I just read on Book 2 Book this morning that Elif Shafak is to be the Market Focus Author of the Day at the London Book Fair in April 2013. Elif is now published by Penguin in the UK, and has been since The Bastard of Istanbul came out. Marion Boyars Publishers published The Flea Palace and The Gaze, and I worked closely with Elif, taking her to the Hay Festival for the first time, and to many other venues, including the Frontline Club.

So I felt proud when I read this, and with twelve books now published, I know that a large press has the resources to bring her books to a wide audience.

And, as someone who can appreciate writing, I know that Noemi Szecsi, whose book The Finno-Ugrian Vampire we publish in the USA and Canada in May 2103, is Hungary's most talented young author. Noemi will be visiting New York in April 2013 to do some literary events, and if you wish to see someone moving into their prime, like Elif, then keep a watch for her.

Bats and their habits

Bat Conservation News is still emailing me, a missive I read intently, because I have much to learn.

So, while I do not think bats have much to do with nuns or monks (habits), the current Bat Conservation Newsletter is all about the trunks bats pack when they go back to school. I think a vampire bat would pack extra vials in which to store blood sucked but not consumed - a sort of bat tuck shop.

If I was a bat going back to school, I would want to suck up to my teachers. However, my teachers may not wish me to suck up to them, so I would have to clever. Any animal that can hang upside down all day and still manage to fly the right way up has life fairly sussed, or should that be sucked.

6th August 2012

Marion Boyars Publishers is currently receiving email updates from Bat Conservation News. Why this new Inbox event is happening will become apparent very soon, but in the meanwhile I thought I would share some fascinating facts with you.

The newsletter starts in quite a peppy way. It boldly states:

"Sex can be a risky business if you're a fly," carrying a snippet from the New South Wales, Australia, Great Lakes Advocate, an eminent news journal, I am led to believe. It goes on, 'Scientists have demonstrated that a bat callled a Natterer myotis locates and attacks mating flies by listening to the buzzing sound made by the males", when in a state of passion, I assume, brought on by the presence of female flies. The result is a supersised meal for the bats. The mind boggles. And those clever bats simply ignored the shy, chaste flies simply walking on the ceiling in their roosting shed.

(Additonal info from Wikipedia, the publisher's secret friend:
Natterer's bat (Myotis nattereri) is a European bat with pale wings. It has brown fur, also seen on the leg wing membrane, tending to white on its underside. It is found across most of the continent, but is considered scarce.)

LONDON BOOK FAIR

It's coming up to the time of year where editors and publishers, production managers and agents, start to pack their bags for the London Book Fair, and we will be exhibiting on the Central Books stand, G920 in EC1. I will be there, Monday to Wednesday, and look forward to meeting people there.

As the book world changes with the challenge of keeping print books as a proper currency along with the digital version, it will be interesting to join in with this very sociable gathering over a few days. And it is nice it is in our home town, London, although I would love to spend more time in New York again.

I have to say that I think the printed book will always exist, and grow in popularity, just as the CD has managed to survive despite I - versions of everything under the sun. And I love seeing new books, and having the time to read some of them too, now I am involved in publishing fewer myself. But the backlist sems to be made of strong stuff and is very much in print and surviving.

The Alchemy of E-Books

Et voila! - a little logo I knocked up today to go on the back of printed books from now on – feel free to email me for it. Actually, Photoshop would not do what I wanted it to do, and I had a terrible morning - but after an hour of yoga, (yes, there was a tiny chanting session at the finale), I returned to the chains around my office chair, and resorted to InDesign.

Thankfully, it all fell into place as if the morning’s turmoil had never happened….

We are nearly at the point of going live with 28 e-books through Faber Factory, powered by Constellation, a digital platform developed by our American distributors, Consortium Book Sales in Minneapolis.

It has been an exciting process, and my eyes are now agog at the advantages of e-books - for students, and anyone with a curious mind.

So I will now take complete liberty and digress, using the subject of alchemy, which as we know, is all about turning the most unpromising substances to gold. And that is what e-books seem to do, by making it oh, so much easier to browse through interesting books, and find fascinating nuggets of information.

So, The Alchemy of Paint by Spike Bucklow – an erudite book on the history and origin of paint pigments. And then, one of the bestselling Social Sciences books on the list, Decoding Advertisements by Judith Williamson, which is all about the power that advertisements have over our desires and image of our own bodies, and our appetites, which include fashion, food and sinful things like cigarettes and alcohol. What on earth has alchemy to do with in Judith’s book? Well, she uses it to explain the process of turning unpromising looking granules into edible potato.

In Chapter Six, we have alchemy in the chapter title – then the e-book search function gets you to her paragraph of lengthy persuasion that the potato microcosm – the atom of artificial potato. Is in fact called ‘Wondermash’. We are not shown the fluffy potato with the water added, because that would be prosaic, no, the ad. shows us the magic granule, and the ad. makes us believe we can perform the alchemy to turn it into real mash.

Now, in Spike’s book, you may want to know more about Tyrian purple, which is extracted from Murex snail shells, found in abundance around the Eastern Mediterranean. These are carnivorous snails, or should I call them snarls, as I am now starting to fear the snails in our back garden may add threatening snarls to their slime producing. Spike tells us Tyrian purple was discovered when Hercules was wooing the nymph Tyros. Not getting on well with her one day, Hercules turned to playing with her dog on the beach. He found that the dog had picked up some snails for a tasty (possible meaty scented) snack, and the dog’s nose had gone purple. Tyros picked up the snail, as maidens interested in fashion are wont to do, and pleaded with Hercules to dye some material purple for her, which of course, he promptly did by crushing the shells of the Murex snail, and Bob’s your uncle, Hercules and Tyros became romantically inclined. In the e-book, in Chapter Six, next to the word snail is a small superscript 5, which if you click on it, takes you to the end notes of the chapter, and references that will lead you to more discoveries about snails and pigments. No arduous turning of pages, or making of notes – it is all there at a click of the mouse, or flick of a finger.

So I think e-books and alchemy have earned their place in the world, indeed they are making more alchemy possible.

A snippet from Publishers Weekly online caught my eye -

Authors on the Air February 2, 2012: Mei-Ling Hopgood, David Agus
Mei-Ling Hopgood, author of How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm: And Other Adventures in Parenting (Algonquin Books, 978-1565129580)

When we published Gerard Beirne's novel, which I thought was full of fairly hard characters from real life - we were criticized for using the word 'eskimo' rather than Inuit. The Inuit in the Net had no 'ring' to it, while The Eskimo in the Net conjured up an image of a frozen body, with icy whiskers, and a shiny head of black hair, so we stuck to our guns. And here we are a few years later, and Eskimos are OK. So that is one in the eye for the politically correct, I guess. If all publishers edited out every nuance in language, we'd have a rather depleted vocabulary to work with.

New Year pick me up

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.

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

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?

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.