Republic of Consciousness Newsletter -3.1415
Featuring stuff about small presses generally; a Small Press Showcase (on Wednesday); new book from Ortac Press; new covers from And Other Stories; new Youtube channel from Incline Press
The official deadline for entries to this year’s prize was August 31st, but because we understand that deadlines need to be flexible for small presses - the end of September is the real cut-off. If you are a small press or know of a small press who hasn’t entered. Let them know.
Deadlines are a thing I’ve been thinking about. The wider world of publishing needs to accept small presses cannot have the same lead times as the Big 5. We don’t have the money or bandwidth to have the “pack” ready six months out. Waterstones need everything ready by that point otherwise they can’t plan. I noticed on X (Twitter) the literary editor of The Sunday Times had about 50 advanced copies for next year on her desk, and that was a month ago. You can bet they were all Big 5 books. How can we compete? It can’t be right that UK small presses just have to hope to wedge themselves into the general process and hope for the best. We need to a non-hierarchical two-tier system to be put in place so we aren’t penalised by our shorter lead times. Johanna Corr Thomas at The Sunday Times needs (please) to have a quota of slots for small presses, and accept that she might get ARCs until three months out, or maybe even two. Also producing an ARC can’t be essential to being reviewed. It used to be publishers needed to print hardbacks in order to be reviewed. That’s changed. And largely because of what small presses have done in terms of quality softback publishing over the last decade.
The problem, though, is that too many books are published and there are too few review slots. This means there is always first mover advantage. Have everything ready the moment the decision-maker wants to make a decision and you’re better placed than the person waiting on a cover. And the cover is everything. No. That’s not quite right. The cover and an elevator pitch. No … still not quite right. A cover and an elevator pitch that together sells the whole package. Because literary reviewers and booksellers aren’t going to read the book. At least not at the crucial moment - when they are going choose to review it or order it. The “selling” moment. And this is a problem for literary fiction. Covers have to entice rather than shout, and elevator pitches always make stories with subtlety sound just plain bad.
The thing is, as I’ve written elsewhere, publishing isn’t supposed to be a business. And therefore business practices just stifle it. Or don’t allow it to flourish according to its own lights. It’s no one’s fault. I don’t blame Waterstones. They’re a huge business, often keeping a bookshop open where it’s not economically viable to do so. Literary editors have hundreds of books sent to them - they do their best.
But we can make things easier for small presses
Go here
Free tickets here.
Ortac Press
PINCH ME: Trying to Feel Real in the 21st Century by Francesca Ramsay
17/10/23
There have been moments, see; pinpricks in time that have given me such an essential and triumphant feeling of realness I am for that one split second jolted directly back into myself. I have found it when immersed in bodies of very cold water, when face-to-face with a vast and beautiful view. I have found it in print, loud noise and in utter silence. I have found it in darkness too. But most of all, most consistently, I have found it in art.
This is a book about how it feels to exist. About the moments we come off autopilot and engage fully with the world around us. The fleeting moments in which our minds and bodies connect totally to one another and to our environment.
Intimate, impassioned and full of humour, PINCH ME follows art historian Francesca Ramsay’s far-reaching journey in search of answers to one of life’s most complex and essential questions: What does it mean to feel real?
Tackling this ancient subject through a contemporary lens, PINCH ME is a raw, lyrical reflection on finding connection with oneself, one another and the modern world. Ramsay investigates what it is to experience reality, the reasons so many of us are feeling the lack of it today, and crucially, how we might be able to get it back.
Buy here.
And Other Stories launch a new cover design series!
After close consultation with authors, booksellers and our stakeholders, and a year-long development period involving four world-class designers, we have launched a new series design for future And Other Stories titles. In line with our international, ecological publishing from outside the metropolitan centre, we chose ecological suppliers, including North of England partners, as well as a Brazilian designer.
And Other Stories’ design brief and concept was simple: it’s the words that matter. Our authors are extraordinary. Their words are all we need to invite readers into the text. After a design process involving four world-class designers, all of whose ideas we invaluable, we chose the proposal by Brazilian designer Elisa von Randow (Alles Blau studio). As with all typographic designs, the font is the star, and Elisa’s chosen font is Stellage. Sui generis and strong, it is a display typeface released in 2020 by SM Foundry, a digital type foundry based in the Netherlands. Full of personality (surprising touches such as the arrowing comma and angular brackets) and impeccably designed, it conveys quality and a modern, contemporary voice. Our logo has also been updated, removing the diamond around the ampersand and using the Stellage font for our name.
The cover stock paper is Colorplan card, as developed by Hull’s world-leading paper merchants, the B Corp-certified G . F Smith. It is made sustainably with FSC-certified paper at the James Cropper mill in the Lake District – in other words, a Northern collaboration. And the cover and spine sport black biodegradable foil. The new books are beautifully and carefully crafted objects – great for displays in bookshops and very tactile.
Thinking further about the ecological footprint, we have chosen a new FSC paper for inside pages with low carbon emissions and chosen Clays as our printer. Clays has a clear focus on constantly improving the sustainability of its operations. It is the first UK printer to sign up to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), to which it recently submitted its emission reduction targets for approval.
Publisher Stefan Tobler says:
I can’t help thinking of Derek Walcott’s beautiful poem that says ‘The time will come / when, with elation, / you will greet yourself arriving / at your own door’. After twelve years of publishing, it feels like And Other Stories’ design has come home. Elisa’s design captures our press’s spirit: there’s room for play and humour. It’s thought-provoking in style and content. It’s contemporary and a look that will last.
There’s also something right about our series starting in September with two books by Lutz Seiler. His poetry collection Pitch & Glint first appeared in 2000 in Suhrkamp’s iconic Willy Fleckhaus-designed series, a series that launched in 1963 and has long been an inspiration. As a nod to that series, in each book we will we have a full-page photo of the author on the final page. Seiler himself is a writer who started work as a tradesman and has a strong love of craft and manual making, and we are looking forward to sending him these well-made objects.Greetings!
Incline Press
We have launched a YouTube channel and posted a short film here about the upcoming launch of Memento Mori : Memento Vivere.
The ordinary edition is now complete and 100 copies are with local binder Roger Grech, who will make the hard binding and matching slip case. It is printed on a variety of papers sourced from John Purcell Paper along with an extravaganza of tip-ins showing the prints of the many artists Kathy and I worked with over the years.
We are now working on the design for the special edition which will also be covered in this specially commissioned yellow paper and chemise by Two Rivers Paper
Many thanks to everyone who pre-ordered this book, your patience is very much appreciated. We have just posted the gift and review copies out, and will be fulfilling all the other orders as soon as the bindings are completed.
The book will still be available to pre-order on our website at this lower price until the 1st of September. Thereafter the standard edition will be £250 and the specials £350, UK postage included, overseas postage charged at cost.
This is really very well said. Exactly the dilemma for small presses. And, indeed, literature shouldn't be a business. The business is selling books. But not all books make literature. So the beauty of small presses is that we are not quite operating in the book business, but in the realm of literature. However, of course we also need to sell our books and distribute the work of our authors. We owe them that. It's hard not to pay attention though to all the noise out there in the book world/market, and at the same time also trying not get frustrated. Thank you for this article!