reviews.com – May 20, 2008 “An excellent historical mystery that makes the time and place seem so alive.”
Kirkus Reviews- May 15, 2008 “…packed with Victorian flavor.”
The Mystery Gazette- May 2008
Reviewing the Evidence “The descriptions of the streets and alleys of the city are so breathtaking, one seems to be there. London of 1851 lives again.”
Blogcritics – April 29, 2008 “The story takes us on a captivating trip back in time with interesting – and at times quirky – individuals, who quickly come to feel like friends.”
International Noir Fiction.com-June 9, 2008

Which makes one feel rather better about life.

Even nicer is when one of our books is on the long list for World Book Day's Spread the Word
prize. Please, please do vote because if Feather Man isn't a book to talk about I don't know what is.

Kit

Spread the Word & Feather Man

2008-10-31T11:50:00.004+01:00

Rhyll McMaster has just arrived here from Australia to do some publicity for Feather Man. It just happens to coincide with the long listing of her book by Spread the Word.

http://www.spread-the-word.org.uk/

So, please, please go to the site, register (it only takes a minute) and vote for Feather Man so that it reaches the short list! To date a good number of people have voted for books on the list, but it could be higher - no idea how many Feather Man has had, but we do know that the people who read it rate it very highly indeed.

The first chapter is quite hard - but only quite - to read and the book rewards readers in spades - language, plot (dastardly!), characters, and outcome.

Please go to the site - note it is spread - hyphen - the -hyphen - word not Spreadtheword which belongs to someone else (how glad I am that my mother chose to spell my name a slightly different way to everyone elses - I have not yet met another Catheryn despite there being four Catherine's or Katharine's etc in every class I was in, and as for mothers at school - zillions! For late fifties children, Catherine was the Sophie or Georgia of today....

And Rhyll will be at the Ways With Words Literary Festival in Southwold on Thursday 6th November, appearing with Sadie Jones who wrote The Outcast. So it will be packed and we hope lots of Feather Man will sell to people who have read Sadie's excellent book. Rhyll is also recording an interview for the BBC World Service on Friday evening, so look out for that - I am not sure when it will be broadcast but you will all be able to listen to it online next week, for sure.

Vote! Vote! Vote! Thank you!

Catheryn

2008-10-07T18:25:00.003+02:00

A quick catch up here so you know what's going on and who will be doing it. Kit has just gone to Barcelona on a publisher mission to look for Spanish books. We already have one for 2009 - See How Much I Love You by Luis Leante - so let's see if he finds another.

Our new 2009 catalogue will be delivered on Monday, in time for Rebecca to take it to the Frankfurt Book Fair. I have had fun being her travel secretary and meeting arranger. She has a packed schedule.

Final edits on Sadomasochism for Accountants are still ongoing - it is a fast paced book so we have to make sure the devil is in the detail. Charity Shopping is taking shape, with most of the text written. Any journalists interested in an extract should call - the research for this book has been meticulously done by Lettice Wilkinson, our intrepid author who went all around the UK to find the best places.

And we had builders for the last two weeks. The front is painted outside which it needs every three years as we get the sun full on. Marion's office is now pristine - we are just organising new carpets (our stair carpets have holes in them - I once did not give a girl a chance at an editorial job as she came for her interview wearing stillettoes - I knew it would end in tears when she fell down the stairs). It will be nice and novel to conform to health and safety on this issue. But working with Virgin Classics blaring out from the builders' radio was difficult, to say the least. They were very good humoured, lovely blokes, so we let them have their music, hoping they would work faster if happy.

Weekend Reading

2008-10-03T18:44:00.006+02:00

Always seems to be a lot of it around, doesn't there?

but you could do a lot worse than following the Barnes and Noble Book Explorers' discussion of Feather Man, which has been going on this week. A great volume of fascinating questions and answers (the latter from Rhyll, mostly, although Catheryn also contributed with a note about the cover) has amassed in a fantastically short period of time, and has led to some great insights about the book, its author, its readers and where the combination has lead thus far and might go in the future.

Imagine the kind of exchanges we might have had if the technology had been around earlier:

'Dear Herman (The internet is a strictly informal zone),

Although I very much enjoyed your recent novel, as a whale enthusiast I was rather troubled...'

etc.

There's also the first of what should be a fascinating series of blog posts on the art of translation by Daniel Hahn over at the Booktrust website.

Kit

Faith

2008-09-29T15:40:00.002+02:00

England has been basking in sunshine, so I've snatched some hours the past couple of weekends to read in the garden. I've found my book of the year - The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa. And if you're quick, you can find the hardback overstocks on sale at Dada in Chiswick High Road, opposite the green...and there are lots of other good fiction titles there. The non fiction is definitely at the laddish end of the market - unsurprisingly our household has most of them already due to my husband's serious book buying habit. Not to mention his CD habit with 6 parcels from amazon arriving here some weeks.....

A Veritable Hurricane of a Review

2008-09-24T18:37:00.003+02:00

Today you can find a blistering review of Banquet of Lies over at Vulpes Libris, by a celebrity no less: Jay Benedict.

It's a fine example of a reader taking a book on its own terms and getting swept away, 'ask not what a book can do for you...' indeed.

There have also been reviews in The Independent and the Daily Mail for DIY: the rise of Lo-Fi Culture by Amy Spencer. The Daily Mail one doesn't seem to be on the website but it said good things like 'entertaining and informative.'

Which is exactly what we try to do.

Kit

Old long tail and new gadgets

2008-09-11T18:24:00.003+02:00

Yesterday I printed out a submission and read it - I was really keen to see it as I have known this book was coming for over two years. Now, I could have read it on my computer screen, which is a large, matt Apple G5 screen, perfect for, well anything, like writing this blog on. However, I couldn't face two hours reading from a screen. It is just the case that screens reflect light and are tiring on the eyes.

A few days ago I read that Jan Dalley, literary editor of the Financial Times, likes the Sony Reader. She is influential, and I began to worry, a lot.

Today, I am not worrying, because I bet she has picked up and read more books since her experiment with the electronic gadget.

We are currently looking for front list - including comedy plays. But at the same time, I know front list is a huge risk. We've been lucky in so many cases - but many months, it is our backlist that pays the salaries - a sprinkling of sales over 200 titles. Some are doing well just now - Last Exit to Brooklyn is in a banned books promotion at Borders, which is a huge help, and Borders are also promoting The Concubine of Shanghai, as are Waterstone's. But lots of front list does not get picked by the large retailers, and we can work as hard as we like gaining publicity, if they think a book is not going to sell, it does not get a chance. I do feel for the buyers - they have so many books to choose from, and they have to use gut feeling, just as I do. But the thrill when publicity and sales come together, as well as loving working on books, means we do more risky things than anyone with any sense should. Sadomasochism for Accountants with your Kindle, Sir? That'll do nicely.

Attention span?

2008-09-01T15:59:00.004+02:00

I've seen two dramas on the box recently, both with high profile, excellent actors, and both of which received damning reviews from the main TV critics. I found the first engrossing and memorable, and worth sitting still for over an hour to see to the end, and the second surprising in the reaction it produced and not as heavy or dark - a story made for a Sunday evening audience who like something to ponder while they wind down before the new week.

The first was a David Hare play with Uma Thurman and Jonathan Price. and Paddy Consadine. When I looked in The Guardian the following morning, I saw that Lucy Mangan had written a damning review, saying how bored she was. I felt like telling her to spend the rest of her life reading her beloved Enid Blyton.

The next play was on last night, with Gina McKee, Fiona's Story. This was a very clever play about a husband who has been looking at child pornography online, and is in line for a trial. When he tells his wife, she has to lie to social services in order to keep their family together, despite the fact that their sex life has been non existent for many years. Her disapproval, fear and lack of trust make the audience start rooting for the sad man who looks at the bodies of children in order to light some kind of a sexual reaction in his body, when all else has failed. His children also blame Mummy for being unkind to Daddy, and they want to stay overnight with him.

So, why the lack of appreciation by the Telly Critics? I think they are just young and have been seduced by the ease of obtaining entertainment. The internet is quick, and drama with only a few actors is slow and demands attention. Kathryn Flett did become engrossed in My Zinc Bed, and good for her. Michael Hann in The Guardian called Fiona's Story 'middle-class misery' and thought it was too dark to tell who Fiona had her affair with (utter bollocks, I am afraid).

The other thing that continues to perplex me, is how and where in the heavenly spheres of those who make the decisions about what gets televised and adapted for the small screen, is it decided that child pornography is suddenly OK. I have spent a good deal of this year banging my head against a brick wall trying to get people to read Feather Man. The main story in Rhyll
Mc Master's novel is about the VICTIM, Sooky, of child abuse which does not result in consumation, but is nevertheless damaging. The book is the story of her trying to stop being a victim. In Fiona's Story, we are drawn into feeling sympathy for someone who has admitted enjoying looking at naked children - surely as bad as someone who has interfered with one. Yet, one story gets broadcast to the nation with some excellent acting, and the other gets a chorus of - oh no, it's too dreadful, we cannot read on. Which leaves me completely at sea.

Maybe I should just publish Enid Blyton.....

2008-08-28T17:13:00.005+02:00

We have often admitted that Marion Boyars Publishers are essentially four people working out of a terraced house in Putney. Of course, our circle of creative contributors is far larger - authors, agents, sales representatives, distributors, translators are just a few, reviewers and bloggers are also vitally important. But unless we have good ideas, and find great people and authors to work with us, our books would be unlikely to see light of day elsewhere. We publish to make a living and to be able to continue this rather strange, but interesting life.

But as August ends, I will admit I have spent a good deal of the month thinking of projects for the future. The really bizarre thing is that a good many of them could become TV shows or the authors turn into TV personalities.

And if we had not worked closely with the authors this just would not have happened. Now for the reality check - we have actually been contacted by Granada TV and a new production house, Red House, about Victoria & Lucinda for a cookery programme based on their book, Victoria & Lucinda's Flavour of the Month. We continue to talk to the development team at 2waytraffic about Lawrence Potter's This May Help You Understand the World, and we are persuading Lawrence to apply for Carol Vorderman's job on Countdown (his book on maths, Mathematics Minus Fear, continues to sell really well - now in batches of 48 so some classes are obviously having to buy it in bulk). And I have just written a marketing plan for Sadomasochism for Accountants which includes Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead...) playing Alan the accountant, with Tamsin Greig as Luda the transvestite (yes, I know she should be a man but I think Tamsin would do the part wonderfully). Ever since Black Books came onto our screens I have thought there should be a TV show about a small, independent publishing house, but maybe we do not need to go on TV - we are too busy inventing it. Yes, four people in a terraced house providing ideas for the TV mega rich and powerful. Something is a little out of kilter here.

Catheryn

From CBGB to the Roundhouse

2008-08-21T18:33:00.006+02:00

We've been quiet here, mostly because it's August and although we aren't French we do publish a lot of French books.
Which doesn't really follow as we're getting busier and busier. That, come to think of it, is a far better explanation for the lack of blogging.

I, for example, having been working on a new book that's sooo much fun.

From CBGB to the Roundhouse is all about music venues across the world - concentrating on those that show popular music.... well, the blurb is on the web page.

I'm helping with research and have also just begun receiving the first few chapters from our author Tim Burrows, who's got kind of a Jarvis Cocker vibe to him. Although it may just be the glasses. Whatever it is, he's getting some fantastic material together including interviews with all sorts of people who have been, are and will be instrumental in running, playing at, cooking/bouncing/engineering/miscellaneous in and going to some incredible spots for live music. Even at this early stage, I'm boggled by the stories I'm hearing.

Just doing a bit of research has been pretty great, I've learned some glorious things. Like what a hipster is, or where the best place to listen to blues is in Austin, Texas.

The only downside is that by eleven o clock in the morning I'm currently tending to feel very much like donning tight jeans, combing my hair messy, grabbing a cold bottle of beer and jumping up and down.

Which I'm sure can't be very professional.

Kit

A fruitful review filled day

2008-08-07T18:31:00.007+02:00

Yes, the week continues in a flurry of photocopying, letters and emails. This is what we do when we get new publicity.

Today we saw a nice big feature in the September issue of Tatler, all about Victoria and Lucinda:

'You heard it here first: Victoria Cator and Lucinda Bruce are the new Trinny and Susannah – but their mission is to reinvent the way we entertain rather than how we dress...The real hero of the book is photographer Mark Cator whose sumptuous images bring V and L's succinct tips and recipes to life.'

(We were also called a 'dream collaborator', which is nice.)

and then found that Harper's Bazaar had recommended the book for 'Party Queens' this month.

But that's not all. We also found, thanks to our trusty press cuttings service, that last week, in The Week, Jeffrey Deaver had recommended Heinrich Böll's Billiards at Half Past Nine as, I think, one of his best books ever:

'In addition to recounting a tale of lives torn apart by war, this novel stands as a masterpiece of character. I read it years ago but still recall how each of the characters comes to life. The story, set in post-WWII Germany is both understated and wrenching - a true accomplishment.'

All setting us up nicely for the weekend.

Kit

Lovely bloggers

2008-08-04T18:50:00.003+02:00

We've had a blogospheric start to the week, with two very fine reviews:

Firstly, Dovegreyreader posted her excellent review of Feather Man

whilst

Simon Appleby enjoyed The Flea Palace, and was even kind enough to post his review whilst on holiday. A holiday well deserved, following the bookgeeks excellent remodelling of the Faber website.

Many thanks to the both of them!

Kit

Trumpet Blowing

2008-07-30T15:47:00.004+02:00

A fanfare in praise of Feather Man rang out from Dovegreyreader yesterday when she hoped, like Lisa Glass, that it would make the longlist of the Booker prize:

'Marion Boyars have been urging me to read this and I kept saying 'but the first chapter is too upsetting'...'carry on, persevere' they said and assured me it would be worth the effort. I've read it this weekend and how right they were, I would love to see this book on the longlist. '

Unfortunately, the announcement later that day disappointed these hopes. Oh well.

More cheering is the copy of Country Life that's just arrived on my desk. Its review of Victoria and Lucinda's Flavour of the Month begins thus:

'This book is such a clever idea I'm amazed it hasn't been done before.'

and goes on

'The recipes are just right for a grand but unpretentious dinner party...(they are) interior designers, and their table settings show the attention to detail comes with the job.'

Also, a couple of very fine websites have been silly enough to let me sully their pages - firstly with an article on editing Banquet of Lies at Vulpes Libris and today, a piece on Julio Cortázar on Readysteadybook.

It's a privilege and an honour to have been allowed to contribute to both.

Kit

Syncronicity

2008-07-24T19:02:00.004+02:00

I like to think that there is book we publish for each and every one of my artistic heroes.

And I'm very glad to be able to add Jarvis Cocker to that list. His current radio show ties in rather well with our new edition of DIY by Amy Spencer. Indeed, most of the people he interviews are featured in Amy's book.

So, zine fans are all sorted...*

Kit

*I couldn't think of a better allusion. Sorry.

And more excitement!

2008-07-16T18:48:00.002+02:00

Yes, it's turning out, unusually for summer, to be a thoroughly eventful moment here at Marion Boyars. As well as the attention bubbling around Feather Man:

Victoria and Lucinda appear in this evening's Evening Standard, looking pretty in pink.

The Concubine of Shanghai was much appreciated by Twomanyshoes.

And our translation by Leila Vennewitz of The Clown by Henrich Böll was acclaimed as one of the best literary translations of the last half century by the Society of Authors AND Maureen Freely also made the list for her translation of Snow by Orhan Pamuk.

It's getting too hot for all this, would anyone like ice with their publicity?

Kit

Excitement!

2008-07-15T17:59:00.002+02:00

In the last few days we've had more than our fair share of excitement.

We have a Book Sense Indie Pick for our fiction title, Feather Man by Rhyll McMaster. This means it will be displayed in most independent book stores in the US with a bookseller review and 'shelf-talkers' - little displays about the book on the shelf.

As this is the book I have had the most trouble getting noticed in the UK, this is wonderful news. It just feels like, well, satisfaction, since Rhyll's book is the one that did the talking, although having the Literary Ventures Fund send out nearly 300 advance copies, and the efforts of two sterling publicists certainly helps.

Let's hope the UK picks up on the US interest in Feather Man - it is already a prize winner in Australia.

Our launch at Christie's for Victoria & Lucinda's Flavour of the Month was phenomenal with two Tatler photographers, a starry guest list including Trinny & Susannah, and Alexander Bath of Longleat, our hippy Lord. We'll endeavour to put some photos up when the press ones have appeared. Over 300 people! And lots of book sales also!

Catheryn

Preparations...

2008-07-10T13:21:00.006+02:00

A despatch from the Kilgarriff household, where food is being prepared for this evening's launch of Victoria and Lucinda's Flavour of the Month.

Before:

After:

Rainy miscellany

2008-07-09T18:35:00.006+02:00

Well it's horrible outside today, so time for another post.

Tomorrow is the launch for Victoria and Lucinda's Flavour of the Month and aside from host's pre-party jitters, we're very much looking forward to it.

Feather Man is getting some more press:

Here and here, and soon there will be a (very good) review of it in the fine American magazine Foreword.

You can also visit Rhyll's new website. And you should.

The joys of publishing: I have spent a significant portion of my time today researching Northern Soul and now my head resounds with half remembered and slightly imagined great soul tracks (It strikes me that up until now, we haven't explained exactly why I'd be doing that. I'm afraid that that'll be another postergated explanation, I've got to get the web page up.) I was, however, slightly perturbed by the high percentage of seventies soul venues in the north of England that seem to have burned down. A pyromaniacal conspiracy? Possibly involving irate folk singers? Who knows.

I've also been pondering (whilst updating our new onix message creating system, see posts passim) whether the possession of an intimate knowledge of the entire backlist of a small but prestigious independent publisher will ever be regarded as an Important Life Skill. Probably not. Sigh...

Kit

sporting failure, one revelation and news

2008-07-01T18:36:00.007+02:00

I never went any further with my European Championship predictions, for which apologies to those who said that they enjoyed them, I never seemed to have enough time at the computer. It could only have gone downhill after the spectacular success of the first one anyway.

Now that the football is behind us it's worth mentioning that we have an author called Rafael Nadal. An expert on Lorca, apparently...

In other news, Rhyll McMaster had her Tuesday Top Ten put up on The Book Depository today, it being a Tuesday.

And

The wonderful Complete Review has done a very good review of Banquet of Lies.

It's far far too nice outside to say any more right now.

Kit

If at first....

2008-06-24T18:11:00.004+02:00

One of these days, I'll be able to look back on the struggle, and I mean struggle, to persuade readers, reviewers and booksellers that Feather Man is exceptional.

But today, a glimmer of light appeared from a bookseller in Massachusetts, who is recommending Feather Man for the Book Sense pick in September.

'This beautifully written and disturbing Australian coming of age novel grabbed me from the first page. Sooky struggles to overcome her difficult childhood, with a father who abandoned the family, an emotionally distant mother and abuse by the one person to whom she felt close. The effects of this childhood are powerfully portrayed as Sooky moves from relationship to relationship and from Brisbane to London. It is her growing sense of herself as an artist which balances the pain.' Nancy Felton, Broadside Books, MA

It made me return to the first page of a novel which is the most successful Marion Boyars Publishers have ever published - and I expect you would not guess unless I gave it away:

'They're out there.
Black boys in white suits up before me to commit sex acts in the hall and get it mopped up before I can catch them.
They're mopping when I come out the dorm, all three of them, sulky and hating everything, the time of day, the place they're at here, the people they got to work around. When they hate like this, better if they don't see me. '

This is the Chief on page one of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. Eat your heart out - booksellers who do not want to read past the first chapter of Feather Man because it is strong. See what the world would have missed if this ethic governed all reading.

To make Feather Man a success right now is similar to a mental image I kept in my head for over five years when I took on this down at heart (then - not now!) company. The mental image was of three figures - 0.00 - and in my mind our front window was decorated with them, triumphantly, with no other message. This was supposed to represent our financial situation - ie no debt! And when it happened (which it did), I felt triumphant in the extreme. So battles are what life is - and they are sometimes what makes it worthwhile.

Catheryn

Kit's LECP Mark 2

2008-06-20T18:34:00.005+02:00

Well, I didn't expect to be quite as accurate as all that. Many thanks to Mark at RSB for flagging up the success although I should say that it was not so much boredom that drove me to do this as the realisation that, in my continuing Onix odyssey (updating the whole backlist), I was beginning to claim that we had exclusive rights for Hubert Selby titles in Gabon, (undoubtedly an important territory, but not perhaps quite as relevant as Great Britain) and that I needed some distraction.

Today, (to continue my fascination with Arno Schmidt) I found myself typing the following:

'A powerful science fiction parable set in 2008. Europe has suffered from a devastating atomic holocaust. In an effort to save their science and culture, the 8 great powers have settled their best and brightest on a jet propelled island, affectionately called 'The Egghead Republic'... The exuberant wit, humour and invention displayed by the author makes this a highly entertaining vision of the future.' The blurb to The Egghead Republic. How great does that sound? Jet propelled!

But to business:

tonight it's Turkey (about whose literature I know quite a lot) against Croatia (less so)

Turkey

Elif Shafak (Striker)
Latife Tekin
Maureen Freely (Who has surely earned a residency qualification)
Orhan Pamuk
Orhan Kemal (In goal)

Now, I'm excited by this team. Not only is it dominated by Marion Boyars authors; the class of Elif Shafak, the energy of Latife Tekin and the tactical nous of Maureen Freely, it's anchored by a recent Nobel Prize winner and there's a very safe pair of hands in goal (in Turkey, they study his technique in school).

Croatia

I had a lot of help in constructing this team, many thanks to my super scouts Mark and Steve.

Miroslav Krleža (captain)
Dragutin Tadijanović (In goal)
Dubravka Ugresic (striker)
Clarice Lispector (A naturalised Croatian - passport awarded hastily)
Tin Ujević (Another one of these utility players)

This is a team that I suspect would revel in the 'Dark Horse' tag. So that's what I'm going call them. The captain is author of the 'Croatian War and Peace' so we can expect him to be a supremely hard worker in addition to his undoubted talent - he's one of these players well respected by fellow professionals without achieving the renown of some. The striker is better known in the UK, and is well regarded for her passion and bravery in the challenge. Clarice Lispector brings some Brasilian flair, but is notorious for only playing really well for short periods. Again I know less about the other two writers except that they have plenty of talent and that for some reason I tend to play poets in goal.

So. With this prediction I really have to go with what I know and what clinches it for me is the understanding of the Turkish team: not only do three of the players play together at club level, but Freely should help Pamuk translate seamlessly into it ( I really didn't think that I'd find a football pun for literary translation). But I can't see Croatia not scoring...

2-1 to Turkey.

Kit

It works!!!!!

2008-06-19T22:41:00.001+02:00

Now, Croatia against Turkey. I've got one team covered...

Kit's Literary European Championship Predictor

2008-06-19T15:33:00.009+02:00

Everyone else seems to be having more fun then me at the moment: Catheryn is busy inviting people to the launch of Victoria and Lucinda's Flavour of the Month, and Rebecca is either reading, or researching charity shops or things music related (more on the latter another time).

But fortunately I have football to keep me going. I am thoroughly enjoying the 2008 European Championship and not solely because England aren't in it. It has now got to the quarter finals stage, and the matches are getting much more difficult to predict (not that anyone who watched the Czech Republic/Turkey game would claim that the group matches were exactly predictable). To help, I have turned, as I often (always) do, to books.

I have developed a system: literary five a side. Five 20th century (otherwise it gets too difficult) authors from each country in question are pitted against each other and then a judgement is made (by me) as to who would win. Marion Boyars authors will feature prominently of course - thank god that the French are out, that would have made for some very difficult decisions.

So tonight it's Germany vs Portugal.

Kit's teams:

Germany

Heinric h Böll
Peter Weiss (striker)
Gunter Grass(who was trained rather energetically in his youth)
Arno Schmidt (who has oddly popped into my life fairly frequently of late. Not only did a nice man called Dirk order a copy of The Egghead Republic for a student prize giving but then the next day he appeared in a completely unrelated book that I was reading. In the book he went to visit James Joyce. Joyce was rude, apparently. After such a strong coincidence, I've got to play him.)
Erich Maria R emarque (to play in goal)

Portugal

José Saramag o
Fernando Pess oa (who is a very useful pick because he can play in a number of different positions)
Eugenio de Andrade (in goal)
José Cardoso Pires
Mariela Gabriela Llansol

Right, so how does this pan out? They're certainly both brilliant sides, I defy any team not to score a few goals with the creative talent of Saramago and Pessoa in the team. But then, Pessoa, in spite of his versatility, has been known to be fairly anonymous for long periods... I'm not that familiar with the final three players although I'm assured that on their day they can be as good as anyone. The big question for Portugal is whether they'd simply be a collection of great players or a great team.

For Germany on the other hand, I suspect that their teamwork would be their strength. With the two Nobel Prize winners, Böll and Grass, in the engine room they would not want for energy, and Weiss and Schmidt, with their unusual playing styles, would be a handful for any defender. There might be question marks about the goalkeeper, does he have the stomach for a fight (sorry)?

Nevertheless, Kit's literary predictor says that in spite of a brace from Saramago, Germany prevail 3-2.

Tonight we shall see if I'm right...

Kit

My reaction to the petrol shortage

2008-06-16T11:36:00.002+02:00

I usually drive the short distance from home to the office daily, since the car is also used for huge publicity mailings and supermarket shopping for our family. But as soon as the tanker drivers declared their industrial action, I felt a genuine who cares attitude descend on me. So I took to my bicycle. And I walked to the Farmer's Market.

People who wonder why this literary list suddenly has two fabulous cook books on its list, need some explanation. I am a keen cook, and find it relaxes me after a week of proof reading and managing a company. This weekend I bought asparagus, gooseberries and goat's cheese (and other things) - and cooked a broad bean and feta cheese and bean salad, a gooseberry and apple pie / crumble with cinnamon topping (I made too little pastry for a top layer and decided that a crumble of brown sugar, butter and cinnamon would work - it did), a quiche with asparagus, broccoli and goat's cheese and some spare ribs marinaded for a day, and a potato salad. All ingredients were carried home by me in a very unglamorous shopper with wheels which I also used to take our books into the London Book Fair.

At the bottom of the shopper, before going to the market, were six library books. I read The Outcast by Sadie Jones, and will hopefully read another two books in the evenings this week.

So, I hope you'll see that I practise what I preach - reading and cooking. And I managed to leave the car at home this morning too, and the bike is waiting to take me home, perhaps in a rain storm, but who cares... Catheryn

New Website!

2008-06-12T18:41:00.006+02:00

When I said that I'd been thinking about the internet, this is what I meant. Catheryn had the idea for something white and opinionated a few weeks ago and here is the result. I shan't add much here as there are already a number of essays over there. Including one on designing the website. We plan on changing the essays at regular intervals, to keep up interest. AND we're involving everyone, even Rebecca makes an appearance.

But that's not all the news, The Streets of Babylon has been getting attention all over the place:

here

here

here

and I had a great exchange with Glenn at International Noir. A very fine blog.

Kit

Oh, and if anyone was interested, I was an hour late for the thing at Bethnal Green

summer rushes

2008-06-04T19:03:00.003+02:00

Catheryn's just pointed out that I'm still not blogging very much at the moment. I have , however, been thinking plenty about the internet recently... but that will have to wait or else I'll be late for the thing. Just. waiting. for some files to uploooooaaaaad. There, finished (new B-format [198x129, 7.99] edition of The Concubine of Shanghai, loadsaorders)!

Anyway, much more interesting than anything I'd say is this Rhyll McMaster interview with Anthony Thwaite* .

Right, does anyone know how to get from Putney to Bethnal Green in fifteen minutes?

Kit

*I do of course mean Mark

Puzzled

2008-05-27T13:24:00.003+02:00

In the Guardian G2 today is a long article on new names in fiction. In amongst it, is comment from book journalists and editors - Joel Rickett of the Bookseller is one and he says that literary fiction is the hardest category, as books tend to be one offs, and writers do not repeat themselves, unlike thriller writers for example.

This got me thinking. If this was really true, we would not have managed to establish a single writer from this house, since I really do find most thrillers so similar that I cannot be bothered to read them - let lone publish them. So, if Joel is right and I am wrong, then I have to re categorise our successes as a publishing house.

So here goes -

Hubert Selby Jr writes about poverty, lust, guns and self destruction - so he must be a sadistic thriller writer - a kind of hunt the morality instead of the killer book (although he does have characters kill people - quite satisfactorily sometimes - for example, using Coca Cola).

Hong Ying is definitely a historical romance writer - everyone knows that Julian Bell was a hunk. And The Concubine of Shanghai has a woman rise through the ranks using her beauty, seductive skill and of course, involvement with Triad gangs in 1930s Shanghai - perfect. Or maybe she isa Mills and Boon type romance writer. I'm in a dilemma here.

Elif Shafak - well, it is getting tricky now. Family saga does not really represent what happens in a multi occupied house in Istanbul (The Flea Palace). But it will do - and the dwarf and the large woman is The Gaze are also in a relationship so that makes is OK.

And what about Sadomasichism for Accountants by Rosy Barnes - maybe we will just have to invent a new genre - completely intoxicatingly funny but does not fit in any category novel.

One up to Joel.

Catheryn

Summer time!

2008-05-21T15:48:00.002+02:00

A little while ago, we thought we would give an idea to Waterstone's - I used to be a production manager in a very large retail design company, and I remember with great fondness a trip to Munich with two Debenhams executives to pass on press their new carrier bags when the chain was re launched. We visited a Fairground after a lively session at the famous beer festival, and I went down a helter skelter on a rush mat sandwiched between these two execs. very, very fast.

We have not heard from Waterstone's about their reaction to this bag design, but if you see it around this summer, you'll know where it came from!

And Vulpes Libris have a stonking review of FEATHER MAN, posted today by Lisa - so THANK YOU! (http://vulpeslibris.wordpress.com/)

Back blogging

2008-05-19T18:46:00.006+02:00

I haven't blogged in ages, strangely enough in inverse proportion to the amount of time that I've been spending in the office. The reason for both is that I have been doing extracurricular work which Catheryn has kindly allowed me to do here. It's fair to say that it's been something of a departure for me: I now know the difference between a cinnammon and a blue teal, the varying pitfalls of black and red kites (always my favourite bird - possibly due to the proximity of our names) and the many different ways that inserting pictures into text in Indesign can throw all the page alignments out of wack. It didn't help that the late night work coincided with the best weather of the year so far. On one occasion during a particularly nice sunset, which I was missing, a member of the general public knocked on the window to insist that I stop working and come out to enjoy the summer.

But now I'm back and doing other things, like blogging. And this should begin with news - we have, as some will already be aware, contracted an exciting new book by Rosy Barnes: Sadomasochism for Accountants, which it now strikes me I should have done a web page for – I will do tomorrow. We're already enjoying working with Rosy, the whole project should be a lot of fun.

The Streets Of Babylon has begun to get some attention in the US: in the Library Journal , Kirkus Reviews and blogcritics.org.

We've received our first actual copies of Victoria and Lucinda's Flavour of the Month and, to everyone's great relief, they look wonderful. This means that I've spent much of my time recently phoning up the major magazine conglomerates to check that I have the right names for our mailing lists - my relationship with the various receptionists at the big magazine buildings has gone from 'Sorry, what do want?' to 'Oh it's you. Which mag do you want this time?'. A great leap, I think.

Kit

2008-05-13T13:43:00.003+02:00

I'm just back from a sales conference in New York, and found the city very up and full of energy. Not all of it good - for a country which claims to have a policy on energy reduction, you find a cinema on 42nd Street by Times Square where, to get to the auditorium (Number 20!) you go up five escalators. Each one passes by a floor of pumping rock music and a different fast food restaurant - all full on a Sunday afternoon - and all built in the expectation of many customers. The carbon footprint of that building alone would be the equal to half a high street in the UK. It's all so calm here, in comparison - OK , we are maybe a bit bland, but we have the same films (Forgetting Sarah Marshall - a good way to recover from the tension of presenting), and much of the same culture.

Bookshops - Barnes & Noble had more magazines and CD's and very little fiction backlist - they used to have rows and rows. The independents are flourishing, but the chains are cutting back on their stores. Amazon is the fastest growing customer of our distributors.

Our books - they loved Victoria & Lucinda's Flavour of the Month - our yummy mummy cookbook, with game, table design and entertaining. Thank goodness we did the conversions! Also very keen on Horribly Awkward, and I watched a little of the American version of The Office on the plane home - full of Dwight's and introversion. The American version of introversion just happens to be, well, loud....

Catheryn

2008-04-29T14:44:00.003+02:00

Tessa is starting her GCSE's right now - the real things, not the mocks. First is her German oral, and she really did talk to herself in German in the kitchen for a couple of hours yesterday evening.

Her last practise included the following, when asked for her hobbies:

Ich sammle briefmarken. Ueden tag beteich.

When her teacher burst out laughing, Tessa claimed she had taught her the phrases herself, and she was bored of saying she watches Hollyoaks and likes shopping and parties (the truth). Her two phrases translated:

I collect stamps. I pray for a while each day.

I think she has kept her sense of humour and everything in perspective, but I may try to drag her to yoga tonight.....

Catheryn

By the grace of....

2008-04-28T15:55:00.004+02:00

Over the weekend, I heard that the book printers Butler and Tanner had decided to close without paying the wages for their 287 employees.

We had a quote from Butler and Tanner for Victoria & Lucinda's Flavour of the Month, and it was about £7000.00 above the one we used, an overseas printer (SNP Leefung). I would have liked to use a British printer, as we do for all our paperback fiction and simple non fiction. But they were too expensive.

If I had decided to, we would I think, have lost the whole edition, as the advance copies for this book are due in a week. Our books would have been seized by the liquidators and sold to the highest bidder. Victoria Cator, Lucinda Bruce, and photographer Mark Cator, would have seen two years work vanish (although we could have printed elsewhere - the delay would have been heart breaking). Our own work would also have been put entirely at risk.

I do pity any authors who expected to see their new books from Butler and Tanner this week, and hope these projects can be allowed to leave the factory gate.... I also sympathise hugely with the workers, who have lost their jobs. They were not even well paid.

Catheryn

A journey into the past

2008-04-25T18:31:00.007+02:00

Beginning with a fine review in the Independent on Sunday of The Streets of Babylon by Carina Burman.

and continuing with my onix dictated stroll through the backlist - some quotes:

'Firearms are instruments completely lacking in humour'

from Absent Without Leave by Heinrich Böll.

'I came into contact with camels on three occasions, and each occasion ended tragically'

The first lines of Voices of Marrakesh by Elias Canetti.

'In London, in a cellar, in a neighbourhood dive - the most squalid of unlikely places - Dirty was drunk. utterly so.'

Is how Blue of Noon by Georges Bataille begins.

and lastly:

'A mad animal
Man's a mad animal
I'm a thousand years old and in my time
I've helped commit a million murders...'

The first four lines of a short soliloquy performed (poorly, but with worrying relish) by myself in an amateur production of Marat Sade by Peter Weiss whilst still a fresh faced student...

Kit

Back from the Bookfair

2008-04-17T18:18:00.005+02:00

and what fun it was... but first:

Helen Oyeyemi has written an excellent review of Feather Man in the New Statesman. It's a thoroughly insightful view of the book and hopefully will help it into the hands of many more people.

And back to the fair, my third and by far the busiest I've been to. There are plenty who find it exhausting, and it is tiring, and plenty who find it symbolic of the less romantic side of publishing, and lots of business does get done, but it's also a gigantic building filled for three whole days with people from all across the world whose common trait is that they are very enthusiastic about books. That, for types like me, makes it a very exciting place to be. Firstly there are the people who you only ever meet once a year (or twice, if you go to the Frankfurt Book Fair, which I haven't), then the people that you meet for the first time; all they want to talk about is books. And then give them to you to read!

We had meetings with people from over a dozen different countries, heard about hundreds of books and committed to reading enough over the next few months to stock a particularly cosmopolitan library. The British Council, English PEN, the Arts Council and more did an amazing job organizing a whole bunch of events, filling gaps in the schedule nicely. And then there's the parties, where there are even more people to meet and talk about books and, of course, gossip about other people who like to talk about books but aren't there.

Although it is possible that I got overexcited; I did apparently introduce myself twice in two days to the same prominent publisher, and was constantly surprised by meetings that had been arranged a long time before.

And now comes the sifting, which is, unfortunately, a lot more solitary...

Kit

2008-04-11T15:21:00.003+02:00

This is an entry about what writers, mainly fiction writers, do when they create the world their book takes place in.

They do not, necessarily, present the reader with the world as they already know it. They usually have some idea of the dangerous places their fiction is taking them. Not all stories are ones with happy endings.

I'm writing this since another person has told me they could not read past the beginning of Feather Man. The first one was the person who was judging the Waterstone's New Voices, which Feather Man was short listed for. In both cases, because the book opens with a young girl being persuaded into a sexual act by an older man (who does not actually go as far as he could - guys, this is blog, open to all readers, so I will not be more specific here), they stopped reading. Yes, it is unpleasant, but then books are supposed to open up worlds beyond the readers experience.

So, when we publish books by Turkish writers, we expect readers to read about djinns and spirits as if they were quite normal, as they are in Turkish culture. When Hubert Selby Jr tells of the life of a prostitute, in Last Exit to Brooklyn, we do not pre judge.

So, please, please, read past page 12 of Feather Man and find out why Rhyll has won a major prize in Australia, and had the most wonderful reviews. Discover how a young girl, who men mistreat, actually manages to get her own back. And how she may or may not have achieved the impossible - managing to stand on her own two feet.

Getting ready

2008-04-04T17:19:00.005+02:00

I'm sort of getting excited about the London Book Fair. We've done our rights guide, we've designed our posters (and printed them) for the stand, and here are three for you to admire.

We have printed most of our Autumn books, and advances will be on the stand. The major production here was Victoria & Lucinda's Flavour of the Month - 275 x 210 mm (over 10 inches tall to those who like to visualise in imperial) with full page photographs by the talented Mark Cator.

Rhyll McMaster won the prestigious Barabra Jefferis award in Australia for FEATHER MAN, and we are working very hard to get her to a festival here. We have teamed up with the Literary Ventures Fund in the USA, who pick 6 or so books from independent presses a year, and back them with increased marketing and publicity. It's a new way of working - if the book sells then we repay the investment, like venture capitalists. When they picked FEATHER MAN, I was interviewed by phone, and it was exaclty like being in the Dragon's Den - totally draining and every term depended on my immediate response.

And we've also signed our contract with 2waytraffic who develop Who Wants to be A Millionaire and You Are What You Eat for This May Help You Understand the World, so it becomes a major TV brand. We are hoping that Lawrence Potter can be the presenter, and we are tinkering with the follow up book.

The Concubine of Shanghai by Hong Ying will be in a £7.99 format by July to tie in with the Olympics, having sold so well in C format (unusual but true - ask Waterstone's!).

Our sales kits have arrived in the USA and the only way I can cope with doing them is piece meal - so over 3 or 4 weeks they gradually take shape in the office. I have the same approach to building the list - mid August is a flashing beacon in my mind, since by then I need a new American list for 2009 fully formed and contracted, with covers arrived at after many, many versions in house, so the book hits its market.

Not all is totally fabulous - we are still waiting for reviews of Spring books, and can see that some large publishers have similar problems. But I think small can be beautiful, since success here goes a long, long way.

plugs and bilingualism

2008-03-31T18:45:00.007+02:00

Lee Rourke, whose book Everyday is published by Social Disease, has written very nice things about us on the Scarecrow blog. Which was a very nice thing to start the week with, I can only second his recommendation of Blue of Noon.

Which brings me nicely from one translation from the French to another: we are trying something new this spring. Banquet of Lies will be published in a bilingual edition, with the French alongside the English. It forms a part of our ongoing attempt to bring translation, and the issues that surround it, to the fore. We have actually done this before; Paris by Julian Green is bilingual and has done very well for us over the years. It got us to thinking: if we have a very good French text and a very good translation (by Frank Wynne) why not do it again? It's a great book to do this with; there's lots in the text that wasn't particularly easy to put into English and so many places where Frank has made the choices that are so important to the translator's art. It's been a fascinating book to work on in this way, I'm agog to see how it gets received.

Kit

On Onix and Selby

2008-03-26T18:42:00.003+01:00

We have recently come across an exciting* new way to file and present our book information. It's called Onix and involves tags. We are being helped by a very nice man named Robin, who has been extremely patient with me as I keep sending him incomplete files along with the book admin equivalent of 'are we there yet?' messages.

Unfortunately, for a company that's been around a little while, with something of a back list, updating every single piece of info about every single book into a sophisticated new system is not a small task. But on the other hand, it does mean that one gets to delve into the backlist, which usually proves fruitful. Today was the turn of Hubert Selby to get Onixed, which turned up the following useful quotes:

From The Demon:

"There is only one source of energy for my
hate," he said, "and that's me. And there's only one ultimate destination
for my hate and that's me." which I shall use when stuck on overcrowded tube, or blocked on an escalator trying to get to said overcrowded tube.

From an excellent piece last year by Tony O'Neill:

A book that can divide people along such extremes is usually doing something right. While not comfort reading, The Room is essential reading, and a piece of art that will leave an impression on your soul. As one Amazon reviewer succinctly put it: "Literature is not meant to be safe or easy. Go buy a copy of VC Andrews if that's what you're looking for."

which last bit I shall use for finding out who VC Andrews is/was

and from a Telegraph obit by Peter McRae:

His next book, Requiem for a Dream (1978),
contained Selby's favourite opening line: "Harry locked his mother in a
closet."

which I shall use for proving in conversation that Selby had a wonderful sense of humour.

Kit

*well... perhaps not for everybody

Desks and Stockhausen

2008-03-18T19:08:00.002+01:00

It's been a while since I blogged, much has been going on. Two, almost three books off to press, a translation seminar, books coming in which then have to be mailed out... there are times when it seems life is little more than frames on computer screens and the imaginative use of cardboard boxes (we have recently developed a new, environmentally friendly way of sending out review copies).

Catching up:

Artforum have done an excellent tribute to Karlheinz Stockhausen

Mark Thwaite has also reviewed Stockhausen on Music. Both featuring Robin Maconie prominently.

I went to a translation seminar organized by the British and Arts Councils and many others, the first time anyone has thought to get a group of publishers and translators in a room to discuss how to edit translated manuscripts. Being big on translators we think it's a very good idea, and hope more similar events happen in the future.

With reference to earlier posts, it's a blessing that a photo of my desk was not posted for all to see. It's a disgrace and has been, wherever I have had one, for the last twenty years or so. These fantastic roomy ones just seem to give me more opportunity to make piles, creating a minature paper Gormenghast.

It was also nice of Catheryn to make clear that 'twas not me who spent the mid eighties being sold by Olivetti. My name, usually so pleasantly isolated, has been popping up everywhere recently, twice at my old employ: here and here and even in the crime pages. I'm just waiting for the London Book Fair passes to arrive, confusing my gender as usual...

Kit

2008-03-14T13:41:00.001+01:00

A while back, Peter Stothard of the TLS wrote on his blog that we had the apostrophe in the wrong place for our Bookaholics' Guide to Book Blogs.

Although I replied on his blog that I thought we were right, I have had considerable self doubt on this matter of apostrophe's ever since. However, we just had our reminder to update our entry for a well known guide book to the publishing industry - and it is called (have you guessed?)

Writers' and Artists' Yearbook

So now I am pretty sure I was right.

Phew.

Catheryn

Desks

2008-03-10T15:41:00.004+01:00

I've wanted to blog about our desks for ages - finding the time is difficult. They came from Walker Books circa 1985. Walker Books was growing wealthy, and it was time to chuck out the Islington junk shop desks which Sebastian had found, and replace them with red metal legged Magpie designer tables, and a colour themed environment suitable for creating children's books in. As they were about to hit the skip, I said that Marion Boyars Publishers had just moved from Soho to Putney, and had nothing. My then boyfriend who worked for Olivetti, selling 'kit' (computer kit, not the Kit who valiantly works here now) borrowed a lorry from Olivetti and the desks all made the journey across town. They are still serving us well, with leather inlay table tops, interesting drawers (some of which are nothing but wood frames with no base).

We wouldn't change them for the world. And. in case you wanted to know, in the middle of the day our desks are always untidy. We're too busy to keep them pristine, but as they are huge, we can sprawl with ease.

Streetwise foxes

2008-02-27T18:34:00.006+01:00

The (insert euphoric adjective here) Vulpes Libris have done another great review. This time it's of The Streets of Babylon.

Which leads me to a Streets themed anecdote that brought home to me the quite awesome capacity of Google Book Search:

Embarking on the final proof read, and in a fairly whimsical mood (the author should here admit that this is a fairly common state for himself to be in ed.) I wondered whether the steamer Helen McGregor that brings Euthanasia to London might be a reference to something or other. It's that kind of book.

Sure enough: it is.

How much information was sifted through in less than a second to bring up that result? It's quite incredible and more than a little scary in that way that unfathomable things are...

Kit

2008-02-25T10:10:00.002+01:00

It is Monday morning, and I am opening the post. A cheerful start to the week, sun shining, things going well.

The first item I come across is a small parcel of books we sent out last week to a well known TV and film agency, who works with the author's agent. You see, a book we published has a TV offer from a well known company, and we wanted to ensure the best deal was obtained.

I heard late last week that said agent was over whelmed with work. Fair enough. What I had not bargained for was the books to be returned with three red capital initials on the label.

RTS

It took a second to work it out.

Return to sender.

Or rather, do not bother opening, reading the carefully worded note, seeing the work that went into the books, and being generally interested in an independent press that has on its own obtained the interest of a major TV company. No, RTS.

That takes the award for complete, downright, off hand rudeness I have ever experienced in this industry. God, I hope the TV company is successful and this book becomes a multi millionaire brand and show in the early evenings. It deserves to.

Catheryn

Many mentions...

2008-02-18T19:00:00.007+01:00

in the press and on the web to begin the week. It really is nice when people notice what you're doing.

Shel Silverstein was profiled in The Times on Saturday. This picture of the winged hippo
having been photoshopically saved by yours truly after it was cruely sliced down the middle of page 88 and 89 of the files we had. You can experience some Silverstein themed mayhem at Jewish Book Week the Sunday after next.

Pornografia by Witold Gombrowicz was named one of the top ten Polish novels ever by James Hopkin over on Guardian Unlimited. It's appreciated even if he did attribute it to the wrong publisher (grumblegrumblegrumble), many thanks to Sarah Crown at GU for putting that right.

Chinese Takeout by Arthur Nersesian got a surprise review on the wonderfuller and wonderfuller Vulpes Libris.

And not leastly,

The Streets of Babylon has been spotted by the eurocrime blog . They will get a review copy as soon as we get our hands on 'em. Which should be any day now...

Kit

A Valentines Day post

2008-02-14T18:46:00.004+01:00

I've missed a trick this year - I'm sure that with a bit of planning and an extra injection of charm I might have persuaded a bookshop somewhere to do an MB Valentines Day promotion.

The Concubine of Shanghai pushes all the right buttons for instance - and we got it out in time (regular readers of this blog, if any, will remember much mention of deadlines at the beginning of this year. We met them, hooray!) but there are others:

How about The Devil in the Flesh?, which one of my most favourite booksellers says they sold five copies of yesterday.

Jules et Jim?

The Politics of Love?

Eroticism?

K, of course...

For those lacking someone:

In Praise of Masturbation

and for those who just can't be bothered:

The Art of the Siesta

Cathy says that anyone who is embarrassed to read the second-to-last title on the tube is a prude so, on my recent trip I decided to go one better and read it on my long haul flights back to the UK (9 hours to Washington from Buenos Aires, 8 from Washington to London) only to find that neither of my neighbours on either leg spoke a word of English. Which rather diminished any effect the title might have had. It is a very good book though, which, I suppose, is the main thing.

Personally, I used up all my romance on the trip AND found time to buy a mountain of books. In Buenos Aires they not only have cavernous second hand stores filled with treasures and immensely knowledgable staff, but they have book shop bars! Why, oh why, don't we have them here? I would do my bit to keep them afloat.

Because lists are strangely compelling here is one of the books I bought or was otherwise given:

In no particular order. Unless, like Borges, you don't believe in Free Will.

Don Quijote which I didn't previously own in Spanish.

Viaje Olvidado by Silvina Ocampo and another collection of previously unpublished Ocampo writing which I've forgotten the name of and is at home. Silvina Ocampo is a quite, quite brilliant writer whoeveryoneshouldread.

A literary biography of Clarice Lispector.

The second newest (he seems to have just released another) book (again I can't remember the title) by Marcelo Cohen, who is described by his publisher as 'the best contemporary Argentine novelist'. High praise indeed, but from what I've read by him its deserved.
Respiracion Artificial by Ricardo Piglia

The Buenos Aires Affair by Manuel Puig.

A volume of Keats' letters edited by Julio Cortázar

and, most excitingly, the last remaining copy of 62: Modos para Armar also by Cortázar, in all of Buenos Aires. Or at least in the fifteen bookshops I looked in. Cortázar's work is being re-edited in Spanish which means that for next few months it'll be really difficult to get ahold of. If there is a better feeling in the world than searching for a favourite book that you've previously lost and the finding it in the last shop of the day at five to eight when it shuts at eight, especially when at first they say they don't have it but then find it in the display window then I don't want to know about it.

All of which means I have plenty to be getting on with. Constructing some new shelves for a start...

Kit

2008-01-30T16:42:00.000+01:00

PARTY

I'm going to a posh party tonight (The Wallace Collection to celebrate Doris Lessing's Nobel Prize for Literature) and I think I will not know many people, but at least Gary Pulsifer of Arcadia will be there and has promised to rescue me. It's one that the establishment of publishing will be at in force, and they have little idea of how the independents survive and spend their time.

So, in my handbag are a pair of very high plum suede shoes which I share with my sixteen year old daughter (we have the same size feet exactly) - except she can walk in them and I can't really. On GMTV this morning I caught a glimpse of a competition they are doing for Mother and Daughter modelling contracts. There was Jerry Hall with Georgia Jagger - hmm I think, Georgia should be doing her mocks today. I think it was a pre recorded clip though. Somehow I don't think my daughter and I will be competition - for a start I am nowhere near five foot eight.

All day, I've battled to find a 300 dpi image for the cover of Feather Man - eventually located - imported into InDesign and print quality cover PDF exported. Kit is in Argentina, Rebecca is recording two songs on XFM radio with her band, and Alice is in next week, so I'm alone here. Good news is that a bank transfer of what Publishers Weekly would call a 'nice' five figure sum arrived and is now safely in our UK bank account. So we're OK for a while, BUT the Spring books are key - The Concubine of Shanghai by Hong Ying is due from the printers on Monday and we have 5000 advance orders. That, for an independent, is bloody brilliant.

Catheryn

New covers and eclectic philosophy

2008-01-24T18:20:00.000+01:00

Eagle eyed website visitors will have noticed that The Concubine of Shanghai has changed her spots. It has gone from this:

to this:

The work of our previously mentioned new designer. That is Hong Ying herself on the cover. Yet another one of our authors with the ability to leave me red faced and toungue tied.

Much better to stay hidden reading eclectic philosophy. Upon which subject there was a review of Blue Sky Thoughts in the Guardian last weekend.
And I'm on holiday for a week, yay! January was a month in which we had the full complement of people for just a single day.
Kit

Catalogues, as far as the eyes can see...

2008-01-18T18:35:00.000+01:00

We have a new catalogue! It came in on Friday, and went out the next Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. And is, indeed, still going out. To make the arrival even more nerve racking we got a last minute phone call from the printer on the day they were supposed to be printing saying he thought we'd got our measurements wrong. Now 'twas I who did those measurements originally so if 3000 copies of our most important sales tool were about to turn up unusable, it was going to be squarely my fault. My hands actually shook before cutting into the first box.

They were fine.* Good even. Striking, different, one hopes. The front cover depicts the image from Banquet of Lies with definitions of translation (reflection, combination,transformation) written colourfully in our new designer Alice's (I wonder if she'd like to blog? I'll ask next week) sprightly hand. Inside you will find interviews with not our front list authors BUT our frontlist translators. The spearhead of our efforts to publicize the importance of translated fiction.

The week was of course spent sending them to everyone we know, the Big List came out, the one that in theory everyone we meet gets added to immediately that it seems to us they might be interested. And then it was the monotony of take, open,shove, 2 militres saliva, 10 grams pressure, address, 10 more grams pressure, stamp (the royal kind), stamp (the ink kind), flick of the wrist. This last because rather than piling envelopes up neatly it seems far more fun to see how high a pile of envelopes can be built from two and a half metres away. I find this fun because I am a boy. I think Rebecca, who is not, found it thoroughly annoying.

And so now they're out. All except foreign ones and all the people who were left off the Big List. Should anyone find themselves in this unfortunate situation please let us know and we'll flick a copy thuswards.

Some news:

The splendiferous Vulpes Libris have done a review of This May Help You Understand the World , which is still doing very well.

The Spectator gave a brief mention to The Bookaholics Guide... in an article on books on the internet.

And on Monday, hopefully, we welcome back Catheryn. Whose birthday it was yesterday, should anyone like to send us cake. We can offer impeccably measured translation themed catalogues in return.

Kit

*It is, of course, unlikely that if there had been a problem, I would have mentioned it on the blog. I'd be cowering in shame somewhere, probably curled up under something, making a plan to fix things somehow.

Cheerful and at home!

2008-01-15T16:13:00.000+01:00

It's been raining all day and the garden has had a moving show of squirrels, pigeons, jays and thrushes, in addition to very noisy foxes last night, which makes a pleasant change from the view of the Wormwood Scrubs playing fields from the Hammersmith Hospital which has been my view for the past week.

So, on the mend now, and blasting instructions by phone to the hapless Rebecca, Kit and Alice, but we have books to get to press very shortly and every tiny details matters.

So, what did I read over eight long days in my ward prison? Kate Atkinson's One Good Turn, Stephen Clarke's A Year in the Merde, On Chesil Beach (do I need to tell you who it is by?) and a good chunk of Affluenza by Oliver James. The quiz at the start of Affluenza is interesting - and you will have to go find a copy to be enlightened, but I ticked YES to the first five boxes and then NO to all the rest. I think I can honestly say I have never had envy of anyone else's material possessions which I did not have the ability to obtain if I really wanted to. Lucinda Bruce's Aga photos in our new book, Victoria and Lucinda's Flavour of the Month is the closest I've got to it. So I do not think I am affected by the affluenza virus, but I love reading about it.

A Year in the Merde did make me laugh even though Stephen Clarke deserved to get some come uppance for his attitude to les femmes, and if this is how the French see us and how we see the French, then goodness knows how we have managed to co exist in this part of the world for so long. Do I see a battle of tea bags being lopped from Hastings at the French coast, only to have a volley of Cantal cheeses come back at us? Who knows.

I kept the Waterstone's 3/2 stickers on my books through my stay, so the huge amount of people passing my bed could see a) what good value books are and b) how unbored I was compared to the blank, head nodding people in most of the other beds. What a strange world! Books are the only way to fully engage your brain, relax your mind and body and survive, I think, and no screen, kindle or gadget comes close. We need a really, really good publicity campaign to encourage reading - all positive and full of bright colours and interesting thoughts and quotes. Come on Arts Council, government, whoever, it's all there for the taking! Publishers would co operate, and everyone would benefit.

Catheryn

If publishing didn't involve the production of books then one could get a lot done...

2008-01-11T18:43:00.001+01:00

We're down one boss.

She's being very brave about a longer than expected stay in hospital, but it sounds horrible. Hopefully she'll be back next week or the one after.

Which means that there's a lot more to do around here, as, factoring in the importance of respective jobs, she makes up about 80% of the workforce.

But we're coping, it's just that I haven't got to a single New Year Email (You know the kind: all the ideas you've had whilst away, people you've realised you haven't contacted for a while, etc.) yet. Let alone a proper New Year Blog. Why do people insist that the books they buy include poncy things like punctuation, spelling and formatting? Ifbookswerejustbigblocksoftextmylifewouldbesomucheasier.* The editorial equivalent of Duplo.

Some more reviews; Two more for The Bookaholics' Guide:

Monsters and Critics

and

Curled Up.com

and one for Enlightenment

at the wonderful

Vulpes Libris

As always, we appreciate all coverage.

*I am being facetious. Please do not startsubmittingbigblocksoftextasIvaluemysanity.

Still busy...

2008-01-07T18:46:00.000+01:00

By the time we've got through everything that needs to be done it'll be a new year all over again...

But here's some stuff:

Stewart at Booklit wrote a review of The Devil in the Flesh a little while back now. Apologies to Stewart for taking so long to flag it up, the whole process of getting him the books was far more difficult than it might have been. I reused an Amazon package that we had lying around the office only to receive it back a couple of weeks later after the post office had delivered it to Amazon rather than Stewart, Amazon kindly sending it back to us with a question mark. I now no longer reuse Amazon packages, which is a pity because they are potentially very useful. Oh, and when Stewart eventually did receive the package he pointed out that I had sent him different books to the ones that he'd asked for. Not at my best there.

There is an interesting post by the bibliophilic blogger about Witold Gombrowicz who needs an author page, although he uses a pretty old version of the cover of Pornografia , our one's much better:

and back to texts and alignments and covers and deadlines and catalogues and printers and authors and deadlines and indesign and sales and deadlines...

Kit

Happy New Year!

2008-01-03T19:12:00.000+01:00

The only problem with holidays is all the work waiting for you when you get back...

But we've waited far too long to mention that the wonderful bookanine website Vulpes Libris has an interview with our MD Catheryn here.

Hopefully they'll be doing some reviews of our stuff later on this year as well.

I'd write more but it's late and I'm whining. Tomorrow hopefully.

Kit

2007-12-18T14:47:00.001+01:00

2007-12-18T14:47:00.000+01:00

Catheryn here. It's been a while since I blogged - my excuses are a flying visit to New York and Boston for our sales conference with Consortium, and a battle with my gall bladder, although in early January I have surgery after a four month wait. Yippee! I could write a book on the NHS, an institution starved of resources which we all rely on.

So, here is a little record of the Christmas messages which have pleased us the most. Firstly, a lovely embossed Moleskin notebook from the Hay Festival. The Hay Festival has been key in the making of our authors reputations - first, they agreed to take Elif Shafak when no one knew who she was, and she stunned an audience of 500 and has never looked back. Then Maureen Freely went this year, and loved it so much she stayed for five days (sorry Faber, I think you got the lion's share of a whopper of a hotel bill), and this year we hope to send Rhyll McMaster to Hay, to talk about Feather Man.

Today we had an email Christmas card from Waterstone's - yea! Retailers appreciate independent publishers! We certainly appreciate retailers, so it's good to feel loved back. Next, my HUGE desk diary from Haynes, who have just had their first order from us for printing. Now, I like cars as much as most women do (they are not exactly the stuff of my wildest dreams), and I am the only driver in my house, so I'm not sure what do with the monthly drawings of the innards of the Ford Zodiac etc, but the Appointments schedule at the back will be invaluable for book fairs. My computer crashed irrevocably one September and I had to painstakingly recreate my Frankfurt schedule from memory as I had not printed it out - never again!

So, have a HAPPY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR, all you booky people out there.