Hello!
It feels like summer today. It feels, in fact, like I want to bust out of Norwich, blasting
Big Star from the radio of my dadmobile, hit Winterton beach and run out, shouting and whooping into the North Sea. Then run back, feeling weird and cold. Then run in again.
I love summer. What's winter even for? Who invented it? Jeff Bezos?
Anyway. Sorry that this newsletter is slightly later than usual. I've been away teaching in Greece (and if anyone else wants to send me somewhere similar to work, ideally with family attached, please get in touch. It was pretty great). We've also been busy working on finishing the actual real paper copies of The Weightless World. There has also been some wailing and gnashing of teeth at Galley Beggar HQ.
Don't worry – things are fine. For now. We've always been incredibly lucky. We've found readers for our books – and enough of them that we've been able to keep going. We've brought quite a few new and glorious novels into the world and really don't want much more than that. Although we've had it. Over three quarters of our books so far have been longlisted (or shortlisted) for major awards. We’ve had fantastic support from the press and online reviewing community. And, in general, it's been a blast. A large part of that success is due to the wonderful people who have visited our website and signed up for this newsletter – and continued to read it, in spite of my potty mouth, the typos, and the terrible things I write about Amazon. So thank you!
But our margins have always been tight, we’ve never made enough to pay ourselves and every time we press the button on a fresh print run, we get a little rush of fear alongside the hope and joy.
Over the last couple of months those tight margins have been hit hard. In the short term we’ve had to soak up an unexpectedly high number of returns. (For those unaware of the madness of the publishing industry, these are books shops send back months and months after first buying them. We have to pay for the pleasure. Even though the product generally comes back in an unsellable state.) In the longer term, some of our principle supply outlets (and not amazon this time) have been aggressively pursuing discounts far higher than we can afford. To the extent that we can’t possibly make more than a few pence on each book they sell – and then only if they stock in sufficient quantity and don’t later return the books. Often we will be, in effect, paying those booksellers to sell our products. I’m sure you can see the flaw in that as a long-term business plan. As this technical graph demonstrates:
Thanks to this system, we’re feeling pretty trepidatious. And to keep going, we need to have more direct sales than ever, more web sales, more subscribers and yet more generosity from the public at large, and from you in particular.
Yes, this is a begging letter.
100 people coming on board with a subscription to our
Galley Buddy scheme would cover the material costs of putting out one book.
500 people buying a single book from our
store would pay for another.
Equally, to anyone who values our work and has an extra pound or two in their pocket, there's a
donation button on the site. (Scroll down!)
If you're a billionaire looking to squander – I mean, invest! – some money do talk to us too. As John Calder said, you can make a small fortune in publishing. (So long as you start out with a large one.) Or you could just be our patron, and glow. Because you must be pretty special.
Right! That's enough whinging. And enough pleading. I really don't want you to think we're down. We're doing what we love. And oh sweet joy. Here are some books fresh from the printer:
The Weightless World is hitting the stores in just a few weeks and the first reviews are coming in. They seem to like it as much as we do.
"A literary, speculative, to-hell-with-pigeonholes piece of fiction, The Weightless World blends reality and a fantastical premise. This is the crux of the thing and what makes it work."
"A story of love, friendship and loyalty, not lengthy yet gets under the skin presenting complex emotions with the lightest of touches. Both the premise and evolution are distinct and original. This book is a fabulous read."
We also have a mighty fine Singles Club release this month.
"I’m supposed to hate nuns." A bomb blast. A face wound. A nun is there to help. But is it the kind of help that can be freely taken?
This beautifully composed story about The Troubles is at once gentle, tender and explosive.
It's a cracker.
And lookie here at these:
We've got some new postcard sets on sale in the store.
Some writers on the beach:
And these gorgeous book-themed old East European matchbox covers:
If you are tempted, all those images are clickable...
And hey, listen, it's amazing what you find out on the internet. The other day some sick friend of mine thought I'd be amused to find out about the
ten worst parasites in nature. Rest assured, I wasn't. But I read it all, anyway, because: the fascination of the abomination. Towards the bottom of this sickening list, I read about the candiru, a small catfish that enjoys drinking blood. Generally they latch onto their host creatures by swimming into their gills and head-butting them – at which point the razor sharp spines attached to the catfish's noggin do the rest. But sometimes, just for sport, they prefer to swim up streams of urine. And you know – look away now – into the thing from which the urine is flowing. With the razor sharp spines and the head-butting and the blood-drinking. And you know where the fucker lives, don't you? That's right. A certain one-click and you're-done-for themed river in South America. Sometimes metaphors just make themselves.
Thanks for reading.
Fondly,
Sam
As usual, I'm also going to use the end of the newsletter for a few more adverts, where you can safely ignore them, or kindly indulge me, depending on your fancy:
Firstly, please join The Singles Club so we can pay writers to write. Here's the blurb:
We have a fantastic new subscription system set up for our Singles Club so that you now only have to make one payment to get hold of 12 stories. But how to go through the ins and outs of paypal payment systems without boring the dirtbox off you, I don't know. Probably the best thing to do is to head over to the relevant page on our site, where I've tried to give a brief, but to the point explanation, and to take it from there. The important things to know are that:
(1) Subscribing saves you the trouble of going to the site every month to get your fix of superb ebook literature – we'll just email you the files every month.
(2) Subscribing (so long as enough people do it) will enable us to start giving our authors money up front on for each story. Yes! We are going to pay people to write short stories. It's like the golden days of the 1920s. Only they'll be in electronic book format instead of Strand magazine… Anyway! You get the idea. This is a mighty fine way to keep authors doing what they do best – entertaining you.
(3) It costs £12 a year, or £1 a month, or less than a meal in Pizza Express. (Unless you have a voucher.)
Secondly, please be our friend! Become a Galley Buddy. It's a good deal for us, and a great deal for you.
Thirdly, to donate to Galley Beggar Press and earn yet more of our gratitude, click here.
Fourthly, go on, buy a postcard set. They're lovely:
Fifthly, thanks for reading write down to the bottom. There's no prize, but I sure do like you. Sorry for the Easter message in the previous, interim, newsletter: I'm a fool. Today i'm listening to Wowee Zowee by Pavement and thinking heck I should listen to this everyday. Do we even need other music? 1st rad.
Comments
Bookshops
Permalink Submitted by Marek on 13 June 2015.
You're not going to make many friends among booksellers with your comments about the sale or return system. It is, for example, not the case that you 'have to pay for the pleasure' since all returns are sent at the booksellers expense. Furthermore you are entitled to refuse them if they are not in resellable condition and there is always a time limit on returns, which is within your control. As you are aware the reason this system exists is because it means that the risks of publishing stay with the publisher rather than being transferred to the bookseller.
If you have an unexpectedly high number of returns it is because the titles in question did not appeal to customers. Times are hard in the booktrade and your comments, effectively blaming bookshops for your problems, demean you and do not help anyone.
Your business model is flawed
Permalink Submitted by A concerned reader on 16 June 2015.
Harsh truth alert.
You don't have a sustainable business model. You have a runaway hobby. A small analogue publisher in 2015 is an anachronism of epic proportions.
In the Internet age, anyone can self-publish and anyone does, there's little/no demand in the market for what you offer. Anyone can print their own book direct now.
Books are no longer the sacred vessels they once were. Their content has been virtualized into data. Collecting and treasuring books is a bit like keeping a vast collection of CD's on a shelf. Very 90's. The Internet and the iPad have replaced it. Accept it. Printed books are disposable vessels, they always were. It's the words within that are the soul.
Amazon didn't cheapen the book market, digitization did - they just spotted the wave early and exploited it to its inevitable conclusion.
You're clearly intelligent and resourceful, use those skills to develop a real business, where you can earn a real living. A coffee shop and sandwich shop for avid readers?
But whatever you do, move with the times, not against them.
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