Trios: The Einstein Girl, by Philip Sington: Waterstone’s Perspective

Last time The Einstein Girl appeared here, we learned how its cover was created; today, Rodney Troubridge (the Fiction Marketing Planner at Waterstone’s) reveals how he makes his decisions; and next time, a key account manager at Random House will discuss selling this sort of literary fiction to booksellers.


As a lucky retailer who gets sent a lot of proofs to read it is always enjoyable to think, 'what shall I read next?'

Looking back I think what interested me about The Einstein Girl was that it had been recommended by the publisher at a highlights presentation of their titles a few months before. I didn't know any thing about the author other than vaguely remembering his previous novel but I liked the plot line and so I gave it a go.

I have always liked reading books set in the interwar period in Germany and/or Central Europe and admired the way the doomed Weimar Republic is portrayed and the frightening spectre of the Nazi takeover beginning its terrible influence. I was also intrigued to see how the author would handle the giant figure of Einstein and how he would fit into the overall story.

Luckily my colleagues on the buying team felt equally enthusiastic and we will be promoting the title in branches of Waterstone's from publication.


Philip's editor at Harvill Secker has kindly squirrelled away five copies of The Einstein Girl for us. If you'd like to be in the running for one of them, all you have to do is answer the following question: where did the designers find the photograph which appears on the cover of The Einstein Girl? Send your answers to "competition at philipsington dot com": a week after the third article in this series appears, Philip will select the five winners at random and I'll announce them here.

Trios: The Einstein Girl, by Philip Sington: Cover Design

Matt Broughton began designing book covers for the academic publisher Routledge in 1997, and moved to Random House in 2001. He is now a senior designer and continues to design covers for Random House's literary imprints, including Harvill Secker. Lily Richards has worked as a picture researcher at Random House for nine years, mainly working on literary book covers but also for some book interiors. I thank them both for the following piece, which describes how they worked on Philip Sington's book, The Einstein Girl.

Next time we'll hear how a buying manager at Waterstone's makes his decisions; and finally, a key account manager at Random House discusses selling literary fiction like The Einstein Girl to booksellers.



When people ask us how we design covers there is never one answer – ideas can come from any number of areas: authors, editors, and they all are considered along with a more formal brief. The brief is originally conceived by the editor of the book in consultation with Sales and Marketing. Things that would be considered at this stage are the format – is it a hardback, paperback or reissue, comparable titles, position we are aiming for in the market, print runs and artwork budgets.

The brief is for us very much a starting place and for fiction we like to also have something to read – a manuscript, or a book if it has previously been published. A decision will be made by the designer as to how to approach the artwork: commissioned illustration, photography, found images, typographical solutions etc. With that decision made, and with the brief, the book, and the various parameters in mind, we begin the creative process.

In the case of The Einstein Girl, it was clear that the cover would need picture research. We wanted to find photographs of 1930s Berlin, specifically the young woman in the book and the nightclub scene. These photographs would need to be strong in atmosphere as we wanted to achieve a design with film noir look to reflect the writing. We sourced the photographs from a German archive, AKG, and the design could then begin.

Various design solutions were taken to the weekly cover meeting where editors and people from sales and marketing all considered the options. Once we had settled on the present cover, author approval was also sought. Covers are not always straightforward and can change dramatically over the course of being worked on, but it is all part of the process.


Philip's editor at Harvill Secker has kindly squirrelled away five copies of The Einstein Girl for us. If you'd like to be in the running for one of them, all you have to do is answer the following question: where did the designers find the photograph which appears on the cover of The Einstein Girl? Send your answers to "competition at philipsington dot com": a week after the third article in this series appears, Philip will select the five winners at random and I'll announce them here.

Bad Science: The Giveaway

Oops. I should have blogged about this last week. Sorry about that.

Following on from my rather slapdash, ranty review of it, copies of Ben Goldacre's wonderful book Bad Science have been reserved for Catdownunder, for this great blog post; for Sally Zigmond, for the beautifully-phrased rant about diabetes which she left in the comments stream; and to Big Fat Lion, for amusing me when I really needed some cheer.

If you could email me your real-life addresses ("hprw at tesco dot net" should reach me; stick "HPRW Bad Science" or something similar in the subject-line so I don't mistake you for spam), I'll make sure your copies are delivered post-haste. Remember to review them once you've read them, if you can: the more people who read Ben's book the better.

Bad Science And Bad Research

You might remember how I’ve decided to discuss logic and research here in an attempt to fight back against some of the very dubious argument techniques I've seen some writers rely on. And as that all sounds very dull and dry I'm getting things off to a nice gentle start today by suggesting a little reading, backed up with a great giveaway.

Dr Ben Goldacre writes a column for the Guardian called Bad Science in which he discusses the misuse and misinterpretation of science. One of his common themes is how the media frequently misrepresents scientific research in order to present a more sensationalist story and while we really should know what our politicians are up to and how our banks’ bosses are paid, the stories Goldacre covers are far more important to most of our daily lives. I’m astonished that his column isn’t more appreciated.

His Guardian articles also appear on his blog, which is a true delight: the discussions that evolve there are well-informed, articulate, reasoned and hilarious, and I usually learn more there about the truth of a story than from the news coverage I see all about me.

There is also a Bad Science book, which is a quick and funny read: but don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s lightweight. It’s beautifully researched, meticulously referenced and jam-packed solid with advice and information for everyone who has ever marvelled at a newspaper story, or wondered why so many scientists seem to research such ridiculous things. And it’s all written in very clear and accessible language so it’s suitable for just about anyone, even those without a science background: my thirteen-year-old son is now reading my copy and is enjoying it immensely.

I have no doubt: if your writing depends on research in any way and you don't want to make yourself look foolish, this book is essential reading for you no matter what you’re researching: it discusses verifying data, interpreting data and how research should be structured, and warns against common misconceptions and mistakes.

I could go on about how this book makes science interesting, accessible and entertaining; or about how the fabulous Dr Goldacre meticulously unravels all the nonsense about supposed links between the MMR vaccine and autism; I could quote extensively from the book to make my point and make you laugh at the same time: the chapters about homeopathy and Gillian McKeith are riotously entertaining. But I won't do any of that. Instead I urge you to get your hands on a copy and read it for yourself, and there are two ways you could do this: you could go out and buy yourself a copy right now, or you could leave a comment here and tell me exactly why you deserve to be given one of the free copies which HarperPerennial has promised to provide to my readers.

The lucky winners will be selected a week from today from everyone who has commented on this post, and I’ll admit right now that I’m likely to be biased towards people who make me laugh, people who pay attention, and people who make sense. Those nice people at HarperPerennial will, of course, have some say in the matter so if you promote Bad Science and this giveaway in some way (on your own blogs, perhaps—remember to post links here or we won't know about your efforts), then that might well score you extra points.

Trios: Diary Of An On-Call Girl, By PC Bloggs: From Blog To Book

This is the final piece in the Trios series about Diary of an On-Call Girl: True Stories from the Front Line, the memoirs of an anonymous police officer, P. C. Bloggs. A couple of weeks ago Dan Collins, the publisher at Monday Books, discussed TV options and rights sales; last week, he looked at the importance of the right title and cover design. This final article, by P. C. Bloggs, considers the problems of writing an anonymous blog and book while still working full-time as a police officer.

P. C. Bloggs is going to be interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour this morning, and her book is going to be serialised on the same programme all week. You can listen to the serialisation between 10.45 and 11am each morning, Monday to Friday, and there will be a repeat each day at 7.45pm so there's no reason for you to miss it!


If there are people who join the police in order to publish a book, there must be easier ways. I didn’t become a police officer in order to get published, and nor was that why I started my blog—a therapeutic but initially light-hearted diatribe against the foibles of my work.

So when I was approached by a publisher within three weeks of my opening post I went with it, but was inwardly sceptical.

Having grown up on a diet of classic fiction, the concept of a “blook” was alien to me. But I had a lot to say about the police, and I’ve always enjoyed making people laugh, so there didn’t seem any harm in combining the two if someone was interested enough to print it.

Actually sitting down and writing it, as well as doing some publicity, and keeping myself anonymous, was another matter. At times I felt like I had two full-time jobs, and two completely separate personalities that did not overlap in any way.

There were frustrations—as a secret public sector blogger you try to reflect up-to-the-minute facts about your job, but you can’t use real life examples that are too recent in case you inadvertently identify someone. But as an author who purports to tell the exact truth, nothing but real life will do, and yet it has to be woven into some kind of coherent story.

The two skills are completely different, and keeping both going has been intellectually exhausting. I do feel, however, that I’ve clung to the principles on which I started: that the book would be true to life, true to the blog, and ultimately none of it would be taken too seriously. The whole thing has to some extent been tinged with disbelief: I didn't actually believe that the book was being published until my mother ordered it on Amazon and it arrived!

I’ve enjoyed my small successes, the opportunity to appear on radio and television, and write for broadsheet newspapers, and the fact that I have an online audience for the frustrations I can’t air at work.

But whilst writing has become a more-than-hobby, a commitment, and a passion, my job—my vocation—is as a police officer. If the two became mutually exclusive, the writing would go. Of course, the decision may not be mine: I serve two different audiences, both brutally honest about how they receive my efforts.

If one day, one or other of them tires of me, I will still look back at these years with incredulous pleasure that they lasted as long as they did.



Thanks to Monday Books' generosity we have three free copies of Diary Of An On-Call Girl to give away. If you'd like one for yourself you have to answer this question: what is PC Bloggs' day job? Email your answer to Dan at "dancollins at mondaybooks dot com" along with your address, and next Monday he'll pick three names at random to send those copies off to. It would be much appreciated if you reviewed them in a couple of places once you've read them and if you do, remember to post a link to your review here.

Trios: Deathwatch, by Nicola Morgan: Book Launches

Nicola Morgan writes for teenagers and has the unusual habit of involving them in the marketing of her novels. Her new thriller, Deathwatch, is being launched by pupils from The Mary Erskine School in Edinburgh, who also helped write the book and appear in the story. One of those pupils, Ailsa Innes, wrote the following article for this Trios series.

Last time Nicola told us about her extraordinary efforts to promote this book; next week we'll have a contribution from bookseller Vanessa Robertson, from The Children’s Bookshop in Edinburgh, which will complete this particular trio.

If you'd like to be in with a chance to win your own copy of Deathwatch then answer this question: in which UK city is Deathwatch set (my more resourceful readers will realise that the answer might well be found on the Deathwatch page of Nicola's website). Email your answers to "n at nicolamorgan dot co dot uk", and a week after the final piece in this particular Trio is published, Ms Morgan will pick one name at random out of her virtual hat.

And now, over to Ailsa.

For a couple of years I had really enjoyed books by Nicola Morgan, especially The Passionflower Massacre and Mondays Are Red, and was very excited to hear that she was coming to talk to our year. I was even more excited when I heard that she was looking for helpers to write her new book about a stalker (the name ‘Deathwatch’ had not been created yet). I put all my effort into writing what I thought was the perfect letter to Nicola, describing why she should definitely choose me to help, and was pleased when I and thirteen classmates from The Mary Erskine School, Edinburgh, were chosen.

One of the first things we did was meet Nicola at the Edinburgh International Book Festival and listen to her read part of what she’d written, although it did help that we had ice creams as part of the deal! We set up a messaging board on Yahoo! and used it to discuss issues—everything from the words a teenage girl would use when she was irritated, to the best name for an invented social networking website. We also said that stick insects weren’t scary enough and decided that Madagascan Hissing Cockroaches were better!

Another early job was to help at the official launch of The Highwayman's Curse, a sequel to Nicola’s hugely successful The Highwayman's Footsteps. We took people’s coats, prepared and served appetisers and ticked names off a list as guests arrived. Two of us also performed a dramatic curse for the audience! I was selling Nicola’s books, and was kept busy trying to calculate change! It was a very fun evening and made us even more excited about our own book’s launch.

I was one of the girls lucky enough to read the first complete draft, months before the final version was ready. It was a very heavy pile of A4 pages, but even then I was gripped by the storyline, and the occasional spelling error! [Thanks! NM] When the final version was ready, I first read it on my computer, but then Nicola gave us each a signed copy of the actual book and our names are in the acknowledgements. Nicola had also asked me if she could use another girl’s name and mine as friends of the main character, and of course I agreed! All members of the team have their names in minor roles in the book, which we find very exciting.

We have been extra busy this term, dealing with publicity: reviews, press releases, getting libraries and other schools involved, and my task was to write this blog.

The launch was an extremely enjoyable night for us, and we were so excited to see our book finally out there and going into bookshops. It was a huge success and many important and exciting people were there!

I started this project when I was 12 years old (I am now 14) and am amazed at how long a real book takes to be produced—there’s so much more than just writing it! I think this whole experience will be something that I will be amazed about when I am older—rarely do teenagers get a chance to help a writer produce a book, let alone get a character named after them in the deal! I am very pleased that I saw this project through and am sure it will be a complete success.

My thanks to Ailsa Innes for this: I hope some of the girls on the team, some of whom are shown with Nicola in the photo above, manage to drop by and comment here: it would be great to hear some dirt on Nicola Morgan from the people who really know. I bet she hogged all the ice-cream at the party.

Trios: Diary Of An On-Call Girl, by E E Bloggs: Cover Story

Here's the latest installment in the Trios series about Diary of an On-Call Girl: True Stories from the Front Line, the memoirs of an anonymous police officer, P. C. Bloggs. Following on from his discussion of TV options and rights sales, today Dan Collins (Bloggs' publisher at Monday Books) examines the importance of good title and cover design. The final article, written by P. C. Bloggs herself, will appear next Monday and looks at the problems of writing her blog and book while still working full-time as a police officer.

Diary of an On-Call Girl is going to be serialised on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour next week, following an interview with PC Bloggs on Monday 15 June. You can listen to the serialisation between 10.45 and 11am each morning, Monday to Friday, and if you miss it (as if you would) there will be a repeat each day at 7.45pm.



They say you should never judge a book by its cover. Sadly, people ignore this. The story of Diary Of An On Call Girl actually starts with another book, our second. Called Wasting Police Time, it was based on PC David Copperfield’s Policeman’s Blog. It was all about the Gogolian, Orwellian and Kafka-esque scandal of bureaucracy as it affects the police – and therefore, the public – and it sold very well (nearly 80,000 copies to date, which is ‘very well’ by our standards).

After BBC1’s Panorama called to ask for our help in making a whole show about the author, we decided we were onto something; having struck brass with Wasting Police Time, we decided to try to repeat the trick.

WPC Ellie Bloggs, author of the PC Bloggs blog, wrote about similar issues to Copperfield – the pointless box-ticking, the cowardly arse-covering and the mindless management – but from the perspective of a woman officer.

Some of her stories were amazing – like the one where a mum reports her four-year-old son missing and then declines to join the search for him, saying she has a hairdressing appointment and demanding that the cops bring the child to her at the salon if they find him.

Her blog had a reasonable readership (if not quite PC DC’s tens of thousands), we had lots of people clamouring for a follow-up to Wasting Police Time… what could go wrong?

Well, something did: Diary Of An On Call Girl has sold far fewer copies than Wasting Police Time, despite being (I think) a much better book.

Why?

It’s not about the words in the book, which manages to be both extremely funny and also very moving.

As proof of this, take the reaction from TV companies: within a few months of publication, we had received six approaches from production houses eager to buy the rights so they could turn it into a policing comedy. They included Hat Trick (Have I Got News For You, The Armstrong and Miller Show) and Talkback Thames (Da Ali G Show, I’m Alan Partridge), and we eventually did a deal with Clerkenwell Films (this is John ‘Rebus’ Hannah’s production company, and they are currently working on a pilot episode for the BBC).

I mention this astonishing response not to boast (well, just a bit) but to show that, objectively, other people with great experience in judging literary works for their commercial value thought it was a good read (the BBC are making it a Book of the Week on Woman’s Hour this month, too.)
Could it be that people had just lost interest in the subject? I don’t think so – the national debate about police bureaucracy which Copperfield did so much to create continues apace, and a third book, Perverting The Course Of Justice by Inspector Gadget is selling very strongly.

Partly, I think the smaller sale is because Bloggs is a woman; a chunk of the title’s market would be police officers themselves, and they are mostly male, and, for some strange reason, men don’t seem to buy books by women (while women are happy to read books by men).

Mostly, though, I think we (by which I mean Monday Books) screwed it up.

We did this by getting both the title and the cover wrong.

The ‘On Call Girl’ bit of the title was meant to be a sort of play on the Belle Du Jour books. The jacket, equally, had a model (that’s not PC Bloggs) looking at the camera in a way which was supposed to convey the idea that she had a secret of some kind, but ended up just looking mildly suggestive.

Based on the two, I fear the potential reader may have been expecting the memoirs of a hooker who specialised in punters who like uniforms.

In the worst of all cases, many people wouldn’t be interested, and those who did buy it would have been rather disappointed.

So, misjudgments all round, though, in our defence, it was quite hard to get right. It is the novelised truth about life as a modern female police officer which attempts to make serious points about crime and society in a humorous way: how do you suggest that?

If we were back in 2007 and I could do it all over again, I think I would have called it Life On Venus (as a counterpoint to TV’s Life On Mars) and would probably go for a more ‘chick lit’ cover – probably illustrated and possibly pink… but I still don’t know if that gets it, either. We’re currently working on the follow-up (which I think will be called Life On Venus) and may well reissue DOAO-CG in a new cover. So any and all ideas for both are more than welcome! (The Gadget cover returned to the Copperfield style.)


Thanks to Dan's generosity we have three free copies of Diary Of An On-Call Girl up for grabs. If you'd like one for yourself you have to answer this question: what is PC Bloggs' day job? Email your answer to Dan at "dancollins at mondaybooks dot com". Make sure to put "HPRW Trios competition" in your subject line and include your address, and on Monday June 22 he'll pick three names at random to send those copies off to. It would be good if you reviewed them in a couple of places once you've read them: if you do, remember to post a link to your review here.

Trios: The White Road And Other Stories, by Tania Hershman

Following the lovely response to her appearance in my Trios series, Tania Hershman is feeling particularly generous: she has offered to give away not just one copy of her lovely book, The White Road and Other Stories, but two. Step forward, Cindy Caldon and Miriam Drori: you'll each be getting a copy in due course (and if Tania hasn't already emailed you to ask for your addresses, just let her know as soon as you can, so she can get the books off to you). Congratulations to both of you: it's a lovely book.

(And Cindy, if you post a link to your blog or website in the comments here I'll turn it into a nice little clickable link for you. If you want.)

Trios: The White Road and Other Stories, by Tania Hershman: The Bookseller’s View

Sara Crowley has had fiction published by Pulp.Net, 3:AM, elimae, flashquake, Litro, Cella's Round Trip, Dogmatika, Red Peter, Better Non Sequitur, and a variety of other lovely places. “Salted”, her novel in progress, was shortlisted for the 2007 Faber/Book Tokens Not Yet Published Award. She is, among many other things, a bookseller at Waterstones and if you visit her blog you’ll be able to see photographs of some of her displays of the short story collections she so enthusiastically promotes—including one with Tania’s book in centre-stage. I wish that every bookshop had its own Sara Crowley, and offer her my warmest thanks for this piece.


I am a writer, mother, and part time bookseller in the fiction section of a large branch of Waterstones. I like to read and write short and long fiction; each has its own craft, skill, and reward. Novels outsell short story collections though, and there are a number of customers who are resistant to them. I understand how satisfying it is to immerse oneself in a lengthy story, but just as we are capable of listening to, and appreciating, both singles and albums, I don’t see the need to pick one form of writing and reject the other.

I maintain a short story collection display case and have no difficulty in filling the nineteen available spaces. I like to mix classic must-reads (Sylvia Plath's Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams, Raymond Carver's Where I'm Calling from) with new voices (Lee Rourke's Everyday, Neil Smith's Bang Crunch) and contemporary greats (Lorrie Moore's The Collected Stories of Lorrie Moore, Ali Smith's The First Person and Other Stories). I hope there’s something for everyone, and regularly change things to keep the display fresh. My colleague (who runs the fiction section) has a vast knowledge of fiction past and present; between us I think we offer wonderful range.

Customers often bring in reviews they have cut from the paper, or ask for a book they heard about on the radio. I’m not sure that short story collections get the necessary publicity in the press to generate buzz about them so one way of attracting potential buyers is to write a bookseller’s review. One of my favourite authors is Janice Galloway, so I ordered in copies of her superb collection Where You Find it, wrote a glowing review, and have sold 55 copies so far. It really pleases me to think that I have helped people to discover such a talented writer, and it proves that if good quality work is visible then people will buy it. Tania Hershman’s name may not be familiar to people yet, but if they read my recommendation and pick up The White Road and Other Stories they will see that it is beautifully produced and it offers something a little different, as Tania prefaces the stories with snippets of scientific articles that have inspired her. She is a very skilled writer, so reading a passage or two is likely to make the customer buy the book.

It’s sad to think that without publicity some wonderful books can remain undiscovered.


Two weeks ago we heard how Tania Hershman promoted her book, The White Road and Other Stories; and last week Jen Hamilton-Emery of Salt Publishing discussed some of the difficulties involved in running an independent press.

If you'd like to be in with a chance to win a copy of The White Road and Other Stories, then answer this question: which magazine's articles inspired many of the stories in Tania's collection? Answers to tania@thewhiteroadandotherstories.com. You have until May 27 to get your emails to her, after which time she will select one winner at random from all of the entries she receives.

Trios: Devil's Gold, by Julie Korzenco

Congratulations to Eric Stallsworth, whose name has just been pulled out of a virtual hat over at Julie Korzenko's house. He'll soon be receiving a copy of Julie's novel Devil's Gold, which kicked off my Trios series a few weeks ago.

Commiserations to those of you who weren't lucky this time round: all is not lost, though, as there's still time to join in the rush for a copy of Tania Hershman's wonderful The White Road and Other Stories which you can read about here.

Trios: The White Road and Other Stories, by Tania Hershman: The Publisher’s View

Salt Publishing is a tiny independent press which specialises in publishing strong literary fiction and poetry. As is so often the case for independent presses, Salt has struggled to remain in business: but, thanks to the determination of its proprietors and their incredible ability to find exceptional authors, Salt Publishing now has an established and growing reputation for publishing beautiful, exciting books which people actually want to read, including Tania Hershman's collection of beautiful short stories, The White Road and Other Stories. My thanks to Jen Hamilton-Emery, Salt Publishing’s co-founder and publisher, for this piece.


For eight years I did, quite literally, conduct my life from within a small press. Salt, which both me and my husband run, lived in a room off our living room. During this time the walls in the hall took on the colour of cardboard, and our garage and shower room were redesignated as warehousing space. Our every waking minute was spent in the office – before breakfast, last thing at night, in between dinner courses, we juggled sending emails, typesetting, packaging and franking books. Salt was as intimate a part of our daily lives as our children were, though they got less of our time by far.

In June 2008, Salt moved to an office two miles down the road in the next village. We have our house and back and our sanity restored. But I do think there’s something to that old adage ‘you don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps’ that keeps us going as a small press. Life at Salt is challenging yet rewarding in ways that most conventional employment isn’t. And quite possibly in ways that working in a large publishing house isn’t.

For a small press to survive and thrive, it has to find its niche. Forget trying to compete with the big guys; many of them happily sell shed-loads of books at a loss, aiming for quantity over profit and instead making their money on the selling of TV, film and translation rights. Small presses however have to think smart. They have to become known as the best in their chosen field, and some have done this extremely well, becoming the leading expert in areas such as welding (Woodhead Publishing) and autism (Jessica Kingsley Publishing). For literary publishers however, things are that bit tougher.

Go to any newspaper and look at the book reviews section. Chances are that at least 75% of literary reviews are of books published by corporate publishers or large independents. That is the power of employing a team of publicists with entertainment budgets. At Salt we have a small board and a team of commissioning editors. Two of us run Salt’s operations (Chris and me), we both decide which books are to be published, negotiate contracts with the author or their agent, pull together all the bibliographic data and manage its flow through the various book systems around the world to ensure that every book shop and on-line retailer knows about it, copy edit, typeset, proof, design the cover, liase with the printer and work with the author to promote and market the book. We are lucky that we now have a part-time member of staff who packages, franks and sends orders and review copies – until recently we also did this ourselves and you wouldn’t believe how time consuming or problematic getting books from point A to point B can be. We have a couple of interns who now help us phone bookshops and other places we think would be interested in stocking or promoting our books, as well as working on converting texts into ebooks (all this too used to be us). We load and manage our website, plus our on-line shop and our blogs, Facebook Fanclub (over 3,000 members), as well as do our best to answer emails. And we have three children, ages three, ten and twelve, all at different schools.

All of this is good fun. And a lot of work. It’s work that we hope pays off through people buying our books and bringing in the income we need to keep going. So far, this hasn’t been the case, and although our sales have been growing (until the credit crunch set in, when they dropped by 12%) we have had to rely on various grants from the Arts Council England, as well as odd pots of money from the Department of Trade and Industry, the Australia Council and overseas governments for translation grants. Our particular areas of publishing – poetry and short stories – do not lend themselves to huge rights deals that the big players can negotiate with film companies. We have had several stories and poems on the radio and in anthologies, but not to the extent that we have the luxury of not keeping an eye on the profit margin of our book sales.

Despite this however, we remain positive. Positive that our sales will grow again, once people get over the fear of spending money and we won’t need to rely on those hard-to-get grants. And we continue to be proud of our publishing. Basically, we love our books. We love that we can publish work that we feel deserve to be shared with the world, without having to concern ourselves with whims and fads that the big players have to. Salt’s niche is two of the trickiest areas of publishing but because they are genres that matter to us personally, we are on a mission to make them count. It’s hard to describe the feeling we get when we come across a manuscript that knocks our socks off, or when books arrive in the office, freshly printed, or when an author first gets their book in their hands and loves it. Or going into a bookshop and seeing Salt books on the shelf. Or hearing that one of our authors has been shortlisted for a prize, or, as happened recently, publicly commended by judges of a major award (Tania Hershman by the Orange Prize judges). All of that is why we do it.

Life in a small press? I wouldn’t change it for the world.


Last week we heard how Tania Hershman has promoted her book, The White Road and Other Stories; and next week Sara Crowley reveals how a good bookseller can make all the difference to the sales of a book.

If you'd like to win a copy of The White Road and Other Stories, then answer this question: which magazine's articles inspired many of the stories in Tania's collection? Answers to Tania at tania@thewhiteroadandotherstories.com. You have until May 27 to get your emails to her, after which time she will select one winner at random from all of the entries she receives.

Trios: The White Road and Other Stories, by Tania Hershman: Self-Promotion

Tania Hershman is a former science journalist who has recently been commended by the judges of the 2009 Orange Award for New Writers. Her first short story collection, The White Road and Other Stories, is published by Salt Modern Fiction (and has been very favourably reviewed by Sally Zigmond, who comments here regularly). Her short stories have been widely published in print journals and online, and she is the founder and editor of The Short Review, a site dedicated to reviewing short story collections and anthologies. She has generously offered to give away a signed copy of The White Road to one of my readers: you'll find the details at the end of this piece. My thanks to her for contributing.


My first book, The White Road and Other Stories, was published in September 2008 by Salt Publishing, a small press based in the UK. I was delighted when they offered me a book deal. After having had an agent for several years with no result (she dealt only with mainstream publishers and they all told her, "come back when she's written a novel,") I decided to take matters into my own hands and submit stories myself to Salt. The agent and I have now parted ways amicably.

Being published by a small press has meant for me that I have a personal connection with my editor, Jen Hamilton-Emery, rather than feeling lost in a large publishing house. I made suggestions about the book cover, and Salt came up with what I consider the perfect cover. I chose what stories to include and proofed the manuscript several times, but apart from that didn't have any other input into the process, which was fine by me. I was thrilled when the book was published, I think it is beautiful.

Jen made it very clear to me, and to fellow Salt authors I am in touch with, that Salt doesn’t have the resources to do much promotion and that I would need to be very involved in this. Before the book came out I was given a long author questionnaire to fill out listing potential reviewers, competitions the book could be submitted to, author events I might appear at, and other ideas for promotion.

I wasn't quite prepared for how much work promoting a book would be and in some ways it has been overwhelming. I had experience building websites, I built my own site and the online review journal I edit, The Short Review, so I always planned to build a website for the book. This has links to excerpts of the stories, videos of me reading at a short story conference, some of the stories which having been broadcast on BBC Radio and podcasts, and it also has some background and "added value" material about the book. Half the stories in my book are inspired by articles from the weekly UK magazine New Scientist so I created a page explaining my concept of "science-inspired fiction", with links to other books and websites that I see as fitting into this category. Another page explains flash fiction (which is the other half of my book), with links to many online literary magazines that publish flash fiction. I get a lot of hits to the website from people searching for "flash fiction", so I am doing more than just selling my book, I am providing resources for writers.

Another good idea was my partnering with Eco-Libris, a company which "balances out" the trees used to print books by planting a tree for every book. I pay them a small sum per copy printed, and they plant a tree. They are very active online, they took part in my Virtual Book Tour (see below) and they publicised my book on green websites far and wide. I joined forces with them because I hated to think of the amount of paper involved in my book, and our partnership has exceeded my expectations!

In terms of reviews, Salt has been fabulous, sending out review copies to anyone I've asked them to send to, wherever in the world, and this, together with my nudging of the reviewers, has resulted in quite a few reviews. Because of the connection to their articles, I was very eager that New Scientist see the book, and hoped they would review it. Getting them a review copy was a struggle, the books kept getting lost, but Jen persevered and I kept in close contact with them to ensure they remembered who I was. This paid off: not only did they reprint the title story, The White Road, on their website, with a link to the article that had inspired it, they reviewed the book in their Christmas Books Special: Best of 2008! I sold two hundred copies in one week at Christmas and was for a time in Amazon UK's Top Ten Bestselling Short Story Collections, and I believe this was down to the New Scientist review.

Reviews are vital, especially for short story collections which get far less attention than novels, and this was why I set up The Short Review eighteen months ago to focus exclusively on reviewing short story collections. I now have over forty reviewers worldwide reviewing ten books, new and older, every month. In the end, I decided I couldn't commission anyone to review my book for the site, this smacked too much of nepotism, but I have received a lot of attention because of The Short Review, which was wonderful yet unexpected, and this has definitely had a positive effect on my book, with reviewers asking for a review copy of my book to "return the good karma".

Being a small press with limited resources, Salt have seized the opportunities the Internet provides, and are very dynamic and active on their website, blogs and Facebook pages. I have also been one of Salt's "guinea pigs" for their Cyclone Virtual Book Tour program: I found eleven blogs willing to host a stop on my tour, and was interviewed by a blog a week over eleven weeks, about various aspects of my writing, my reading, my life — anything and everything. This was wonderful, yet exhausting, even though I didn't have to travel anywhere! I am not sure how much this translated into direct sales, but I strongly believe it created a buzz. I used my websites, my blog, Facebook, MySpace, RedRoom (a website for authors), and various online writing communities (WriteWords, Zoetrope), to publicise every leg of the tour, as well as any reviews the book receives. I also signed up to be an Amazon author, and blogged on Amazon.com's page for my book. A recent review on Amazon (by someone I don't know) mentioned "the hype on the internet and in New Scientist", so I guess something is working!

It's been six months and while the Virtual Tour is over, book promotion goes on and several reviews have just been published, in an Australian print magazine and two book blogs, with others forthcoming in the US, Canada and the UK, I hope. I was recently in the UK and took part in the launch of a short story anthology at Jewish Book Week, and although that wasn't about my book, they stocked The White Road and Other Stories in the festival bookshop, and I talked about it during the event. I also went back to my high school in London and spoke to a group of 14-year-olds about writing. I was trying to think "out of the box" about book promotion and had seen from their website that they had a creative writing society so I wrote to them and offered to come. They were thrilled, it was a wonderful experience — and I was amazed when three of them bought books! They have invited me to come back and do a flash fiction workshop next time I am in England. I also alerted the universities I studied at and the mentioned me in their alumni newsletters, from which my websites have had a number of hits.

So, to sum up, promoting a book is hard work, and not, I believe, just for those published by small presses. Authors have to do a lot these days, whoever the publisher is and whether it is a short story collection or a novel. I expect to be promoting my books for many more months, if not a year or two. I put all the time and effort into writing the stories, Salt put all the time, money and effort into producing the book, the least I can do is try and do what I can to get copies sold, from the point of view of my royalties as well as readership. I am trying not to let this interfere too much with my current writing, but it does, there is no getting away from that. That is part of having a book, and I wouldn't have it any other way. However continuing to write and publish new short stories, and enter into short story competitions, also serves to publicise my book.

Next week we hear from Jen Hamilton-Emery of Salt Publishing, when she discusses the difficulties involved in running an independent press; and the week after it's Sara Crowley's turn, when she reveals how a good bookseller can make all the difference to the sales of a book.

If you'd like to be in with a chance to win a copy of The White Road and Other Stories, then answer this question: which magazine's articles inspired many of the stories in Tania's collection? Answers to tania@thewhiteroadandotherstories.com. You have until May 27 to get your emails to her, after which time she will select one winner at random from all of the entries she receives.

Trios: Devil’s Gold, by Julie Korzenco—Marketing The Book

Julie Korzenko, author of Devil's Gold, has been kind enough to arrange a trio of articles for me about the publication of her book. Two weeks ago Julie described how she found a home for her book; last week her editor at Medallion Press, Emily Steele, discussed the editorial process; and this week Paul Ohlson, Medallion Press's Marketing Manager, takes his turn in the spotlight. But first, a brief note from Julie.

My first book signing for Devil's Gold took place on March 7, 2009. I had appropriately threatened, er I mean invited, all friends and family to what I hoped would be a pleasant evening and not the nail-biting excruciating experience of being the only person to show up at my own debut. Much to my relief, it was a wonderful event. But what made it even more special was the additional effort of the book store owner. She had received her monthly copy of Book Page and was thrilled to find Devil’s Gold advertised. When I arrived at the store, right next to my stack of books, was a framed print of the advertisement. It made me feel special and loved by my publisher. So here’s a big shout out to marketing: thanks for being there on my debut night!


Everyone gets the general concept behind marketing, right? Advertise. You have a product; and in order for people to buy the product, they need to know it exists. Wait a minute, though. Is it really enough anymore just to advertise? Have you ever had this happen? You’re telling a friend about a commercial you like, and when they ask, “What company was that for?” you say, “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

We are so inundated with advertising that little of it is memorable anymore. How can it be when we see it every minute of the day? At some point, we’re bound to tune it out. But studies still show that you can’t just stop advertising altogether, because if you do, consumers will forget about you! Isn’t it odd that consumers can’t remember companies in advertisements, but if you stop advertising, consumers will forget you exist? So what can we do to stay at the forefront of consumer memory? Repeat, repeat, repeat! Consistently, too!

How does all of this relate to marketing books? Here’s how: Your book is a product. It doesn’t do any good for a product to have a big to-do when it’s released and then just drop off the face of the earth (and out of the minds of consumers, I might add).

Typically what you’ll find throughout the publishing industry is a publisher taking care of the big to-do when a book is released, but the author is then expected to take the reins from there and continue riding that big horse until it wins the race. But so many authors want to create this big push the same month their book releases, and then afterwards their efforts stop—and so do sales.

If you’re not an upper-echelon author or celebrity, then the success of your book is a marathon, not a sprint. This means as an author you must find ways to repeatedly and consistently talk about your book over a long period of time.

Luckily for you, the internet makes this all possible. Sign up for as many social media outlets as you have time to consistently update. Get involved in online groups, forums, and conversations. Arrange interviews with local papers and television stations. Join book clubs at local bookstores. Get to know the owner or general manager of the local bookstores, as a consistent patron of their store first; then several months down the line, if the relationship is good, ask them if they’ll host a signing for you. In other words, create relationships. Do this over a long period of time. How long is long? It’s until your next book releases.

And don’t forget to keep writing! You won’t only need to be consistent with your marketing; you’ll also need to consistently put out new products. This is just a continuation of the repetition. Think of it this way: if you put out a new book every year, then every year your publisher is creating the big to-do for you. In the meantime, you’re marketing that book all throughout the year until your next book releases with another big to-do from your publisher. Talk about consistently, repeatedly staying at the forefront of consumer memory!

My thanks to Paul Ohlson for contributing this piece: he might just pay us a visit at some point today, so if you have any marketing-related questions to ask, do please get them in as soon as you can. Thanks too to Julie, for organising this mini-series, and for offering to give away a free copy of Devil’s Gold: if you'd like to get your hands on it, just email her at “jkorzenko at gmail dot com” and answer this simple question: what is P3? You’ve got until 12 May to get your emails in to her: after that date, Julie will select one lucky winner at random from all entrants who answer correctly.